The Art Of Conversation
I slept so well last night. Long and deep, dreaming but not unwelcomingly so. These fears have been put aside, at least for the moment and I’m relieved. Well.. momentarily. Just for a second. So far we can write together and play together. Maybe we can get back on this horse after all.

Getting Back On The Horse
This website is great. Eventually I think it will get added to the sidebar. That’s a thrill. Also the conversation here about emerging church and women has been a good one. I’m still figuring out how to embrace the energy of the emerging without having to take hold of the ‘us’ and them’. There is enough work to do with a transitioning community, without having to deal with the separation issues.

Speaking of ‘us’ and ‘them’ issues however, recently there has been a round of rigourous feedback between music teams at church. I’ve never quite encountered the type of leadership that exists here before. Young adults have been raised in some very dominant leadership patterns, with clear ideology. Needless to say, I struggle with some of the ideology that the music team culture has grown out it. It’s a long slow road to change anything.. but recent feedback has included inferences along the following lines..

1. slow down, it’s not fair of you to go steaming ahead if we can’t keep up
2. you guys are early adopters, that’s unusual, we’re not, stop it
3. you are doing too many new songs, too many different elements

In Response, With Love
We are not exceptional, but we love excellence. We love the wholeheartedness with which we are worshipping, leading and playing. We love each other and the community we have in our team. We love what we can achieve together, as high up and far out as those goals sometimes are. We accept our humanity, our foolishness, our over-enthusiasm, our failures, our mistakes, our triumphs and our differences from each other, & you. We have no intention of slowing down what God is doing in us, and through us. It’s too exciting to consider even for a moment, what would happen if we put down our instruments. Please reconsider, with new eyes, what it means for our community to experience all the freshness and newness that we are. Our hearts, minds and lives are expanding. Please don’t pull apart everything that we might do better, for we are designed to spur each other on towards the goals, towards the end of the race. Instead, use your voice to encourage and enhance what we are doing, as we will seek to do for you. This ought not to become ‘us’ and ‘them’, ‘you’ versus ‘I’, but rather we ought to run the race ‘we together’. We may not always run side by side.. but we are running the same race.

We are considering this as fodder for a new Worship team mission statement.