I didn’t anticipate this on Sunday morning. We’d had to cancel our regular rehearsal last week because of an ice storm. We did squeeze in a short rehearsal on Saturday, but we didn’t have time to work out much and not everyone could be there. I went home Saturday afternoon somewhat discouraged. Rehearsals don’t always go well, but they’re usually earlier in the week, which affords us more time to work on our own before Sunday morning. … Our soundcheck didn’t go much better.

I love leading worship when our pastors are preaching a series on worship. Not only does it make selecting songs rather easy (as opposed to, say, marriage or relationships) but our people seem more responsive. In Pastor Martin’s message the previous week, he spoke about how our worship and what we do on Sunday morning is not a performance for one another but for God. If every chair were empty, and no one else stood on the stage with me, I’d still have a song to sing and one to sing it to.

Our youth band started up again last September, and after a few rehearsals began to lead worship at BigGroup, the weekly youth event at my church. Just like high school sports teams, our youth band loses key seniors from the year before and adds freshmen. This year we have some new faces, including my own. I started working with the band this season. It’s been a hard year for the band, as their longtime leaders both had to step away. One is serving overseas in the military. The other withdrew to fight off the cancer, a battle he recently lost. Two fantastic leaders in whose shadow I serve.