My Journey Part 3

Here's the final portion of the paper:

My Experience

         This section, thankfully, could be an incredibly lengthy one.  God has been amazingly gracious in providing me with a wide variety of experience leading worship.  The beginnings of this experience came pretty early on.  I was about 8 when I began singing solos in front of our congregation at FBC Midland, TX.  Now granted, it wasn’t leading them in praise choruses, but the more I have come to understand corporate worship, I think the songs of children can lead people to a sincere experience of God.  I was in several children’s musicals, taking the lead in many cases.  From there I progressed into High School where I was involved in Youth Choir as well as being a part of our Youth Praise Band, playing the drums.  I enjoyed my time, but I hadn’t yet realized quite what I was doing.  My involvement with the Youth Praise Band extended to some new contexts for me as we were given the opportunity several times to lead worship for the entire church.  It extended even further my Jr. and Sr. Years when we went on mission trips to Canada, Germany, and Colorado, all of which I had the opportunity to lead worship.  Although most of my experience was in a contemporary style setting, I also got to experience the more traditional style setting as a participating member of our Adult Choir at FBC Midland.  It was different, but equally beautiful and effective.  

            It wasn’t until my experience in Berlin (the one mentioned earlier), that I felt called to the ministry as a Worship Pastor.  So from High School, I continued on to Dallas Baptist University, with a semi-full scholarship in vocal performance.  My first semester in Dallas, I joined the praise team at First Baptist Irving as a vocalist and served there for two years.  After a semester as a Music Major, I quickly realized that my heart was not with performance or classical music training, but with the study of theology and God’s Word.  So after changing my major to Biblical studies, I tried out for DBU’s traveling evangelistic worship team “Glowing Heart”, and made it!  The next year would be the craziest, busiest, most spiritually influential time in my life to that point.  Glowing Heart’s ministry was primarily geared toward youth groups.  So we spent most of the year traveling around Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana teaching and leading worship at Disciple Now Weekends.  As a member, I was one of the lead vocalists and played keys as well.  Along with Disciple Now Events, we led worship at nursing homes, prisons, concerts, conferences, and youth camps.  We also took two trips to Thailand and Hawaii, leading worship in schools and concerts.   In all, we had the incredible opportunity to lead worship in over 175 events that year, seeing over 120 people confess Christ as their Savior! It was an intense time of spiritual growth and a personal awakening of passion for worship in my life.  It was through Glowing Heart that I fell in love with the sounds of corporate worship.  It was a complete shift from my previous performance experience where I was focus to the body of believers encountering God through adoration, praise, repentance, awe, and joy!

 My second semester of my Jr. Year at DBU (my second semester w/ Glowing Heart), I also started serving as one of the Worship Leaders at Hope Community Church, a church plant in Forney, TX.  My roommate was the primary worship leader, but had asked me to help him out so I began spending my free Sundays (there weren’t many) with him.  That was a very sweet time.  We were a small congregation, maybe 40, but everyone there was there for one purpose, and that was to meet with God.  In September of 2007, after serving there for a year and a half I was hired at another church plant New Point Church in McKinney, TX as the Worship Leader.

Also during the second semester of my Jr. Year (I told you it was a crazy year), I joined a worship band named “The Starks”, comprised of two of my roommates and some other friends.  As a member of the Starks I played keys as well as providing background vocals.  Much like Glowing Heart, we played events like Disciple Nows, Youth Camps and rallies.  In September of 2006 we became the in-house band for “Overflow”, the college gathering on Sunday nights at FBC Denton.  I was a member of The Starks until May of 2008. 

In May of 2008, I released my first album “Cry for Revival”, and spent that summer touring different churches, leading worship on Sunday mornings and concerts on Sunday evenings.  This was quite an interesting experience that ranged from contexts of small country churches in Clute, Snyder, and Hondo, TX to bigger and more modern venues.  It actually stretched me in multiple ways, especially getting to lead multiple choirs, bands, and teams in traditional, blended, contemporary, and emergent worship styles.

In Feb 2009, I was hired as the Contemporary Worship Leader at Bay Harbour United Methodist Church in League City, TX.  My responsibilities were to oversee the Blended and Contemporary Services as well as the mid-week Youth Worship gatherings.  This being my first position as the head of a Worship Ministry, I learned many important lessons and grew exponentially in my understanding of what it means to lead a congregation on a weekly basis.  This came as a challenge at first, as I was not used to staying in one place for an indefinite amount of time.  But I also got to see the fruit from growing roots, and getting to know people.  It’s amazing how you can structure your worship services so much more effectively when you know how to meet them where they are.  After serving at Bay Harbour for a little over 13 months, I felt God’s call to Harvest Bible Chapel Houston in Cypress, TX where I am currently serving as Worship Pastor.  I love where I am now, and what God is teaching me about His body, the Church, and how I can more effectively lead them to His throne.  I hope to be here for many years to come. 

I thank God for this journey that he has brought me through.  The ups and the downs are quite overwhelming, especially when you sit down and write them all out on paper! My prayer is that I never leave this place of humility and gratitude for the position God has given me.  I hold fast to this promise, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him.”