matmusic ministries

On my way home from work is a large storage facility (a.k.a. America’s new attic.) This complex has a handful of store-front offices behind which are the storage units. For some reason, on the marquee by the road, the owners have decided that the way to draw attention to their businesses is to rotate useless and silly quotes.

These include:

“If at first you don’t succeed, then skydiving definitely isn’t for you.”

and:

“Procrastinate now, don’t put it off.”

And who could forget the classic:

“The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. ”

These got me thinking that, even with the silliness, quotes are fun to read because they are concise, brief thoughts that get your mind working. So I started thinking about quotes of my own. Maybe from time to time, I will present some to you here in this space to get your mind working as well.

With that, enjoy one of my quotes about worship:

“Worship like you are alone even when you are not.”
-Mat Guerry circa 4/2007

I found this article while on a praise and worship website. My comments will follow.

As worship leaders (each member is a worship leader, not just the lead singer), you need to remember that leading worship is NOT trying to get people to sing. It is WORSHIPING GOD yourselves, SO THAT others will FOLLOW your LEAD! Instead of concentrating on worship leading, focus on being a lead worshiper. Instead of concentrating on keeping your eyebrows up (hoping everyone will think you are happy and in love with Jesus), focus your thoughts and heart on Christ.

For starters, you and your band or worship team MUST worship the Lord together as a small group, alone, away from people and the stage in order to be able to lead worship properly and in front of others. This is not easy. Put in a Delirious CD (and play it loud) or have someone lead on guitar or piano and then have everyone in the band sing along TO GOD! Force yourselves to spend this time - it is as or more essential as the precious rehearsal time!!! In fact, I would recommend cutting your current weekly rehearsal time in half and spending one half in Bible study, singing, and prayer and the other half rehearsing, in that order. This way you will get the most out of your rehearsal. You might say there isn’t enough time for this. But, trust me, you don’t have time to NOT do this! Once you’ve all worshiped together, you will be amazed at how much quicker you learn songs and how much better you all work together.

Being A Lead Worshiper
Jeff Deyo
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There are actually several practical articles out there about how to lead worship. They talk about practicing your instrument, team cohesion, and even personal devotion. What stands out to me about the above portion of the longer article is the need for worshipping as a TEAM together.

This, I have found, is lacking all too often in many praise and worship teams.

It is, admittedly, hard to do. It is very tempting to spend your entire rehearsal time working on details of songs, transitions, singing parts, etc. But to do these things alone means that you are not practicing the most important aspect of being on a worship team - worshipping God. And, yes, worshipping God takes practice. If you don’t think so, try going a month without it and see how strange it feels once you start again (Okay, that’s bad advice. You should never stop worshipping God. But trust me, worship takes practice.)

I have found that the team that worships together most often has the best worship. It can also be said that a team of sold out worshippers will have sweeter worship than a team of the best musicians any day.

People like to be led by people who are passionate about what they are doing. Worship is no exception.

This is one of my favorite all time pictures. It is, in fact, not actually a picture but a capture from a video we took while we were camping.

The picture is of Wyatt and Soren. These two were playing together and, as they are want to do, were bugging each other like a brother and sister. I thought it was funny and filmed it. This particular frame stood out to me because it seems as though Wyatt is wanting the spotlight and that, for a two year old, is pretty funny.

The Dove awards are the definitive Christian Music Industry awards and will be celebrating their 38th year with it’s annual awards show next week.

They have their finger squarely on the pulse of Christian music and what the CCM public is digging. Posted below are their nominees for the two worship categories and some of my comments.

Worship Song of the Year

“Holy Is The Lord”; Chris Tomlin, Louie Giglio; worshiptogether.com Songs, sixsteps Music (ASCAP)

It seems like I have been worshipping to this song for five years. It is on this year’s list because Tomlin recorded it for his latest album. This is a classic and might win on sentiment.

“Made To Worship”; Stephan Sharp, Ed Cash, Chris Tomlin; worshiptogether.com Songs, sixsteps Music (ASCAP), Alletrope Music (BMI)

A good one off Tomlin’s “See the Morning” but I don’t think it is even the album’s best.

“My Savior My God”; Aaron Shust, Dorothy Greenwell; Bridge Building, White Spot Publishing

This song blew up this year and has made Aaron Shust’s career. It is a good one and, I think, the favorite to win this category (even though I think it is more contemporary than worship)

“Our God Reigns”; Brandon Heath; Capilano Music (ASCAP), New Spring (ASCAP)

I don’t even know this one.

“Yes You Have”; Leeland Dayton Mooring, Jack Anthony Mooring, Matt Bronleewe; Meaux Mercy (BMI), Meaux Jeaux (SESAC), Woodland Creatures Need Music Too (ASCAP)

Leeland is a hot new rock outfit and is very creative. Their worship album (what Christian rock band doesn’t have a worship album) is also pretty catchy.

Praise & Worship Album of the Year

A Grateful People; Watermark; Nathan Nockels; Rocketown Records

I have not heard this album but Nockels is one of the best worship song writers going.

See The Morning; Chris Tomlin; Ed Cash; Sparrow Records, sixstepsrecords

This was my favoirte Praise and Worship album of 2006. And I think this is the favorite for the Dove also.

Song To The King; Pocket Full Of Rocks; Bryan Lenox, Matt Bronleewe, Tim Marshall, Otto Price; Myrrh Records

Pocket Full of Rocks took the Praise and Worship community by suprise. To put together a collection of several singable tunes that some congregations have embraced, is quite a feat for a rock band. If they won, though, it would be a Cinderella story.

Sound Of Melodies; Leeland; Matt Bronleewe, Steve Hindalong, Marc Byrd; Provident Label Group

Creative but an underdog.

Top Of My Lungs; Phillips, Craig & Dean; Nathan Nockels; INO Records

Old favorites of the older Christian music listener but thier inclusion is just a nod to the band’s past successes.

I got a call when I was at work yesterday from Kara. She said she, Ashton, and Parker wanted to meet me for lunch. I love seeing the family during lunch, it’s a great mental refocus for me so I agreed. Kara said one more thing before she hung up, “Ashton has something to show you.”

As I drove, I tried to think what it could be. Did she buy something? Did she get some new clothes? Maybe there is something different about her.

As it turns out, there was.

My baby girl had gone and gotten her ears pierced. She was so proud to show Daddy her new look complete with pretty pink earrings.

As it went, the family was at the mall and Ashton asked to get her ears pierced. Kara pinched one lobe to show Ashton how it would feel. Ashton decided that maybe the pain would be too much. Then she thought about it more and decided that she could take it.

They went into Claire’s and got ready for the job. After the first ear was done, Kara said that Ashton’s face started to tense up and she looked ready to cry. Luckily, the lady at the shop did not stop to ask Ashton if she was okay. The floodgates might have opened and we might have had a little girl with a solo piercing. As it were, the other ear was done quickly and Ashton had jewelry in each lobe.

Pretty cute, I must say.

A Guerry family tradition finds us snapping photos of the kids in the Texas bluebonnets.

I couldn’t resist.

Hope you enjoy viewing these as much as I enjoyed taking them.

HE IS RISEN! Just as He said.

I remember the old Acappella song well. The Easter Song.

See, being from a Church of Christ background, our “contemporary” Christian music consisted of one band: Acapella. They used their voices like instruments. Rich, beautiful four part harmonies blended to sound like a full band. My favorite songs were when they made percussion sounds and “mmm bop” bass lines with their voices.

They were our Christian rock stars. We even sang a song at camp one year and tried our high-school hardest to sound like they did. To our ears, we were pretty dang close.

From left to right: Jeremy Haile, Mat Guerry, Daren Tubbs, Benji Wilbanks

But I digress, this post is about Jesus and his resurrection. Thank you, Lord, for doing what you did. Your love amazes me.

On Easter Sunday, we went to church with my sister, Jessica, at Farmer’s Branch Church of Christ. Or as they call it, “The Branch.” (I must admit, that is way cooler.) The service was very well done and touching. During communion, they showed some clips from Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. They are violent, bloody and frightening images. But seeing them reminds me of what Jesus went through…for me.

Thank you Jesus for suffering.

Thank you Jesus for dying.

Thank you Jesus for living!

Happy Easter.

As part of the worship planning process, the worship leader must consider his audience.

If you choose songs because you like them or because it’s in a key with which you are familiar or it has a cool guitar riff that you like to play, you are serving the wrong audience.

It should go without saying that our audience in worship should always be God (some worship leaders may need to read that sentence again.) But a worship leader is charged with the challenge of bringing worshippers to that place where they worship the audience of One.

Herein lies the challenge. People follow an example. If you lead, they will follow most of the time. People follow charismatic leaders and sometimes even to an unfortunate end. If you worship in spirit and truth with all your heart, that is an example of a lead others will want to follow. But, at the same time, if you ignore or neglect the people who you are leading and are in a “worship world” of your own, you run the risk of losing worshippers along the way.

There is also a danger that comes with the realization that, when leading worship, you want people to watch you and follow your lead.

You must have your heart absolutely right before God. The spirit in people has a way of knowing when a person in authority is being insincere.

You must always be deflecting toward God. Many people would say, “this is not about me, it’s about God.” Saying it and believing it in your heart of hearts are two different things.

If you seek celebrity as a worship leader, will you ever really achieve the purpose of leading worship - leading worshippers to worship God? Or will the end instead be leading worshippers to worship you?

I found this quote when reading a recent interview of the well-known worship leader Brian Doerksen.

American worshippers are enamored with celebrity, hence the popularity of artist-based CDs and “special event” albums. Why is that?

Doerksen: I think that’s related to American culture. More than anywhere else in the world, there’s a fascination with stars, with the platform. So I’m not at all surprised that, even in worship music, the artists who tour more and the ones who have more visibility are accepted more in that context. I do quite a bit of work in Europe, and it’s not quite that way there, or in Canada [where I live]. It’s more organic—[people] are more concerned with the song and what it wants to say rather than who created it.

Excerpt From
The Pursuit of Holiness
By Andree Farias
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