About Me
- Joe Garrison
- Fishers, IN, United States
Director of Contemporary Worship and Assistant Director of Student Ministries at Castleton United Methodist Church in Indianapols, IN. Husband,Guitarist,and Drummer
Showing posts with label Renovate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Renovate. Show all posts
Saturday, April 9, 2011
One of those days...
It's been one of those days already. We all have them. Those days where we wake up not feeling like ourself, like we don't want to get out of bed, bummed out for no apparent reason. Today has been one of those days.I woke up way late this morning. I either slept through my alarm or didn't set it right in the first place. I missed a youth fundraiser that I really should have been at. I immediately woke up feeling bummed out and guilty for missing the fundraiser breakfast. I had breakfast and watched some TV for a bit. The whole time I'm watching TV I, for some reason, kept talking myself into feeling worse.
I turned off the TV and decided to open up the Bible. Tonight Matt is preaching on 1 Corinthians 1:17-30 at Renovate, our contemporary worship service. I thought I'd get ahead and just read the beginning of 1 Corinthians. An hour later I had finished all 16 chapters of the book.
In Ephesians 6:17, Paul says that the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. In those times when we're feeling attacked internally, when satan is telling us we aren't good enough, bringing on excessive guilt, making us second guess and doubt ourselves, God gives us His Word as a sword to fight back.
Earlier, I kind of just felt like staying home all day. My wife is flying back from Texas today, it's raining buckets outside, it's a great day to just stay inside. Instead, after spending some time in Scripture and prayer I actually can't wait to get to church and lead worship tonight. I am looking forward to what God plans to do through our little worship service tonight!
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, and equipped for every good work. ~2 Timothy 3:16
Scripture to me is alive, it meets each of us exactly where we are and corrects us, trains us and focusses us on what is truly important. Whether we're having the best day ever, the worst day, or something in between.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
What Makes a Good Worship Service? - Part II
Right now my Young Adult Discussion Group is reading through "Messy Spirituality" by Mike Yaconelli. This week we are on chapter 5, "Odd Discipleship."
Mike is talking in a part of this chapter about the church he pastors and how it is an odd group of people and how their service is "growing".
Maybe what makes a good worship service are those oddities, blunders, awkward moments. Maybe it's as few as ten or fifteen weirdos coming together as the Body of Christ and worshiping together and enjoying fellowship with each other.
As we continue Renovate, our Saturday evening contemporary service, my thought on what makes a good worship service is changed and molded weekly. It is so easy for me to worry about the quality of the band, the sermon, the numbers in attendance...when really all that matters is that a few people that might not attend a church anywhere else are coming together and interacting with Jesus in some way, even if just for a few minutes.
Mike is talking in a part of this chapter about the church he pastors and how it is an odd group of people and how their service is "growing".
"I pastor the slowest growing church in America. We started twelve years ago with ninety members and have ungrown to thirty. We are about as far as you can get from a user-friendly church--not because our congregation is unfriendly but because our services are unpredictable, unpolished, and inconsistent. We are an "odd friendly" church, attracting unique and different followers of Christ who make every service a surprise."We often try to justify what makes a good service by the quality of the "product" we produce, the quality of the music/sermon, the number of people in attendance, the amount (or lack) of awkward moments, blunders and other oddities.
Maybe what makes a good worship service are those oddities, blunders, awkward moments. Maybe it's as few as ten or fifteen weirdos coming together as the Body of Christ and worshiping together and enjoying fellowship with each other.
As we continue Renovate, our Saturday evening contemporary service, my thought on what makes a good worship service is changed and molded weekly. It is so easy for me to worry about the quality of the band, the sermon, the numbers in attendance...when really all that matters is that a few people that might not attend a church anywhere else are coming together and interacting with Jesus in some way, even if just for a few minutes.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
One Crazy Month
I am now one month into my new job at Castleton UMC. It's been a fun and crazy month. Here's what's been going on for those of you that care.
Student Ministries:
The first few weeks of things on the Student Ministries side of my job were pretty low key. The majority of things involved just getting the fall semester planned with Steph and working on the high school Bible study of Proverbs, which we are covering throughout the entire fall semester.
This week we finally began some programming for the students. Wednesday we began "WISE UP! Study of Proverbs" for our student side of Castleton Midweek Connection. I am leading the high school students in a study of Proverbs. Saturday we hit up RENOVATE our Saturday Evening Contemporary Service and then went over to Pinheads in Fishers, IN for some bowling with the High Schoolers.
It's felt like a busy, yet slow start. While there has been a lot to do the majority of it has seemed to be in the office and not as much with the students. That will definitely change as we dive head first into our fall programming with Bible Study, Breakfast Club, Sunday Nights along with student lunches and all the random fun that goes with Student Ministry. I'm definitely looking forward to all of it. I'm specifically looking forward to getting to know all the students and joining them on their faith journeys.
Contemporary Worship:
Things have been a lot of fun with both of our contemporary worship services. RENOVATE is taking off. The band has been playing great, Matt Lipan has done a great job settling into giving solid sermons each week.
We have run into some snags at Renovate. We had a couple of weddings to work around over the summer which hurt our consistency in worship time. Last week we lost guitarist Andrew Meadows as he moved out of state with his fiance. Soon we will be losing Matt Dilley, our current worship leader, as he got a full time job working at another local church. Those things in mind, we are still growing stronger as a service and faith community each week. Looks like we'll have our band line up locked down here soon and will be better than ever in no time!
Sunday mornings have been a lot of fun as well. We added Matt Harris on drums, a friend that graduated from Butler with Courtney. Matt Dilley has been doing a great job leading worship and the band seems to be locking better than we have in the past.
Overall, between both parts of my job, things have been very busy and a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to getting into the semester and getting a routine going and getting everything settled.
If you are someone, or you know someone, who might be interested in playing/singing in a worship team at Castleton UMC contact me at joe@castletonumc.org.
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