Writing my own worship music is hard! I've been caught in a rut, where I'll take ideas from other worship songs and weave them into mine, but it starts to change the message of my song.
So, to start out I want to explain that currently I am in the process of writing 2 original worship songs, one of them is a Christmas Worship Song that I want to reveal to you guys around Christmas song, the next is a song I've been working on for the number of weeks that has a tentative title "Whole." That's the song I want to talk to you guys about right now is the song Whole.
Already on this Blog I've explained the situation that I was put into by my now ex-girlfriend. Well shortly after that God started to really speak to me, and speak words of wisdom and teaching to me, that I can't even begin to explain. God started to teach me and revealed to me so much about who he is and his identity, that I started to feel whole again. One Piece.
Jesus at that point was the only person I needed in my life at that particular time. My motivation for what God was teaching me throughout what I was going through was my motivation to write this worship song straight from the heart. This song talks about the fullness, and how complete you should feel in God's presence alone. Sometimes you can be alone, but God is right there to protect who you are, and make you feel at peace, and whole again. In Colossians 2:10 it says "So you also are complete through your union in Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority."
There is nothing that should be holding that completeness that God holds. In him alone we are made stronger no matter what obstacle we may be facing. In the next upcoming weeks I really want to share with you guys this song and release it on YouTube, and start a YouTube channel dedicated to Worship music covers and original songs that I write. I will also upload them to this blog for you guys to check out!
Thursday, October 20, 2016
Monday, October 3, 2016
The Worship Pedal Board
Holy Moly. The Worship Pedal Board has come such a long way from when I first started it earlier this year. I'm honestly in total shock how blessed I am to have the materials I have to make joyful music to my Jesus. I started late last year in like November, starting to collect pedals to assemble a Pedal Board. The task was not easy. I was using a POD HD300, that just came with presets and stuff. The run would end with the POD however when for whatever reason during a worship rehearsal, it stopped working.
I was really scared, because I didn't want to use my pedal board that I had been building because I was scared that my tone wouldn't be as crisp as it was before. And honestly, since I was forced to use it, it sounded terrible at first. Some of the pedals I was using at the time however, just wouldn't do me justice. I wanted to find a way to make my tone....mine. I realized that what I have been given was an opportunity. An opportunity to make the most out of the supplies I had been given. I kept on upgrading the board to my liking. It was very difficult because no one had explained to me before what anything was. What is reverb, what is delay, what is overdrive. What are good pedals to look at for Worship leading. No one ever taught me what any of that stuff meant. So through YouTube tutorials and such, I learned and grew my knowledge of what a worship pedal board should be.
It was very interesting because not only was working on the pedal board, and upgrading all my gear expensive, but it felt like it took forever to get stuff. I had just recently gotten a Timeline Delay pedal, which I upgraded from my TimeSpace Echo Delay (I do not recommend that pedal for worship leaders). It was hard to get use to using new pedals, and such. I absolutely love leading worship and the board has helped me worship Jesus with all I've got.
I really have felt Jesus use me for the past 6 months when I was making the board. I want to give people the best worship experience ever, while also worshiping Jesus myself through what I've been given. It's amazing to see how God has blessed me and will continue to bless me as a guitarist for my church.
I was really scared, because I didn't want to use my pedal board that I had been building because I was scared that my tone wouldn't be as crisp as it was before. And honestly, since I was forced to use it, it sounded terrible at first. Some of the pedals I was using at the time however, just wouldn't do me justice. I wanted to find a way to make my tone....mine. I realized that what I have been given was an opportunity. An opportunity to make the most out of the supplies I had been given. I kept on upgrading the board to my liking. It was very difficult because no one had explained to me before what anything was. What is reverb, what is delay, what is overdrive. What are good pedals to look at for Worship leading. No one ever taught me what any of that stuff meant. So through YouTube tutorials and such, I learned and grew my knowledge of what a worship pedal board should be.
It was very interesting because not only was working on the pedal board, and upgrading all my gear expensive, but it felt like it took forever to get stuff. I had just recently gotten a Timeline Delay pedal, which I upgraded from my TimeSpace Echo Delay (I do not recommend that pedal for worship leaders). It was hard to get use to using new pedals, and such. I absolutely love leading worship and the board has helped me worship Jesus with all I've got.
I really have felt Jesus use me for the past 6 months when I was making the board. I want to give people the best worship experience ever, while also worshiping Jesus myself through what I've been given. It's amazing to see how God has blessed me and will continue to bless me as a guitarist for my church.
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
Focus On Jesus
Life is messy. Throughout this summer, I went through arguable the toughest time in my life. Literally the day I got done with school, my girlfriend at the time was acting different, and wanted nothing to do with me anymore. I didn't even know what I did. I was hurt, and lonely. A couple days later me and her officially broke up and went our separate ways. After that, I was hurt and I didn't know where to run. I acted out of emotions that I shouldn't have at that time and started messing around with other girls.
I just thought if I could find that same happiness with someone else, that I'd be happy again and that everything would be back to normal, but it wasn't. I had a lot of people tell me that I rushed into a new relationship too soon and that I should really reconsider what I was doing. But I didn't. I didn't want to listen to anyone else but me because I felt like I knew what was best for my life. That is being happy is the most important. But however the thing with God is, he doesn't want you happy, he wants you Holy.
I had just realized I wasn't living a holy life for Jesus throughout that summer. I messed up in every sense of the word. I acted out of a lot of different emotions when my then girlfriend wanted out of this relationship and that was wrong. I was so caught up in what I was doing for Jesus, that none of this made any sense to me. "Well why can't I be in another relationship?" Was often a question I asked. Well it made me lose focus of who Jesus is and what he wants to do in my life. I came to a point where I needed to make a choice. Do I continue doing what I was doing and searching for love in all the wrong places in this world? Or look to Jesus at the love and fulfillment he can show me every single day?
I chose Jesus, but not because it was the right choice. I chose Jesus because ultimately I know that there is that special person waiting for me out there that I am going to love way more than any other girl I've loved before. In some of our weakest times, Jesus is the strongest and shows us stuff through the pain and the hurt we may be going through. It's pretty incredible because every single Worship service I've experienced since coming to that realization have been incredible. I recently went to a "Night of Worship" at my church, Celebrate, and I was in tears by what God has been showing me these last couple of months. At my church, we write our own songs, and one of the songs we have written is named Rescue.
I was singing that song with all the joy in my heart, when I started weeping at how God has changed me over the course of this last month. The lines in this song that resonated with me the most were these: "All my courage is fading, My soul feels so suffocated, Your love come pull me to safety again." Along with "I know you are reading and willing, You'll turn these ashes to healing, and now you're making me like you." These lyrics demonstrated how much pain I was going in, but God ultimately had a bigger picture looking in that he wanted to show me, to make me like him.
If you're in a similar place with your walk with Jesus, I highly encourage you to focus on Jesus. I remember when Peter walked out on water to Jesus in the middle of the storm. In all honesty, it could've been completely calm, but if Peter had kept on not being focused on Jesus, he still would've sank and drowned. So just focus on Jesus.
I just thought if I could find that same happiness with someone else, that I'd be happy again and that everything would be back to normal, but it wasn't. I had a lot of people tell me that I rushed into a new relationship too soon and that I should really reconsider what I was doing. But I didn't. I didn't want to listen to anyone else but me because I felt like I knew what was best for my life. That is being happy is the most important. But however the thing with God is, he doesn't want you happy, he wants you Holy.
I had just realized I wasn't living a holy life for Jesus throughout that summer. I messed up in every sense of the word. I acted out of a lot of different emotions when my then girlfriend wanted out of this relationship and that was wrong. I was so caught up in what I was doing for Jesus, that none of this made any sense to me. "Well why can't I be in another relationship?" Was often a question I asked. Well it made me lose focus of who Jesus is and what he wants to do in my life. I came to a point where I needed to make a choice. Do I continue doing what I was doing and searching for love in all the wrong places in this world? Or look to Jesus at the love and fulfillment he can show me every single day?
I chose Jesus, but not because it was the right choice. I chose Jesus because ultimately I know that there is that special person waiting for me out there that I am going to love way more than any other girl I've loved before. In some of our weakest times, Jesus is the strongest and shows us stuff through the pain and the hurt we may be going through. It's pretty incredible because every single Worship service I've experienced since coming to that realization have been incredible. I recently went to a "Night of Worship" at my church, Celebrate, and I was in tears by what God has been showing me these last couple of months. At my church, we write our own songs, and one of the songs we have written is named Rescue.
I was singing that song with all the joy in my heart, when I started weeping at how God has changed me over the course of this last month. The lines in this song that resonated with me the most were these: "All my courage is fading, My soul feels so suffocated, Your love come pull me to safety again." Along with "I know you are reading and willing, You'll turn these ashes to healing, and now you're making me like you." These lyrics demonstrated how much pain I was going in, but God ultimately had a bigger picture looking in that he wanted to show me, to make me like him.
If you're in a similar place with your walk with Jesus, I highly encourage you to focus on Jesus. I remember when Peter walked out on water to Jesus in the middle of the storm. In all honesty, it could've been completely calm, but if Peter had kept on not being focused on Jesus, he still would've sank and drowned. So just focus on Jesus.
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