Every New Beginning Comes from Some Other Beginning's End... (Part 2)

During the summer my friend, Jordan, accepted a job at Community Gospel Church in Bremen, IN.  I was extremely excited for Jordan and his family as they were moving on to a wonderful church and a position that we had discussed would be a great training ground for him as he continues to prepare for wherever GOD will take him in his ministry.  At the same time, I was saddened to see my friends move 300 miles away.  Jordan and I had been through a great deal during our friendship and he and his wife, Bethany, had truly become my family away from home.

I then entered this past fall with many questions in my mind.  I had seen a number of doors that seemed to open in front of me only to be slammed shut.  I had spent the past year struggling with this feeling that GOD was preparing for something and leading me in a particular direction that I had no clue about.

I kept thinking back to what Abraham must have felt like when GOD called him out of .... and told him to go to "the land that I have prepared for you." (Genesis 12:1)  Abraham didn't know where that land was.  He didn't know how long the journey was.  All he knew was that GOD called him to leave a place where he had amassed significant wealth and was living prosperously to go on a journey that could bankrupt and kill him.  Sounds like a fantastic idea (re-read that last sentence with a mouth full of sarcasm).

I had to constantly remind myself that although GOD was preparing me for something that I was still unsure of He still had not required as much of me as he required of Abraham.  I still had my job, and a job that I enjoyed at that.  I still had my house.  I was still able to serve my local church family as their worship leader.  I believe now that He was just waiting until I was ready (as ready as I could be) to take on the task that he was setting aside for me.  As I can attest now, He was working out His plan.

So throughout the fall I continued to fulfill my duties at Greenville College and, as always, I really did enjoy my time there.  I love the students and the chance to see kids grow spiritually and improve athletically.  As I've said many times before, I feel that that was an excellent training ground for the ministry.  However, I was at a point where I felt that it was time for me to move on.

In October I made a weekend trip to Bremen to do a concert with Jordan at Community Gospel Church  for the release of the worship EP by our band, Until We're Kings.  That weekend I had an opportunity to speak with the church staff and some leadership about the possibility of coming on board at some point as their worship leader.

I was, of course, very interested in the possibility.  As we spoke more I felt like CGC was the place that GOD had been preparing me for and I could not escape the that this was where I was supposed to be.

We continued the discussion of how my coming aboard CGC as the Director of Worship we were looking at time lines and pay scale and all that other stuff, trying to figure out what was going to be the best for the church, the congregation, the staff, and me.  The one thing we all felt certain about was that this was the direction GOD had prepared us all for.

The major hang up for me in moving was my house in Greenville.  As anyone who has recently tried to sell a house can atest, the current real estate market is not great for getting rid of a home and in looking at coming to Bremen I did not have a choice, my house HAD to sell before I could move.  With this in mind I was preparing to stay at Greenville for another semester and hopefully be out to CGC my June or July.

As with most of my other plans in life, GOD laughed.  The first person to walk through my house bought it.  Unreal.  In this market, at this time, there was only one explanation for that... the hand of GOD Almighty.

With the house sold I accepted the position at CGC, quit my job at Greenville (that was very difficult as, again, I  really did enjoy my time there and loved working with all the athletes I had the privilege of coaching), and set up for a move to Indiana.

Now I am the Director of Worship at Community Gospel Church as well as a full-time Seminary student at Grace Theological Seminary in Winona Lake, IN.  It's been a crazy journey these past few years, but looking back it's always interesting to see how GOD used each situation I encountered to set up the next one, which set up the next one.  I am constantly amazed by GOD's providence and protection.  I cannot wait to see what he has in store as this new phase of life begins!

Sunday Setlist / 2.6.11

Sunday, February 6, 2011 at Community Gospel Church in Bremen, Indiana:


THE SERVICE
Hallelujah (Your Love is Amazing) [Brenton Brown/Brian Doerkson] (G)
     Welcome & Announcements
     Offering
Your Grace is Enough [Chris Tomlin] (F)
The Ninety and Nine [E.C. Clephane/Ira D. Sankey] (F)
Come Ye Sinners [Owens/Johnson/Hamilton/Seay] (C)
Mighty to Save [Ben Fielding/Reuben Morgan] (G)
     Message
Come Ye Sinners (C)
     Dismiss


THE BAND
Jonathan David Eckberg - guitar/vocals
Cyndi Leamon - vocals
Sean Norris - drums
Jordan Muck - bass
Dale Graham - audio
Vance Csaszar - video


NOTES
Our team was rather slight this week.  Due to some traveling and some sicknesses and various issues we seemed to have everybody bow out this week.  This was compounded by the fact that the snowstorm forced us to cancel practice on Wednesday night and move it to Saturday afternoon.  With the switch of practice times I knew that we would be a little short on rehearsal, so I didn't mind having a "skeleton team" this week.  It's always simpler, and therefore, easier to adjust on the fly, with fewer people.  That being said, we did have a great week.  Pastor Mike Fanning continued to kill it from the pulpit with the second part of our "Finding Your Place at the Table" series (examining the parable of the Prodigal Son).


THE SONGS
Hallalujah (Your Love is Amazing) - This is an older song, but a good one.  With the three-piece instrumentation it was a great song to rock through.  It's very simple and an excellent song of praise and adoration for the love of our Father.

Your Grace is Enough - One of my favorite songs.  Such a wonderful declaration of Paul's prayer in 2 Corinthians 12.  I chose this as our opener in light of last weeks message of the Prodigal Son.  The point was that both the older and younger brother loved the things the father had to offer more than they loved the father himself and that's where they fell into sin.  I think it's important to remember as we continue to study this parable that GOD is enough for us.  We become heirs to His kingdom, but that inheritance is secondary to receiving the grace of GOD.  He is all we need.  Our version of this song runs pretty much straight off of the Chris Tomlin version.

The Ninety and Nine - Jordan and Sean kept saying we needed a pint of Guinness in our hands as we played this song!  It has distinctively Irish feel to it.  And we go straight through it.  I didn't figure that many people in the congregation would know this song right off the bat.  However, as is the case with most hymns, the people picked up on it by the second or third verse.  I chose to put this into the set despite the "known" factor because the sermon today was focusing on the people around Jesus during Luke 15 and the other two parables in the chapter (The Lost Sheep and The Lost Coin).  It's a hymn that walks through the Lost Sheep parable so I felt that it really set the mood and got our people thinking along those lines early in the day.

Come Ye Sinners - As this weeks sermon focused on the other parables of Luke 15, it also looked at the people around Jesus.  As the chapter opens He is eating with the tax collectors and "sinners".  These are the people christ came to save.  This is us.  The whole point of this song is that we as sinners are called to bring ourselves to Christ.  We don't try to clean ourselves up first, we simply come to Christ as the sinners we all are.

Mighty to Save - We tweak the arrangement of this song a little bit just to shorten it up and make it a little more succinct.  But musically it's a very standard arrangement.  We closed our set with this song because as we move from our recognition of our true nature and our need for a savior (Come Ye Sinners) we must have the next step.  That next step is the knowledge that our GOD is the only means of salvation and he is so much greater than our sins and our old nature.

To see what other congregations are singing please check out the Sunday Setlists at www.theworshipcommunity.com.