My Blog Has Moved

Hey there. In case you didn't get the memo, my blog and website has made a move. You can now find my blog, music, etc at chrisfreemanmusic.com. So hop on over there and check it out.

A Few More Coffee Photos

I went by my friend David's coffee roasting shop, The Coffee Registry, again a few weeks ago and took a few more pictures. This time I opted to arm myself with some faster film, and decided to take a few color shots as well. Turns out, its easier to take sharper pictures when you can up your shutter speed to 1/60. Go figure.

Anyways, I'm putting just a couple below for your enjoyment. And as I said last time, I highly recommend that you hop on over to his site, and sign yourself up for a subscription. You won't regret it, I promise you that.

What's In Your Job Description?

Here's a quick thought today for worship leaders (and pastors in general, I suppose) -

If your job - your worship ministry - were removed from the picture, would you be ok with that? Take it all away, and what would you do? Who would you be?

God has called his people to first and foremost spread the gospel. To be living pictures of his truth and grace to the world. In order for that to happen, we (his children) must be living life in such a way that our lives are:

1) intersecting with non believers and
2) interacting with those non believers.

If you're ministry keeps you so busy that you spend all of your time in an office researching the latest presentation software, the best online service for distributing charts to your musicians, which projector is the best, which loudspeaker system to put in your ministry wish list, etc... chances are your ministry is keeping you from doing your ministry. In other words, if your life is wrapped up in being a worship leader, then you need to reconsider a few things.

Being a worship leader is and always will be secondary to the call on your life to tell others about Christ. I'm the first person to advocate quality in our music and worship, which requires a time commitment. That is in fact what many of the posts on my blog are about. But this question is more about identity. Is your identity wrapped up in being a worship leader? Your identity should be found first and foremost in being a child of God and in being a minister of the gospel. Certainly God does gift many of us with musical abilities, and does call many of us to be worship leaders. It is a great responsibility, and one that shouldn't be taken lightly. But being a worship leader is not meant to be the overarching purpose of our lives.

You can have one of the best worship ministries in town, you can have your music featured on the latest Worship Leader Song Discovery CD, you can be so big that people are paying you to go all over and talk about how to lead worship and build a worship ministry. But if you aren't getting out and meeting people that don't know Jesus and living life with them, then you've missed the point. I'm talking about actually investing in people that don't know Jesus. Doing things with them. Inviting them to your house for dinner.

It's sobering to realize that as a pastor, you don't actually know any non christians. There is no question that in the past I have been in this boat. I'm curious, do you find that your ministry keeps you from your true ministry? If your worship ministry were removed from the picture, would you have a ministry? Where do you find your identity? Is it in being a worship leader, or something more? Do you as a worship leader have relationships with people who do not know Jesus? Think about this throughout the week. Ask God to lay on your heart one individual that you know who does not know Christ. Make a plan for how to build a purposeful relationship with this person.