Why I loved Celebration of Gospel (much to my surprise)

I'm not a big awards show fan. You end up watching to see 2 or 3 of your favorite artists and the rest of the 40 hours is spent hearing from people you're just not that into. For me, it's not worth the amount of time invested in front of the tube.

For this reason I had not planned to watch BET's Celebration of Gospel. It's not an awards show, but it's the same type of deal. Sure, most of the artists have a song that I like, but I'm an equal opportunity hater so I wasn't going to automatically watch just because COG is a gospel show. (Hopefully that shows I have integrity. lol) Nonetheless, I happend to be flipping through channels and ended up watching the last half and really enjoyed it.

I LOVE that the show is about celebrating gospel. This isn't the "if you're saved and you know it clap your hands" show. This is the "if you love gospel music and you know it clap your hands." I love that pop culture celebrities, R&B, and hip hop artists are there - some of which are performing to rep their love for gospel and the message that it brings. Honestly, most black artists got their start in church. Let's celebrate that! So cheers to Taraji P. Hensen, Chaka Khan, Tank, Bryshere Gray, et. al for participating. Everyone was making a joyful noise.

I love that COG is an opportunity for pop artists to show that they do indeed listen to, enjoy, and recognize the talents of gospel artists. Y'all know one can sing like church folk! Yasssss Tamela Mann, Yolanda Adams, and Jessica Reedy (she sounded phenomenal!) And in case pop celebs' fans didn't know they believe in an almighty God - now they know.

COG also shows that gospel is not just a traditional church choir. Hello Travis Greene and Kirk Franklin. We have a message and a sound for lovers of music and it doesn't only consist of old classics like "I-iiiiii love the Lord, he heard my cry-yyy-yyyyyy."

I love that COG is a platform for the gospel community to worship together and commemorate our legends. The Andre Crouch tribute was really nice. Shout out to Be Be Winans!

Finally, I love that others can hear the true message of gospel thanks to songs like Worth by Anthony Brown and Group thereAPy.

So Kudos, BET, for getting it right and keeping it classy... this time. :)

P.S. If you missed Celebration of Gospel 2016 and want to check out the performances here's the link.

He Loves Us - Immeasurable

Here's a great song to add to your praise team's repertoire. I love their voices!

The conference phenomenon

Today we are gonna talk about something that I'll call the conference phenomenon. You know what I'm talking about...

There is a sense of expectancy when we meet at a conference. We are looking for a great word, a great worship experience, a refreshing, anointing, vibrancy, a move of the Holy Ghost. We come on time. Shoot, we even come early for pre-service prayer. We sing in the audience like we're part of the choir. We take notes. We come up for prayer. We are ready, even anxious or excited for God to speak directly to us. We can't wait to hear from Dr./Bishop/Prophet/Apostle ________. We buy the cd, dvd, download the podcast. We replay it hoping to keep the fire kindled.

But when we go to our individual church on a typical Sunday - dead.

What does it mean when we can praise collectively at another venue, but not at our individual churches?

As a praise leader, we are part cheerleader, part minister, part entertainment. But as congregants, we need to stop expecting the praise leader to be all things every Sunday. Are you coming to church on Sunday with the same expectancy, excitement, and praise that you came to that conference/women's retreat/concert with? If not, you are part of the problem.

What I think I know about worship is that God desires us to experience His presence at our regular Sunday services. (And even beyond that!) A move of God is not just for special events. Not just when that major recording artists performs. Not just when the bishop is in town. We need to bring that same expectancy and readiness with us each Sunday, otherwise what's the point?

Blessings

All Of My Help - Geoffrey Golden

Here's a nice, simple, mid-tempo song suitable for praise teams everywhere. I plan to check out more from Geoffrey Golden.

Great Expectations

We had an awesome service the last Sunday in December. I expected that the first service of 2016 would be great as well... Well, that didn't happen.

• We started church ~ 15 minutes late. Strike one. 
• I ended up leading praise and worship (P&W) by myself, unless you count the 30 seconds my dad, the deacon, was up there before he realized he had other stuff to do and left. Strike 2. 
• People were really late and kind of dead despite my best cheer-leading effort. Strike 3. 
• The kids (including mine) weren't on their best behavior. Strike 4 - This isn't baseball; I have more strikes.
• I didn't follow the message well because I had to step out of the sanctuary with my kid and never was able to catch up or because the message wasn't very linear. Strike 5
• Finally, we ended service later than usual due to starting late, long-winded announcements, and having communion. I typically have no problems with a 2 hour service, but because everything seemed so disjointed and flat to me, I was irritated at the time. Strike 6.

So there. 6 strikes = 2 outs. Good grief!

I suppose I shouldn't be shocked. We had a great service the previous week and I attended my monthly women's prayer and it was great too. 2 people want to join the praise team now. I even wrote a song Dec. 31 after a very uninspired few months. I guess the devil couldn't wait to discourage me.

If I were new to Christ, Sunday might have been my last day at my church for a while, but I understand that we cannot be moved by what we see or even what is. I declare that what happened this Sunday is not going to be indicative of the rest of the year. As Tasha Cobbs reminded us last night on the iLead escape, according to Mark 11:23-24, "We shall have whatever we say."

Best things 2015

I love making lists. Every year in my personal journal, I come up with a list of the best things that happened in the year. Here's my list of the 10 best things related to praise and worship in 2015 in no particular order.

1. Finding Planetshakers
2. Tiff Joy's self-titled album
3. Singing one of the songs I wrote at one of our district church services
4. The iLead Escape frontliners calls
5. Listening to K-Love
6. Attending Chicago's Gospel Fest
7. Crushing my New Year's goal to consistently update this blog
8. Being able to attend a culturally different church and experiencing P&W there
9. The funny memes
10. Getting a church musician. God is still in the miracle business!

Here's to a great year and an even better 2016 - in Jesus's name! :)

What had happened was...

It's almost the end of the year and time to answer the question of whether or not I accomplished my goals with my praise team in 2015.

My main goal was to make the praise team a priority. Did I do that? Yes and no.  I definitely stopped working with the youth department to try to focus. That helped. We had some rehearsals, but the last half of the year we really dropped the ball. I could go into all the excuses, but they don't seem change: conflicts with work schedules killed us. When rehearsals stop, that's the death of a praise team.

My main objective was to get 12 new or retired songs back into our play list. Did we do it? Not exactly. I think we successfully added ~ 3 or 4. Wamp wamp waaaamp!

Not exactly a stellar year, but there were moments of greatness and things are looking up. We finally got a musician. Somehow, my younger brother decided to get off his end and take lessons from my older brother. He's learned about 6 songs and he's really coming along. I'm confident that next year we'll be able to retire our tracks. Gloray!!! We also debuted one of the songs I wrote and then the district praise team sang it as well. Finally, last Sunday someone mentioned wanting to join the team.

Needless to say, we have long way to go. Becoming consistent with rehearsals is going to be my main focus for 2016. No more excuses.

Here's to wishing all of us a triumphant 2016 with our praise teams!

Cheers!