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Triumph Nederland "Worship Confessional" for 6/28/09

This is my first time to participate in the Sunday Setlists blog carnival created by Fred McKinnon. Click here for the main site http://www.fredmckinnon.com/myblog/2009/06/28/sunday-setlists-49/. Worship Leaders from all over the place participate in this, and I'm excited to begin this week.

Here we go...

We started something different this week. Our service begins at 10:30am. Traditionally, we kick off with a bangin' opener. After witnessing something different at "The Sound Conference" in Carrollton, TX a couple weeks ago, we decided to give it a shot. Boy, did it work! This was our flow, play-by-play.

10:25am - "I Call Your Name" - Ricardo Sanchez

* We intentionally did not have the lights on the stage and did not have a normal stage set for this song. Our goal was to prepare the atmosphere for the service without having the congregation feel obligated to engage. Well, as soon as we started singing, the congregation stopped what they were doing and began entering into worship. It was so refreshing to see them respond without prompting!! I had a choir member tell me afterwards, "I don't know it means anything, but I really needed that. I felt more engaged throughout the entire worship service." IT WORKED!!

10:30am -

"Give Him The Praise" - Clint Brown

"I Give You Glory" - Klaus

"Hero" - Mary Alessi

"God You're Beautiful" - John Ragsdale/Anthony Skinner

* Amazing set this week. We can really sense the increased prayer and intercession. More people were actively involved in the worship experience. Many people were touched by singing about the beauty of our Creator.

* We moved our stage around this week. The biggest change was putting the drums in the middle of the stage. He had a better view of the worship leaders and the other band members. The sound was tighter and cleaner than it has been in a long while. The energy in the band was incredible!

Special - "Heaven On Earth" - David & Nicole Binion

* AMAZING!! I have had more people from the congregation email and/or call me about this song. It has a strong prophetic message. David and Nicole's new CD should be out in October. You won't want to miss that one!

Altar Ministry - "You Are Holy" - John Ragsdale

* Pastor Deamon is beginning a new series on "Wholly Holy". We ran out of time in the service, so we were unable to pull this off as we wanted to. We were to sing this more as a response to his message and then have him do a more interactive altar call. We missed a lighting cue and it hijacked the mood. Miscommunications are a wonderful thing...

All in all, it was a great day. There is definitely a fresh wind of worship blowing in our church. I pray that it continues and gets stronger as the weeks progress...

Fostering...

Oh my...

Here's where the long road of infertility has led us...  

Adoption has sort of always been an option for us, but I have been reluctant for some reason.  I suppose that I felt it was kind of like "giving up" on the hopes of us ever having biological children.  I prayed and prayed and never could get a release to pursue it.  Sara never pressed the issue, but she would bring it up from time to time.  I would say that I became more open to it towards the end of 2008.  We went for our second IUI attempt and were unsuccessful.  We were done with doctors.  After COUNTLESS tests on both of us and a quite unpleasant surgery for me, we decided to give it all a rest.  We put it in God's hands and walked away.

We started thinking about and researching international adoptions.  It quickly became apparent that it would take a small miracle for that to happen.  We didn't have the $30k that it takes to make that happen.  We then started to look at private adoptions.  Those costs were just as exorbitant!  What do we do?

That's where our good friend Kim comes in!  She is an awesome woman in our church who adopted 4 great kids just a few years ago from an agency that we had not heard of, Arrow Child and Family Ministries.  She asked if she could come over and talk to us about her journey and give us some things to think about.  After about 2 hours, we were sold.  Where do we sign up?  

We immediately filled out the application and signed up for the Orientation class held in The Woodlands, TX.  The first night, we didn't judge the traffic correctly and were 30 minutes late for the class.  I was so embarrassed that I wanted to not go in and just head back home, but Sara insisted that we stay for the rest of the class.  We were blown away by the stories we were hearing and the scariness of the process.  The 2 1/2 hour ride back home was kind of quiet.  Somewhere around the next few days, I was praying about it all and heard God speak to me that this was bigger than us and to just follow it through.

We decided to go all in and attend all of the classes.  We spent almost the entire month of January, 2009 driving back and forth from Port Neches to The Woodlands.  We were exhausted, both mentally and physically, but our trainer, Scott, was there to talk us through it and encourage us all the way.  At the end of it all, we became a licensed foster home for 2 kids up to 18 months old.  We wanted any race except straight African American.  Our justification was that we didn't know how to raise a child from that culture and were afraid of the social barriers that we would potentially be up against.  Little did we know... 

About a month after becoming licensed, God sovereignly did a work on both of our hearts, and we had Arrow change our status to any race or gender.  God told us that it was bigger than us, and we want to give any child in need a great home to be nurtured and loved, regardless of where they came from.

So, here we are.  After months, even years, of waiting, we are about to become foster parents to identical twin African-American boys - 2 years old!!!  More to come...

Freedom Is...

As a Worship Leader, I am constantly on the hunt for new stuff.  Whether it's the latest worship song or a kickin' choir special.  There are seasons that are very dry when there seems to be nothing out there.  It's almost like all of the artists get together and decide not to release anything and then BAM!  They all release at the same time.

Well, I have been in one of those dry spells.  There is some great stuff out there that I have found and done here at Triumph, but I'm talking about a whole album that just rocks my world...  The last one was Ricardo Sanchez's album at Free Chapel - "Moving Forward".  Talk about amazing and life-changing.  It became the theme for last year's Summer of Transformation.  Powerful anointing on every song.

I'm PUMPED to say that I have found another album to rock my world.  Trent Cory's "Freedom Is" is just simply amazing.  Every track, every song, every lyric, every chord change is just incredible.  My friend from college, Julian Jones, tweeted one morning that he was jamming to "Mighty God".  I immediately bought the album on iTunes.  As usual with me, I don't get to listen to the albums right away.  I usually listen to stuff at the gym or while I am running.  I'll never forget listening to it the first time at Exygon.  It was all I could do to keep from singing at the top of my lungs.  (The fellow gym rats would not have appreciated that at all!)  I got through track 7, "The Love Of God", okay, but then "Oh How He Loves You And Me" came on, and I had to take a seat on the weight bench.  I just sat there for the entire 3:51 and took the song in.  It was like hearing the old hymn for the first time all over again.  I wanted to cry; I wanted to scream; I wanted to dance; I wanted to take a lap!!!  Seriously, I'm freaking out about this album right now!!!

If you are a member of Triumph, look to hear a lot of this music in the coming days.  It's fun to sing to, and it's even more fun to dance to!!  HAHA!

Worship has always been the weapon that I have used against the enemy when he comes at me with discouragement and trouble.  I'm grateful for any artist that has the guts to put their life on the line and produce an album hoping that someone's life will be changed.  Pastor Trent, this life is changed.  Thanks for your bravery and giving me more tools to use against the enemy!!!

Peace out--

Easter Bunny has gone...

Yeah, so I had the best of intentions of keeping my blog updated, but Easter happens to me every year.  Like most other holidays, I'm unable to relax and enjoy.  It's one of the benefits of being in ministry.  I'm not complaining, mind you, but it does make celebrating holidays a challenge.  

So, Easter is done, and I'm staring down the barrel of the Love Revolution.  What do you do with that?  So many possibilities.  The song choices are endless.  I want to do them all, but there are only 5 weeks left!!!  Decisions, decisions....

I've had lots of requests to blog about our infertility/adoption struggle, so I'll do my best to sort of catch you up on what all has happened up to this point.  I know that some of this information might embarrass Sara and me, but I am willing to take that risk if what we are going through helps someone else.  

It all started with Sara and me back in 2006.  We had been trying to get pregnant for almost a year at that point to no avail.  Sara was not feeling well and experiencing some strange symptoms, so we decided that she should see her doctor.  Well, we were told that there was a possibility that she had PolyCystic Ovarian Syndrome.  There is no way to determine absolutely if you have the syndrome, but it is a reason for infertility in many women.  After a couple failed attempts at getting help from her doctor, we changed to Dr. Smith in Beaumont.  He was wonderful!  He and his wife had gone through the infertility battle and knew what we were going through.  We felt as though we were finally going to get some help.  He told us that there were some medications to try, but if they didn't work, they would have to check me out.

That's where I'll leave it for now.  More to come, I promise.  It's almost cathartic to write about this.  It reminds me of how far we have come and gives me hope for the future.

Now, I shall attack Love Revolution.  We're gonna have fun in the WAM department!!!

Peace out --

Woo hoo!

I have my first follower! Thanks, Eric.

I am presently sitting in my office in the Admin building at the church. We have been under construction for over a month now, and I'm really growing weary of it all. My office is pretty cool,I must say. A good balance of functionality and "coolness". It's just funny that it moves so slow. I still have furniture to be painted, a couch to be recovered, and pictures to put in blank frames. Also, my good friend, Brie, has yet to complete my wall art.... I guess I'll be waiting a while.

Oh well...

First things first...

I'm pretty pumped about this. I was on Myspace for quite a while blogging about my life, but then it got corny. Too many little kids running around. :-D

Vicksburg, MS is where I was born and raised. I lived there all my life until 1999 when I moved to Nederland, TX - my promised land. A vast majority of my family moved here from Vicksburg in the 1970s, and we visited here a lot when I was a little kid. I knew that I would one day move here, I just didn't know when.

Triumph Church of Southeast TX was the main motivation for wanting to be here. It certainly wasn't the scenery. At the time, it was the biggest and best church that I had ever seen. Pastors Randy and Renee' Clark (which were my cousins) had the best thing going, and everyone wanted to be here to experience it. It had the most intense music department around. At the time, I just wanted to be in the choir. That was all - just sing. My, how time changes things.

I am now the Worship Arts and Media Director for Triumph Church of Nederland, TX. I never dreamed that I would be sitting here doing what I do. It wasn't an easy road to get here, but I'm here. That's all that matters.

I met my wife in 1998 at a youth conference. She was one of the worship leaders for the conference. We met very briefly at that event. We later became very good friends beginning in 1999. After about 2 years of separation, we began a quick engagement and were married in about 8 months. God spoke to both of our hearts, and we were married on December 3, 2004.

Enough of that... More to come...