Extended rehearsals every night this week, tons of extra work, and yet I am in my sweet spot. Why? Because I do not see Good Friday as a part of my job, I see it as a gift that I give to the Church. Every year we start clean and fresh. We don’t have an outline. The only thing we know we will do is communion, other than that, it is a blank canvas.

My goal every year is for the Good Friday Service is to force people to think about the cross in a way that they do not usually think of it during the year. To the best of our ability, we want to force the congregation to use different senses than they usually do in our worship center. During the normal year, our people usually hear the gospel and sing about the gospel. At good friday I want them to feel it, touch it, watch it be acted out, and take time to reflect on it. I want it to be different, I want it to be profound. The exact same truth, but told in a fresh way.

So why is this my sweet spot? Because as an artist, I have a year to think about what we will do. I know the target, I know the due date, and I love the subject matter. I am also blessed that our pastor is gracious enough to let us run with it. Bottom line, it is where my creativity gets to intersect with my faith. That is my sweet spot.

We work hard in preparation, but on that night we get to reflect with the NorthWood community on the sacrifice of our Savior. We walk out with a sober view of our sin and Christ’s work on the cross.  We look forward with deep anticipation of his resurrection and victory over sin on Sunday morning.

If you are in the DFW Area, we would love to have you. Here are all the details.

What do you do for Good Friday?

Image: Zach Dischner

I have a major tendency in work and life to redline it or sputter around. It is a vicious cycle.  I work super hard and redline it on a major project, and then I am so tired and exhausted, I have to sputter around just to recover.  The adrenaline of focusing and finishing a project can be great, but I am not a fan of the starting line – it  is boring, and all I can see ahead of me is all the work.  So I tend to either redline  or sputter around.

Bottom line, I do not think this is a healthy way to live.  When I am redlining it, I stress myself, my family, and my team. When I am sputtering around, I frustrate the same people. Stress and moping around radically affect my relationships with others and with God.  Here are three ways I have found to move forward and break the cycle.

1.  Force  Yourself to Start the Work.

When I am at the starting line of a project or face a boring task, it is my nature to put it off.  So I have been forcing myself to find the very tasks I hate and do it as fast as I can.  It is like jumping in a cold pool.  It is never going to feel good, so just jump in the deep end and get it done.

2.  Take a Break.

Disengaging for a short time allows you to come back re-energized. At lunch, a very natural break, I tend to either go to lunch with my team and still talk about work or work through lunch by grabbing the quickest thing to eat and stay at my desk.  While it seems like I am getting a lot done, I am realizing that I work twice as hard in the afternoon if I truly get a break from all my work at lunch.  I sometimes go to the gym, go home, or go with my team, but force the conversation to get off of work.

3.Keep a Tight List of Projects and Tasks.

From GTD, I learned that doing the work is not stressful, but having a million tasks and commitments in your brain and trying to recall them all at the right time is. The solution is to keep a very tight list on all your projects and to-dos and work off of them everyday.   I am great at this in some seasons, and other seasons I am despicable, but I do my best to keep a tight list of every current project and task and review them daily and weekly.  I currently use the Action Method and highly recommend it.

So what about you? Do you redline it, or do you sputter around? What do you do to avoid it?

Following the service I got a lot of great feedback. It is always super encouraging when people take time to give you a positive reaction.  But as you can see, at least one person was bored out of their mind, which reminded me of a incredible truth.

Don’t take stock in the hype of your biggest fans or the negativity of your worst critics.

Ask yourself, “Did I do what God called me to do?  Did I do it with all my heart, mind, and strength?

If you did, then well done good and faithful servant!

We have been working on this record for months.  The studio tracks are done and now it is time to capture it live! We can’t wait!  If you are close to the DFW area, we would LOVE to have you drop in this Saturday night @ NorthWood Church at 7pm.   Here are the details.

We are giddy with excitement and can’t wait to see all God does!

Are you coming?

As we planned worship, we wanted it to be very global feeling, but also unique to who we were. We landed on singing the Revelation Song in multiple languages. It was powerful. It gave our church a small picture of what every tongue, tribe, and nation will be like around the throne.

The best part is that we have that much talent that can sing in multiple languages!

Forgiveness from Northwood Church on Vimeo.

This past weekend we used it as an intro and then we played the song. It was a huge blessing to our congregation. It is also a great example of team work. Great job Jordan and Chris.

• Hit the pinball as hard as I could when it came to near the flappers and happened to luck into a really high score.
• After getting a low score the next go, I realized that hitting certain spots in a certain sequence increased your score dramatically.
• Started trying to strategically hit the pinball in the exact right spots to obtain the high score.
• Failed miserably. I realized that I was no pinball wizard.
• I quit playing pinball.

I can’t tell you how many times I have experienced this exact same sequence with new ministries, ventures, or projects.  I luck into a little success, only to realize it was just a buzz of excitement, realize it is going to be hard, identify the strategy to success, realize executing the strategy is difficult, and I am tempted to quit.

As a believer, i must remember that Abraham, Moses, Samuel, Job, Paul, and Jesus did not quit.  Jesus was the center of a large buzz of excitement at the start of his ministry.  He was alone on the cross at the end of it.

If God has called you to do something.  Don’t quit.  Beg for grace to keep going.

A few years back I remember him saying, “Most people spend all their time and energy trying to find a way to get to the table of influence and power.  Don’t worry about the table.  Sweep the streets and do it with excellence. You will eventually be asked to come to the table.”

Bob’s advice has been true in my life.  It turns out, it is also biblical.

Luke 19:17 -  And he said to him, ‘Well done, good servant! Because you have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over ten cities.’

It is can be difficult while you are sweeping the streets to not get distracted with all those around you are moving up to the table. Keep sweeping.  Our Father, the the most influential person at the table, is looking down to and is eager to reward faithful workers in his kingdom.

[Image: thevortext]

The Time of Obedience is where at the end of the service, we are giving time and space to let people respond to what God has been speaking to them.  We have Alter ministers positioned in 4 places around the room to lead someone to Christ and pray for them, we open the altar for people to  come pray by themselves or as a family, we have cards for people to sit and write what God has been doing in their lives, we sing, and yesterday we took communion. It is controlled chaos, but our people are responding to God, and I could not be happier!

If you go to NorthWood, What do you think of the changes?

If you haven’t read the book, or don’t intend to, make sure you check out this video, a 20 minute TED talk summarizing the book..

Brilliant!!!

Your Church, your ministry is a tribe.  They need you to lead them.