"Mawwage....Mawwage is wah bwings us heere todayyy."

So Hannah and I finally tied the knot on March 21st and it was an ABSOLUTE blast! My wife is the most beautiful bride in the whole wide world and I couldn't help but tear up when I FINALLY saw her walking down the aisle! She just seemed to float as she got closer and closer. It was a great day and I not only got to kiss her once but twice! It was great! I couldn't help escape thinking that this is how it will be when we get to heaven. We will fully become the "bride of Christ!" What a GREAT thought! Being totally consumed by our Savior and seeing Him face to face!

Love and Marriage

Well, Hannah and I are getting married in less than a week now and WE ARE SO STOKED!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes Jeff, STOKED! It's really funny because I always used to feel awkward or just feel like shutting off when someone would talk about getting married (I wasn't bitter by any means!) but over the last 4 or 5 months I've really seen how God uses marriage to show us how He loves us. I mean think about it, someone that you'd lay your life down at any moment for, to protect, to give them without receiving anything in return, to walk with you through life, to help support them and carry them when they are down, and to give when they just can't. How cool is that! Then you throw in the whole "love making" aspect of it and we all know that's only something God could have created! Even the angels in Heaven who were created for worshipping God don't even get to do that! MAN I CAN'T WAIT! There is also one other aspect of marriage too. It is a duty of worship. Think about this, we choose our mate (meaning that we freely choose and are lead to our mate by grace) and once we say "I DO" it is set for life. We are making a choice for the rest of our lives to wake up next to that person no matter how HOT or how not so Hot they look (on certain mornings without the make up and...well you get it). It becomes our duty because we made that choice to say those vows everyday....even when we don't feel like it we must choose to love that person even when the world says to walk away. We are not perfect but that is where Jesus' blood comes in to play. He died to cover our imperfections not just so that we could spend eternity with Him but so that we could help our spouse, our friend, our LIFE PARTNER for the rest of our lives! How ROCKIN' is that!!!! We get to help someone but in turn we get to be helped by that same person we are helping! This all just came to make sense for me so sorry for ranting but just had to share it! Hope all of you have a great week and say a prayer for Hannah and I as we get married next Saturday! Pray that she will be able to tolerate my stupidity mostly! Take care and God bless!

Tough Decisions

I attended Catalyst Oneday at North Point Community Church this past Thursday and learned a HUGE lesson. I learned that as leaders we are faced with the undaunting task of making hard and tough decisions all the time. To quote George H.W. Bush "The buck stops here!" What this means is that responsiblity ultimately comes back to those in charge. It doesn't mean that the leaders turn into "dictators" or "czars" by any means. It just means that when something goes wrong it usually points back to the person in charge. When things go right it also points back to those in charge. This may seem like a very "duh, I can't believe you didn't know that already" lesson but I think it applies hugely to a worship aspect too. While Andy Stanley was speaking about this I kept thinking to myself that not only am I responsible for leading myself to a place of worship but also I play a big part in those that are on stage leading worship with me and leading them to a place of worship that day also. Talk about PRESSURE!!!!!!!! But then I realized that it's not me but it's just like playing in front of people. We as leaders don't lead people to a place of worship but rather God leads thru us and leads people to a place of worship. To put it plainly, the next time you are feeling pressure about not getting your congregation to a place of worship, I challenge you to take a step back and pray that you would just get out of the way and let God work thru you.

Keep on keepin' on...

One thing I find is that the one thing I love sometimes gets tiresome and starts to seem routine. This is something that I've been wanting to blog about but have been trying to put the words together. Worship is something that has always been there. It has always and will always be the connection that we have between ourselves and God. It is defined as "a two way conversation between us and our heavenly Father." All of this excites me, however, there are times where I just don't feel like doing it. Now I know what you're thinking. You're probobly thinking "Brien, if it is something that you desire you should be excited all of the time right?" This is a very true thought. Worship cannot be explained or should I say the level and depth of what I feel when I sing my heart to God cannot be explained. There is nothing better in this life than singing with everything I am created with and directing all of it towards my Father in heaven. The second part of this means that I am human subject to human emotions and the human nature of being "worn slap out." When we do something over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again it loses it's freshness. This is why we see not only worship leaders but some of our church leaders lose their tenacity or their "edge." I heard a co-worker the other day use the title of this blog. We were talking about our job duties and how we feel sometimes that in order to keep from becoming a "wimp" we do things that keep us on our toes so that we stay sharp. The same goes for us a Christians. We need to find ways to stay on our toes and do things that are out of our "comfort zones" so that we don't lose the fire that is inside of us. We all will get stuck in ruts but we must allow ourselves to allow God to pull us out of them. There are days we won't feel like worshipping but if we look for opportunities and take advantage of new ways to find Jesus we can rest assured that He will pull us out of those ruts. I hope each of you has an incredible week. Praying hard for you!

Willing Worship

I noticed something today as we were worshipping.  First off, the past 2 weeks have been somewhat stressful for me.  I've been helping my fiance plan our wedding and handle some of the details so my thought process has been somewhat slow, but the past 2 Sundays as we (the band) were preparing I realized that though I didn't feel like giving everything in practice I could literally feel God drawing me into his presence and grace.  I remember being distracted by other things besides the sound of the music and how to arrange all of it and then God dropped a thought that I remember hearing when I was a child.  He reminded me that "I'm the one that draws you to me.  All that you can do is just be willing to be drawn.  I love you."  How INCREDIBLE is that!  God is so much bigger than anything we could ever think and He knows each of us so intimately that He can speak that into us!  

Welcome

Hi and welcome to my blog.  My name is Brien and I am a worship leader at Discover Point Church in Conyers, GA.  Since this is my first blog I thought I'd start off by giving some background info of myself.  I became a Christ-follower at the age of 8 and have been "running" this race after Jesus since.  I felt called into leading worship around my junior year of college when I began getting opportunities to lead worship at BSU and other campus ministries and so on after college.  God brought me to Discover Point in 2005 and I have been leading there since it's inception.  I will be updating and "blogging" frequentley so be sure and check back.  Thanks and grace to you all!