There is a push in my life to get back to the basics of what really matters. A calling back to prayer. A calling back to family being priority. A calling back to the words of Jesus and how His character should shape my life and decisions. I heard that John Maxwell said that “Most Christians are educated far beyond their level of obedience.” To say I’ve got a long way to go would be like saying Yao Ming is kind of tall.

What I do find is that when I’m willing to strip away everything I take security in outside of Him; God is waiting to rip down the walls and make my adventure with Him bigger. One of the ways I’m doing this is by reading the Gospels. I’ve joined with Pete Wilson on his 28 day journey through Matthew and trying to take the time to ask God what He really wants to do in my heart and life.

This process of trying to become more like Him always leads to a tug of war for my heart. Am I really willing to step away from all the things that pull me from Him? Am I really willing to die so He can live? Am I really ready to live life always preferring others? Do I really want to be like Jesus?

It’s so easy to get caught up on the theories of how to do church. The right things to say. The right songs to sing and lose focus on the ultimate right in life:

To know Jesus. In the fellowship of His sufferings and the power of His resurrection.

Anyone else down for getting back to basics? How do you make sure your faith is still focused?

First off, NewSpring was AMAZING. Completely blown away by all I saw here today. I walked away with one burning though in my heart.

I need more passion for Jesus. Pure and simple.

His bride is a beautiful thing. God loves me beyond what I can imagine and sometimes it’s easy to get comfortable with that fact. I pray that this one take away will continue to consume my heart until I’m more blazing for him than I’ve ever been.

Thanks @perrynoble, @tonymorgan, @shaneduffey, @mcdzl and crew for putting this on and opening your church to us.

Perry Noble’s Last Unleash Session—Stay In The Game

• People say, I’m just being the devil’s advocate. “I wasn’t aware he needed a freaking advocate.”
• Questions leaders need to wrestle with
o Who is with me? Exodus 33:12
• The average stay for a pastor is 22 month. Some of you are church hoppers.
• You can’t expect people to buy in to you until you buy in to them.
• Does your church know that you’re there?
• How do you get people to buy in to a vision? Tell them hell can’t take you away from there.
• Satan doesn’t want to split your church, he wants to split the staff. It starts with “I do as much as he does”.
• Your pastor goes through more spiritual warfare than you can imagine. At the end of the day he’s got to know who’s with him.
• Sheep don’t lead the shepherd. Pray for him. Encourage him. But at the end of the day he will be held accountable for what he does or doesn’t do.
• Does your pastor know you’ve got his back?
• You take it for granted if you think your pastor knows whether or not you have his back.
o Am I pleasing You? Exodus 33:13
• Perry got hit on in a bathroom and the Lord told him to invite him to church. (you should watch the video on this one)
• Are you a prophet or a prostitute?
• Do you bring God’s message or do you get paid to give people a service that makes them feel good?
• Do I understand that ministry is received, not achieved?
• We try and receive results when God wants us to receive results.
• We depend too much on our abilities and not enough on the anointing of God.
• God didn’t call us because we were all stars, but because He said “There’s a screw up I can get glory from”.
• God saw EVERY MISTAKE and STUPID THING you’d do before He called you.
• Am I placing limits on me that God didn’t place on me?
• What is the thing that keeps you up at night because people will think you’re crazy?
• You can do exactly what God has called you to do. Don’t dare limit yourself when the unlimited power of God lives in you.
o Will they see you? Exodus 33:14-17
• Are we providing the type of atmosphere where people can “kiss toilets” and leave feeling good about it?
• When the presence of God shows up it brings conviction and change.
• If no one is being changed we have to ask ourselves what kind of environment we’re creating.
• Do you want attendance or repentance? You can have attendance without repentance. Repentance will bring attendance, but we have to preach the Gospel and the truth of Jesus.
• The church is a body…if you close the back door to your body….well…
• When’s the last time as a leader you were desperate for God’s presence?
o What’s next? Exodus 33:18
• We’ve always asked God What’s Next?
• We ask because we don’t want to be a monument or a museum but continue to be a movement.
• We want more than anything else…”Show me Your glory.”
• There’s nothing awesome about NewSpring outside of the presence of God. Take that away and we suck…and you do too.
o What if…
• The pastor dedicated to the people and the people to the pastor
• Their single passion was the presence of God and asking Him what’s next?
• We were serious about changing the trend of people falling away from Christ
• I’m more serious about the church than I’ve ever been
• Men don’t play touch football.
• “I want the ball”
o You can only advance the ball when you have it.
o I don’t want to just encourage others to run the ball.
• I want the ball

• Priority to you identity in Christ as a worship leader
o You are a child of God
o You are a minister to people, primarily the church.
o You are a musician and an artist
• As a child of God you are indispensable but as a minister you are completely expendable.
• He’s naming things that are greater to God than singing as a worship leader
o Loving your wife as Christ loves the church
o Tithing
• If you aren’t an example of Christ-like character, than we can’t call ourselves a worship leader.
• 4 things about child of God
o knowing God
• all spiritual disciplines need to be done at the request of the Holy Spirit; not because someone else did it that way.
• Ask the question…what does my face time with You need to look like?
o Sabbath/Community
• You can sustain long seasons of ministry if you keep your Sabbath
• Most of you would never think of murdering anyone, but the Sabbath command came before this one.
• Ask Jesus what your Sabbath should look like?
• Jesus spent the Sabbath in community?
• Creative people need community to help us not get off base
• 3 things about serving people
o Work under the authority structure of your church
• One of the great things that helped the sanctification process is doing songs that Perry put out there that weren’t cool.
• If you have a consistent problem with your pastor, you may have an authority problem with Jesus. Jesus wants to push us on submitting to him and will use leadership structure leaders to push our buttons.
• Say yes as often as you can, tell what it will take to do it and be proactive and solutions oriented
o Practice Communication
• Other than the pastor, you speak into the lives of people more than anyone else.
• It is worth your time to think and plan through what you’re going to say from the stage
• You’re there with a microphone…ask God for something!
• You give God more time to work on your heart for what he wants you to say
o Work Hard
• God calls…take steps
• Instant, complete and joyful obedience is the only obedience that pleases God
o 3 Things about being a Musicians
• record yourself and listen back…you have the most critical ear.
• Not listening to playback is like having food in your teeth…get a mirror and a toothpick
• Get to concerts
• You get to see professional musicianship
• You get to see crowd interaction
• You owe it to yourself to see U2
• Expand your vision
• Permission to know what pro really means
• Sing for the king
o Sometimes the big notes and solos need to happen
o Sometimes it’s ok to turn around and just sing for Jesus
o Exercise the craziness of your gift
o Ask God how He wants you to sound…(this is a WOW moment for me…been a long time that I’ve been told to chill)
o The best way to do this is to wait to show world class talent is to wait for a world class moment where people will be like holy crap…what’s going on?!?!?!
• The quiet moments are the most important/formative moments and the stage should be an outflow of that
• Don’t have any other gods before me…including worship ministry/artistry
• Build God’s kingdom and the rest will work itself out
• If a player has “his style” and isn’t willing to deviate from that, they might have bigger issues.
• Listen to playback of what you said and see if it was lucid
• There’s a difference between “that felt good” and “that was good”.
• They do EVERYTHING ON A CLICK
• If you can’t make rehearsal (Monday) you don’t play on Sunday…they base mix/video/everything off the recording they do that night
• Addressing character issues is as simple as knowing that worship isn’t about music, but about your lifestyle

Shane Duffey Creative Arts Pastor @NewSpring

Service Planning:

• One meeting a week…4 Sundays ahead (would rather be 6 and would be cool if it’s 2)
• 1 hour per message
• Do mostly internal advertising…empowering their people to invite people.
• Getting ahead for them is all due to the senior pastor planning ahead.
• People don’t get saved from our creative works/activities. They get saved when the Word is spoken clearly and the Holy Spirit speaks to their heart.
• The rest is eye candy and they try and remove the eye candy.
• Excellence is “getting everything out of the way that obscures somebody’s ability to see Jesus”.
• Sundays @ NewSpring
o 6:15 band comes in
o 6:45 test sync of live video feed and video run
o 7:00 sound check
o 7:45 everyone involved walks through the production sheet (talk through ALL transitions)
o 7:55 countdown starts for a literal service run through 7:55-8:30
o 9:15 1st service starts
o Review after run through and 1st service and anything that doesn’t work gets dropped
• They teach artists to appreciate the process not the product.
• A.B.E..—always be evaluating
• Who has the final say on service elements?
o The speaker or Perry…the speaker has to be comfortable with the service elements to communicate it well.
o You have to be willing to push back both ways, but the speaker has final say.
• Announcements?
o Currently doing video announcements
o The make sure a person comes on stage and welcomes people and makes sure new people know they’re welcome
o They take the offering before worship and during the message and they teach about why they give. (it is worship…scripture 2-3 minute teaching on giving)
• They do communion twice a year and make communion the service. Very gospel focused services.
• When you work with your senior pastor you have to humbly help him understand how planning ahead helps everyone, including him.
o Have conversations about how planning ahead will help us make sure everything lines up
o The further out a pastor gets, the more fluid it can become
o Being well prepared allows to make last minute adjustments more easily.
o If you get your pastor to plan ahead and you don’t get ahead and change the way you do things, he’s a fool to not go back to the way he was doing things.
• They record practices for lighting cues and volunteer directors so the camera guys can be prepped. (WOW!)
• NewSpring has a core group of 5 people and invites other people (staff and otherwise) based on their connection to the content.
• They get an outline ahead of time to come into the meetings with ideas.
• Worship leaders get together and pick sets and cover songs. 90% is done by them and open to suggestions to changes.
• Service Format (default)
o Performance Song
o Video Announcemenct
o Worship Set—3 Songs
o Offering
o Video Roll In
o Perry Speaks
o Maybe a song before invitation
o Perry (or speaker) dismisses with “thanks for being here see you next week”
• Invitation normally happens with a just the keyboard player
• They practice the 6 and 1 principle of the Sabbath.
• If your ministry gets in the way of your relationship, or if your work gets in the way of your Sabbath, you’ve lost.
• If people aren’t on time, make what happens at the beginning the biggest thing.
• Don’t let people steal your joy because of the participation or lack therof.