Echelon
New Member
Hey Redeemed, just would like to ask prayer for the next few days as I have some big things coming up, exciting and amazing things.
But before I get to that, let me just give some background on the situation.
I have a great friend, name is Sean. He was an assistant pastor where he was serving, and I played the drums on my worship team. I was content, but always felt a calling on my life to lead worship. I took every opportunity I could get to lead worship....some good, and some not so good lol. We would get together and have coffee and discuss life in general. He was my mentor, and gave me some advice on a very difficult decision I needed to make in my life at that time (was leader of moderately successful Christian rock band and had to fire two people basically). After getting everything straightened out on that end, I continued to play music and lead worship as much as I could, anywhere I could. This continued for about two years.
Sean and I continued to meet over the course of those two years. I grew spiritually by leaps and bounds through his encouragement to get into God's Word on my own, and we became even greater friends.
In February of this year, Sean called me up and wanted to meet in his "office" (Dunkin...lol). I thought this was just gonna be another routine meeting where we catch up and brag on God and what He is doing in our lives. But what happened that day, changed my life. Sean told me that for the last 2 years God had really put a burden on his heart for the people in our area. And that he had been praying and praying about starting a church. I was overjoyed for him, but he didn't stop at just talking about wanting to start a church. He asked me to be his worship leader, and I was dumbfounded. We had joked about doing ministry together someday, but never did I think it would come so soon. I'm 25 years old, no experience as THE worship leader, had my first baby in March, and only married for 2 1/2 years at that time. I had always been kind of a special music person, or special leader or whatever you wanna say. I had always thought I'd get out there someday and be a worship leader, but I had planned on doing it later in life when I had some more experience. And then a great quote came to my mind "God doesn't call the equipped, but equips the called". But what was even more amazing, is that there was an immediate peace about doing this. And from there, we hit the ground running. We had our first service at Sean's home on May 24th, 2009.
Flash forward 7 months....
Consistently we've had about 100 people for the last 2 months on each Sunday. I cannot believe it has already been 7 months. God has blessed us with a building (open warehouse), finances to do all the construction and be debt free, and all the willing volunteers to help. I have spent just about every Saturday at the church for the last 3 months building walls, hanging sheet rock, building our stage (woot!!), and doing anything else you can imagine with the building of a church lol.
And now comes the time when I would ask for prayer.
New ministries are scrutinized/criticized more closely/openly because they are exactly that, new ministries. When we get questions like "What makes you different than the church down the street?" it really makes me think...what is it that makes us different? And what will set us apart that will make us affect our area like no other ministry in the area? It's not about being better than anyone else, but it's about being the best we can possibly be for Jesus Christ by giving Him all the glory and turning people to Him.
All that to say...our first Christmas program is this Sunday night, 7 pm. There will be a lot of people there that don't normally attend our church, just to check it out. Pray that we would be focused on what God has planned for us that night, and every single time our Church doors are open.
I and my wife have put countless hours into planning/setting this program up, and also would ask prayer that everything would go according to God's plan, and lives would be changed. The next 3 days for me are 3 practices, one dress rehearsal, and the program itself. Along with working tomorrow. I am fasting and praying tomorrow to really be focused on the task at hand.
I would just ask for strength for the next few days, and focus, and a clear mind to always praise God for what He is doing and has done in my life.
Thank you for reading this if you made it this far lol, sorry this is so long, didn't plan on it being this long. And sorry if some of it isn't clear, I tend to ramble sometimes.
Love you guys.
But before I get to that, let me just give some background on the situation.
I have a great friend, name is Sean. He was an assistant pastor where he was serving, and I played the drums on my worship team. I was content, but always felt a calling on my life to lead worship. I took every opportunity I could get to lead worship....some good, and some not so good lol. We would get together and have coffee and discuss life in general. He was my mentor, and gave me some advice on a very difficult decision I needed to make in my life at that time (was leader of moderately successful Christian rock band and had to fire two people basically). After getting everything straightened out on that end, I continued to play music and lead worship as much as I could, anywhere I could. This continued for about two years.
Sean and I continued to meet over the course of those two years. I grew spiritually by leaps and bounds through his encouragement to get into God's Word on my own, and we became even greater friends.
In February of this year, Sean called me up and wanted to meet in his "office" (Dunkin...lol). I thought this was just gonna be another routine meeting where we catch up and brag on God and what He is doing in our lives. But what happened that day, changed my life. Sean told me that for the last 2 years God had really put a burden on his heart for the people in our area. And that he had been praying and praying about starting a church. I was overjoyed for him, but he didn't stop at just talking about wanting to start a church. He asked me to be his worship leader, and I was dumbfounded. We had joked about doing ministry together someday, but never did I think it would come so soon. I'm 25 years old, no experience as THE worship leader, had my first baby in March, and only married for 2 1/2 years at that time. I had always been kind of a special music person, or special leader or whatever you wanna say. I had always thought I'd get out there someday and be a worship leader, but I had planned on doing it later in life when I had some more experience. And then a great quote came to my mind "God doesn't call the equipped, but equips the called". But what was even more amazing, is that there was an immediate peace about doing this. And from there, we hit the ground running. We had our first service at Sean's home on May 24th, 2009.
Flash forward 7 months....
Consistently we've had about 100 people for the last 2 months on each Sunday. I cannot believe it has already been 7 months. God has blessed us with a building (open warehouse), finances to do all the construction and be debt free, and all the willing volunteers to help. I have spent just about every Saturday at the church for the last 3 months building walls, hanging sheet rock, building our stage (woot!!), and doing anything else you can imagine with the building of a church lol.
And now comes the time when I would ask for prayer.
New ministries are scrutinized/criticized more closely/openly because they are exactly that, new ministries. When we get questions like "What makes you different than the church down the street?" it really makes me think...what is it that makes us different? And what will set us apart that will make us affect our area like no other ministry in the area? It's not about being better than anyone else, but it's about being the best we can possibly be for Jesus Christ by giving Him all the glory and turning people to Him.
All that to say...our first Christmas program is this Sunday night, 7 pm. There will be a lot of people there that don't normally attend our church, just to check it out. Pray that we would be focused on what God has planned for us that night, and every single time our Church doors are open.
I and my wife have put countless hours into planning/setting this program up, and also would ask prayer that everything would go according to God's plan, and lives would be changed. The next 3 days for me are 3 practices, one dress rehearsal, and the program itself. Along with working tomorrow. I am fasting and praying tomorrow to really be focused on the task at hand.
I would just ask for strength for the next few days, and focus, and a clear mind to always praise God for what He is doing and has done in my life.
Thank you for reading this if you made it this far lol, sorry this is so long, didn't plan on it being this long. And sorry if some of it isn't clear, I tend to ramble sometimes.
Love you guys.
