SOME FACTS: 

I live in a world of 22-year-olds.  

I’ve had three of them give me Snapchat tutorials. I still don’t get it.  

Facebook was born my senior year of college (2005).

In my social media life, Myspace has come and gone… RIP.  

Instagram/Twitter/Vine/Periscope/Skype/YouTube/Pinterest/etc. are everywhere. Everywhere. 

SOME FEELINGS:

This new social world has created a certain type of person. Let's lovingly call him/her: A 22-year-old, optimistic, bright eyed, world changing, hashtag adventure seeking storytelling hippie meets hipster with a camera. 

I love it. Really I do. I believe in them. Our future needs them. I follow them online.  

But in this overly connected “social world”, there’s an interesting trend I see.  

This idea of “spreading good” is being spread everywhere. Which seems good. Right?

Being a “Storyteller” is a pursued profession. Also good. Right? Everyone loves stories.  

To overstate the trend: Being a good storyteller, spreading good all over the world, is the life so many twenty-somethings want.  Which is great, right?  

The difficulty is answering, “What is good?” and “What is your story pointing to?”

Last week, right before church started, our band gathered to say the traditional, “God we pray you’re with us, we pray for no distractions, for your presence to fall, for us to remember our parts, and for the computer not to crash like it did last week, etc.”  

We do this every week.  So do you.  

In our setting, if we’re not careful, we hustle to get ready, we rehearse until the last minute, then throw up a Hail Mary prayer of sorts.  

This got me thinking about the larger “preparation” we do for worship and how often times we are hindering our experience by limiting what we do to performance and execution.  

Here are 5 common ways leaders hinder worship.  

When contemporary worship popularized in the 90’s people were writing what later was jokingly called, “Prom songs to Jesus.”  

Many of them said something along the lines of, “I want to know you/love you/worship you/sit with you/dance with you/hold you/breathe you in/have coffee with you/touch you/stroke your beard/feel your heart/wash your feet/walk with you/etc.”  

I don’t think it was all bad, but it’s fair to say—to some degree—substance was lacking.  

Especially in contrast to the great hymns that had 6 verses of jam-packed theology.  Not all hymns are great either, but at least most of them were trying to say something.  

The edges of life are deeply spiritual.  

When faced with how fragile and finite we are, everyone lifts their eyes.  We may not know who we are looking for, who we are saying thank you too, or who we are asking for help, but at birth and death, all eyes go up.  

I was reminded of that last week, when my friend Ryan died of cancer. Or should I say went on to life.  He left behind a wife, three kids, and a legacy of godliness.  

A couple months ago a Freshman asked me how long I've been leading worship.  I told him I started when I was 15, then did the math, and said, "I guess it's been 18 years now."  He said, "That's as long as I've been alive."  

Dang.  18 years.  And I still can't get our team to start the audio with the video.  

I still have so much to learn.  We all do.  

I love reading (and listening to audio books).  When I’m being who I want to be I get through two books a month—one leadership and one spiritual.  These 5 books have had lasting impact on my life and leadership over the last semester.  

My heart rate is higher in August.  I don’t even have a Fitbit HR but I know it’s true.  The whole month, I’m on edge.  To-do lists fill every white board in our office, post-its are everywhere, orders need to be placed, deadlines need to be met, leaders need to be trained, events need to be promoted, decisions need to be decided, broken things need to be fixed, and somebody needs go to Cost-co.

If you're in college ministry you get it.  It's like we have an internal Paul Revere yelling, "The students are coming, the students are coming!" And if we're not careful that voice will make everything feel urgent and we will miss what the students need most from us.  

So, as risky as it may be, I’d like to add to your plate of needs.  Because there’s a call whispering in the chaos.  A voice reminding us why and who… a voice not anxious or stressed, not worried or hurried, and we need to hear what He has to say. 

New churches don't have grand openings. They don't commence, kick off, or inagurate. They don't get underway, begin going, or embark. New churches launch.

Somewhere, someone—who’d probably started a few churches—thought the word to describe what happens in a new church should be more aggressive than what happens at a furniture store.  Someone thought - let’s compare this thing to a rocket being sent into orbit.  Liftoff is magical; it’s explosive and the trail of smoke left behind makes onlookers celebrate.  Launches are dangerous.  People are watching.  Lives are at stake. 

I grew up in a world of either/or choices. You could either like the Dallas Cowboys or the Houston Oilers, the Longhorns or the Aggies, Dr. Pepper or Coke, but you could not like both. You could like Mexican food, or you could move from Texas to somewhere far far away.  

In the church world it wasn’t much different.  It seemed you had to make a choice: You could be traditional or you could be contemporary. You could use screens or use hymnals. You could preach sermon series or you could preach books of the bible verse by verse. You could have pews or chairs, jeans or slacks, ties or tee shirts.