Fresh Life Church is around 1,400 hours into our goal of giving the Flathead Valley 3,000 hours of community service this summer in an initiative that is attached to our study of the book of Nehemiah. We have teams, decked out in red Rock this City shirts, all over the place doing things like: picking up trash, cleaning mountain bike trails, giving blood, and making meals for homeless people. It has been awesome seeing the church rally to the vision and rise up to make Jesus famous by serving in these very practical ways.

When I met with the mayor of Kalispell, before this project began, and asked how she would have us spend the 3,000 hours one of the immediate things she asked for us to focus on was graffiti removal. As a result that has been an area that we have thrown a lot of energy at. We have prayed that people would see our “good works and give glory to our Father in Heaven” (Matthew 5:16) But this past week one of our teams, that was serving in this way, attracted the wrong kind of attention. One of the local newspapers runs a section, called the Law Roundup, where they report all police activity from the day before. (One of the quirky things about living in a small town) It is usually pretty humorous to read. Here is what was written about the RTC team:

Police investigated a complaint that youths were spray-painting the bridge at Underpass Hill. It turned out that the young people were performing a good deed by removing the graffiti Tuesday evening.

You can learn more about Rock this City, watch videos where you can meet some of the RTC stars and even participate and log your hours (no matter where you live) here.

We were honored to be chosen as the “church spotlight” in the most recent issue of Collide magazine. I was stoked to see our team receive some props from this killer mag that I consider to be an authority on the use of multimedia within the church.

Art, technology and media are a vital part of how we feel God has called us to minister and I am so grateful for the talented and creative individuals that make up fresh life creative. They are some of the most inspired and aggressive humanoids I have ever met and I love how they use their skills to make Jesus famous.

To read the article click here.

(Having never heard of Kalispell before I came here the first time myself, I got a kick out of the opening paragraph)

Rock this City is now here. This past weekend we kicked off a brand new series going, verse-by-verse, through the book of Nehemiah. It will last for the next 4.5 months and during the summer portion, as a church, we will be ‘living the story out’ as we take radical steps to love and help build up the city we live in.

The basic concept is that everyone in the church selects one hour of community service for each month of summer off of the menu of outreach opportunities that we have established. (3 is the minimum but not the maximum–one super hardcore dude picked 30 hours) Once they have made their choices they just take their form to the “Rock this City Center” and get a free RTC shirt that they wear to their three events over the course of the summer.

No big deal right? Wrong. Even though the individual sacrifice is small, (the average american watches 4.5 hours of tv per day–all we are asking for is 3 hours in a period of 3 months) the group yield is huge. If everyone puts their back into it we will have given thousands and thousands of hours to this city in Christ’s name.

As a staff, we have been praying and prepping for this for months, and we believe that God is going to do some straight-up killer stuff in and through this study and initiative. And we were so stoked to see the body respond to the vision enthusiastically. Hundreds of people flocked to the RTC Center at all of our services committing to thousands of hours of service and happily receiving their shirts.

You can read more about Rock this City and be a part of it, even if you live in another part of the country, Rocking your city for Jesus by serving, logging your hours online and sharing your story with us–here.

You can see photos from the launch here.

I mentioned in the previous post that one of the things that impresses me about Chris Tomlin and Louie Giglio is their sense of cooperation and teamwork on stage. One leads worship and the other is speaking but they are on the same page, working towards the same goal and it shows. Chris genuinely is serving the message, before and after it is given, through his music. On the other side of the spectrum I have been in worship services that are like cafeteria trays, every item has it’s own little quadrant with fiercely demarcated borders keeping each item on the plate from touching or having anything to do with each other. You can almost get spiritual whiplash moving from the singing to any media that is utilized to the message because there is no cohesion or big picture things are moving towards.

I believe that there are some very practical steps you can take that will help foster synergy between the worship leader and the pastor and will help you move towards a more seamless flow in services. These are things that work for us at fresh life and every church is different and has more or less complicated needs but hopefully some of what we have learned can be helpful, however much it has to be tweaked to be implemented in your specific situation.

Of great concern, first of all, is the choice of your worship leader. A lion share of the platform time will be occupied by this individual and so you need to choose both prayerfully and carefully for the right fit. It doesn’t matter how great the message may be–if the music is bad that accounts for half of the service so choose wisely (worship leaders the same is true in reverse so u choose carefully too!) For church planters and small churches this can be really difficult because your options are limited, you might even be your own worship leader. That’s tough. In the mean time, keep it SIMPLE. Less is more. Someone who is just cutting their teeth leading worship will have an easier time handling a stripped down setup with just a 2 or 3 piece band than trying to wrangle a full stage of musicians with epic solo’s and 19 backup vocalists and a guy with a cowbell.

Once you have the right fit make sure they get the vision. How can they know if they are succeeding or failing if they don’t know your expectations? Are you frustrated that your worship leader isn’t nailing it? Do you think have any concept of what “nailing it” is to you? Have you ever gone to lunch with them and shared what you like, what you don’t, heard from them, and talked about different styles, approaches and philosophies. You might be surprised by the fact that you are both operating under different definitions of success. Maybe they have been wanting to go more rock and roll but they thought you dug the acoustic stuff. It could be that they don’t really like having dancing leprechauns and videos behind the words on the screen either, but they never thought to say anything about it. It also helps to build and foster the friendship. Spend life and time together, building inside jokes and a good relationship will only add to the dynamic and chemistry that will be evident during times of public ministry. Kevin Guido, our Creative Arts Pastor and head worship leader at Fresh Life, is one of my best friends on the planet and we have a lot of fun together, no matter what we are doing.

By far, what will help build this coherence in the service is to involve them in the sermon building process. For us, this begins months out when series ideas are being developed and brainstormed. The worship leader shouldn’t be blind-sided by what is coming down the pike but right there with you riding the wave of creativity and momentum. The next study should be inspiring them early on as you move towards it and they can be seeking God and preparing their heart as it approaches. Then each week as you gear up for the weekend (for us by Thursday) I email the outline and text and any additional thoughts on and as soon as my rough draft is done I send that out too. Sometimes there will also be a phone call or cup of coffee thrown in the mix as well if my “passion runneth over” I want him to know how the message begins, and ends, see the application and have more than enough info to craft the music around the message. This btw is why it is key that you have someone you trust and respect, and not just someone who has a great voice and can play the guitar. They need to really get it.

Every once in a while there is a special song that I will specifically request but I try to do that sparingly as it can hamper creativity if I am basically choosing the set list each week. Quite honestly, I am often blessed to find them choosing a song that I thought would fit perfectly but didn’t say anything about–those are times I give God a high-5 for having us on the same page. Other times I will be surprised by how a song I never would have thought of will really complement what God is doing in that service. (And occasionally I will feel a particular song is super appropriate for a service but we don’t want to include it in the worship per se so we will pre-roll the service with it or include it as a music bed for a video.)

This all admittedly gets more complicated when you have more than one worship leader. As of right now, we have two campuses and several different worship leaders in the mix. And so I rely on my Creative Arts Pastor to be the funnel that distributes and monitors the vision, song-selection, teams and overall implementation of what happens on the worship front in all aspects of our growing church. This limits the cooks in the kitchen, so to speak. I communicate with him and he communicates it with the others involved at Fresh Life Creative.

Like I said earlier, this is stuff that we have found helpful and if you can grab something, killer–but I’d love to hear what has worked for you at your church as well, leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Three years ago today on a (very) cold Sunday morning we held the very first fresh life church service. Fourteen people met in a small store-front space for worship and a Bible study and we had no idea what kind of adventure we were in for.

Three years later as I type it is quite honestly hard to believe all the Lord has done in that time. The church has expanded into two theaters, and skull church, fresh life groups & fresh life radio have all given the ministry turbo boosts. We have been delighted to watch Christ rock many people’s lives for eternity.

There has been laughter, adrenaline, fear, excitement, criticism, sleepless nights, mistakes, failures and victories. Technology has been utilized in new and exciting ways–I have even mastered the art of being in two places at once (by pre-recording messages when I have to be out of town but dont want to put a series on hold.) Many different books of the Bible have been taught through.And once, while preaching, I fell down and almost hit my head on a water table while pretending to open a rootbeer. A lot of coffee has been consumed. One thing is for sure–there hasn’t been a dull moment. This church plant has felt a lot like skiing in front of an avalanche. Watching Christ keep His promise to build HIS church has been the thrill of my life. I am humbled by and grateful for the opportunity to serve Christ at this church.

I want to congratulate my wife, family and team at this mile-marker and thank them for the blood sweat and tears that have been poured into this work. I get to serve the Lord with the most amazing people on the planet and am so thankful for their love of Christ, passion for the gospel, creativity, loyalty and ingenuity. You guys are killer, and remember, the best is yet to come!

To God be the glory for the great things He has done!