17 August 2009 188 views No Comment Print This Post  Email This Post

The first part of the week, I attended a worship conference in Hillsboro, Oregon.  It was the Integrity Conference (“Deeper”) with Paul Baloche, Brian Doerkson, Kathryn Scott, etc… and it was AMAZING!  By the end of the conference I felt so excited for ministry; I was genuinely pumped for Sunday and wanted to share with my whole church all the things I learned.

So on Sunday, I did that: I opened up the service by simply sharing all the things that inspired and convicted me.  One of the biggest things was the idea of our church being a community and a family.  So, we spent nearly 20 minutes having “Family time”.  I’ve never tried anything like it before, but it went over surprisingly well!  I litterally had people get to know the person next to them and then I took the microphone around the church and had people share what God was doing in their lives.  It was great to see the response!

It was certainly a little risky, and I was a little nervous; but most of the feedback I got was positive so I think we’ll try it again sometime.  Here’s what our whole service looked like:

• “Family Time”
• Come, Now is the Time to Worship(Brian Doerkson)
• Here I Am To Worship (Tim Hughes)
• We Fall Down (Chris Tomlin)
• Testimonies from the Clark County Fair
• Glorious(this is a new song that Paul Baloche taught us at the conference.  It hasn’t been recorded yet so you can’t find it anywhere… but I really think this song has the potential to be the next “Open the Eyes of my Heart”!  After hearing it several times at the conference, I was able to pick up enough of it to bring back to church on Sunday… talk about cutting edge!)
• Message: “Loving a Fool” Part Two (Jim Draper)
• Closing video: “Cats in the Cradle” (this was in connection with Jim’s message on parenting)

There you have it!  For more weekend reviews, check out Fred McKinnon’s blog.  Have a great week!