LIFT Worship Leader Collective

This past weekend, I attended the LIFT Worship Leader Collective at Passion City Church here in Atlanta.

It’s an event created for worship leaders and the whole thing is designed to inspire, encourage and challenge us in our calling. Plus, we experienced amazing times of worship together.

If you can imagine a room full of worship leaders worshiping together… the power of the voices and harmonies alone can leave you speechless.

A couple really cool things happened during LIFT.

#1
I got to meet and hang out with Angela Edwards, a worship leader from Jacksonville who I’ve been Twitter friends with for about two years. It was pretty awesome to finally connect in person. And even more than that… we got to worship together. Amazing.

#2
Matt Redman’s new album was recorded live and I got to be part of it! I will be one of more than 1,500 voices on his album and I have to say, while I can’t reveal any of the new material, there are some amazing songs on his new record and it’s definitely one you’ll want to pick up.

#3
God really spoke to my heart about my role as a worship leader in a small local church. I’ve always loved worship and songwriting. But somehow, in trying to build a “career” in this area, I began seeing this pursuit as something for myself, something I was working toward, something that could be measured. I was focused on trying to get worship “gigs” and entering contests and making a name for myself and in the process, began comparing myself to others and seeing only certain milestones as successful and not paying much attention to other areas God was working.

But during LIFT, I was reminded of the beautiful and important honor and responsibility I have leading worship exactly where I am. We may be a small church, we may meet in a community center gym with terrible acoustics where our only light options are “on” or “off”… but these are my people, the people God has entrusted to me. And it’s part of my calling to lead them into deeper, more powerful worship experiences and encounters with Jesus.

I left with a renewed sense of purpose and clarity to my role and also felt an intense desire to finally begin writing again. I know I need to be writing songs for our church, but I’ve been too afraid to fail. Everything I usually write is very singer/songwriter in style… and so the thought of writing the very words people will use to worship God has been incredibly intimidating. But this weekend steadied my heart and restored my confidence in the calling and gifts God has placed before me.

CT