Rehearsal tonight and Nat'l Day of Prayer...

Ahh, Tuesday night is rehearsal night.. we need to work up some new tunes. should be good!

Also, Thursday is National Day of Prayer... everyone should find a place to pray. Tons of local churches and other facilities is taking part.

God tells us in the Bible to ask and it shall be given. Well, we need to remember that even tho we ask for stuff, God is still in control and knows what is best for us. Our prayers and petitions need to line up with his will and plan for him to grant it. And sometimes, He does answer our prayer, but not in the way we want or even thos we can immediately see it. God wants to bless His people and wants only the best for us, but sometimes what we think is best for us, is not always the best. We still need to ask and bring things to the Lord in prayer. He hears us. Jesus prayed to His Father, and we are told to follow Jesus example in all things. He even taught us how to prayer to the Father, known as the Lord's Prayer. When we pray, we are communicating with God, our Father. Think about talking to our dad here on Earth.

kid - "Hey Dad, can I borrow the car"

dad - "ahhh, no"

kid - "come on, please"

dad - "ahh, no"

and on and on.. who know how this will end. Maybe dad will say "sure, have fun" or he will say, "no, you're an idiot and you can't handle it"

The same with God our Father. He knows what is always best for us, He has lessons for us to learn, He says yes, He says no, He will always take care of us and help us every way He can, but He still wants to hear our side and He still desires communication with His children..

So, get out there and pray!!!! Thursday May 1st..

God bless

Tony

Worshipping in Spirit...

Well, another Sunday service come and gone. It was a weird one for me for the 1st 2 and a half songs. Here is the setlist:

I Walk By Faith

Better is One Day

Here I Am to Worship

Lord I Lift Your Name on High

Wonder of Your Cross

and Heart of Worship for the altar call.

Why was it weird? Who knows? Maybe it was just me. But while I was in the middle of the third song, I started praying HARD!! Holy Spirit, give me a kick in the butt. I have learned in the past, that I am responsible for only one person worshipping and that is me. We play the songs to create an atmospehere where people can feel free to worship God. It is a one on one experience. I can't make you worship God. It is your choice. So, I realized, I need to start worshipping God myself and not worry if the people in the seats were worshipping. At that point, worship for me became a very encouraging and uplifting experience.

So, lets take a minute and talk about worshipping in Spirit. Some of you may have heard the term from the Bible, Worship in Spirit and in Truth and that is what will please God. Lets take just the worship in Spirit part today. To worship in Spirit means to worship under God's control. To let the Spirit of God take control of your worship. The old Let Go and Let God. Are we doing that? I spoke the other day about boxing in God. Are we choosing how we are to worship God, well, guess what, the ways we want to worship God might be completely unacceptable to Him. God told us in the Bible how we are to worship Him, singing , dancing, clapping, raising our Holy hands, kneeling, bowing, playing musical instruments, making a joyful noise. Then the Holy Spirit helps us to do these things during our corporate worship time. You need to be asking teh Holy Spirit during times of worship to help you and to guide you. And He will. God is looking for obedience. He wants us to obey Him. That please God. He told us what he expects from worship and we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit to do those things. They can be uncomfortable and embarassing. Just raising your hands in the middle of singing a song doesn't make any sense. But when we read the Bible and it states its a sign of obedience and it is an outpouring from your heart. If your heart is right with God , you will want to do what he says to do. Lets take an example and look into it.

so, raising hands.. we have all seen this on infomercials for Christian cds, on the INSP channel on TV, hopefully we have seen people do it at our churches... so, why do we do it and what does it mean.. It actually should mean something. Doing something that doesn't mean anything is foolish. so, i found this cool article on why raise your hands.. here is some of what it says about raising your hands during worship and what it means...

1. RECEIVE. (Two-handed; hands raised, palms facing inward). This is the posture your Charismatic friends probably preferred—a posture of receiving—“God, respond to me, touch me, give me, speak to me, fill me.” It is a posture for receiving from God a touch, a work of grace, or a gift.

2. STAND-IN-AWE. (Two-handed hands raised, palms facing outward). The same as the receive posture only with palms reversed—facing outward. It is an ancient custom still practiced in other religions and cultures. The worshipper falls to his or her knees, raises hands with palms facing outward, then bows down forward before the god or king.

3. SURRENDER. (Same as above—two handed hands raised, palms facing outward). Though this posture is the exact posture of the stand-in-awe gesture, holiness camp meeting folk used it for a different reason. The almost-universal expression of surrender is either a white flag or this one: hands raised with palms facing outward. “I give up.”

4. TESTIMONY. (One hand raised, palm facing outward). The culture uses this posture when we “swear in” a witness (i.e. “I swear to tell the whole truth, nothing but the truth…”). The church has used it as a testimony-witness posture. To raise one hand during singing a song says, “I agree” or, “I testify this is true in my life.” In a sense this quiet hand raising is a non-verbal “amen.”

5. COMMITMENT/VOLUNTEER. (Same as above—one hand raised, palm facing outward). The second use of the single hand posture in our culture is “I volunteer” or, “I will.” It is a posture of commitment or volunteering. It emphasizes willingness to do whatever God requires.

so, next Sunday.. give it a try. pray for the Holy Spirit to fill you as you start singing and really focus on God and who He is.. Lord of lords, King of kings.. and see if the Holy Spirit prompts you to raise up those hands to receive from the Lord, to surrender to Him, standing in awe to His greatness, agreeing with the lyrics, with a non verbal amen or committing/recommitting your life to the name of Jesus.


ramblin ramblin ramblin...
Be well and God Bless
Tony

are you putting God in a box...

so, i was praying this morning and i got this bizarre image that sometimes our church and people in general put God in a box. We all want God to do awesome things, but we put restrictions on Him. God, heal me, bless me, do amazing things in my life, but don't make me give money to church or raise my hands in worship (oh no, not that!!!!) or talk to my neighbor and say good morning. How is God supposed to do amazing things when you are telling Him how a Christian should be and what a Christian should do. ahh, He wrote the book on it, i think.. hahahaha. So, I started thinking about all the amazing but pretty wild and crazy things God did in the bible. Telling Peter to step out of a boat onto a lake.. ahhh, would you do that? Moses led the chosen people right to the edge of the Red Sea and parted it.. right down the middle. Joshua marched around Jericho and on the seventh day, the city walls fell. There are so many.. So, Peter, Moses, Joshua.. did they put God in a box? Did they think God was crazy? Did Joshua tell God that marching around a wall for seven days blowing a trumpet was just insane and how in the heck would teh city walls crumble by doing that. They all had faith in what God said. When Peter's faith started wavering walking oin the water, he started to sink. When we put God in a nice neat little box, we also can start to sink. For us to receive all of God's power and blessings, we need to let him out of the box and we need to get out of the boat, letting go of ourselves and letting God do His thing.. Let Go and Let God.

Well, what is this box made out of. This box can be made out of many things.

Pride, selfishness, fear, lukewarmness towards God, and especially the things of this world: greed, lies, deceit, hate, old bad habits you don't want to stop doing...in general, SIN.

This world is ruled by Satan. The Bible says so. Just look around. Most world views go against God and his Bible. even small things like no prayer allowed in school, removing any reference to God in governing documents. Hey, this country was founded by Christians. So, who are you going to let run your life, the devil and this world here or God, the one who wants only the best for you. He wants to bless all of us. In Revelation, we can read that God wins. Its a done deal. Satan loses and him and all him buddies get cast into the eternal fire. ahhh, so which team do you want to be on.. the winning team or the team that gets thrown into the lake of fire forever. ahhh, I know my choice.

Let God out of the box. Let His Spirit flow. The best way to open this box and rip it down is thru reading the Bible and praying. The Bible is a gift from God.. His Holy Word. The more we read it and pray on the things we read, the more we can see how we can get God out of that box. How He wants to be involved in our life and how we are supposed to live. God tells us all about marriage, work, families, relationships, church, worship.. all these things. Find out what God says and get Him out of that box. Do not stifle Him. Do not hold Him back. Let God rule every part of your life and see the blessings and growth that can come.

wow, that is a ramble..

peace and be well

In Him

my rig...

Well, for all you guitar geeks, i thought i would post my guitar rig i now use on Sunday mornings.

I use an Ibanez Artcore AF75 hollowbody electric running into a Pocket POD into a Danelectro Fish and Chip Equalizer pedal into the A input on my A/B switch then into a direct box. For quieter songs such as the altar call, I use a Martin DXME Acoustic-Electric into the B channel of the A/B switch then into the direct box. I have really fallen in love with my new Ibanez. The feel and response by it has been exactly what i always wanted from an eletric. The Pocket POD is such a great toy as well and replaces the need for an amp on the altar. I use the Plexi 45 patch. Nice clean patch. Good stuff. I use DR Tote Fit 10's on the Ibanez. I use D'AQUISTO Tony Rice signature strings on the Martin. They are 13 gauge. For picks, i use a heavy Dunlop pick for electric songs and a DAWG pick for acoustic stuff with the Martin. I could talk guitars all day. But now i need to get to it..

We have rehearsal tonight, so I need to pray and get the music together.

The sun is shining, Spring is in the air, nature is blooming. Its a new day... a day to thank God for all the wonderful things He created for us to enjoy. Its a new day...maybe its a day that you recommit your life to Jesus or maybe its a day that you finally accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior.. God bless you all!

In His service

Tony

testing out video...

Just a quick post to test out video here.. When I am not playing music with the worship team, I am in a Christian/Celtic band with my brother, The Brothers of Through. Here is a video of us in his kitchen. I am the good looking one on the right with the banjo.. he's the other guy. hahahaha.

Sunday Service (April 20) and stuff...

Yesterdays service was amazing. I thought the music was fun to play and I hope the people in the seats were able to enter into a personal time of worship. Our setlist was

Praise Adonai

Shout to the North

By My Spirit

Let the River Flow

Trading my Sorrows

and for the altar call we played

Refiner's Fire

The most amazing and special thing about yesterday was that a good friend of mine that I invited on Easter came back to church yesterday. We didn't have a huge crowd yesterday, but seeing him walk thru the door was just so awesome.

My pastor preached on the Holy Spirit and it was just an awesome message. So, church was just great. After church, we went and played tennis with some people from church. Good times there since we are all not very good. Watching my 210 lbs rumble around a tennis court must be a site to behold. Then since we all did our physical activity for the day, we all decided on ice cream.. makes sense. The 2 lbs i lost by sweating all over the courts were gained back by way of my chocolate peanut butter cone with jimmies! win some and lose some. hahahaha. Then we went over the youth pastors house where we watched a movie with him and his wife.. All in all a great day. Now back to work geeking on the computer. Its Boston Marathon day here. So traffic was light on my commute. May God protect all the runners and keep them safe.

Celtics won

Red Sox won

Bruins are heading into game 7 tonight to advance..

man.. Life is good!

Life is good!

Life is God!

Peace

Tony

worship... ok, lets talk some worship...

Howdy all...

Worship.. I am a worship leader, so I think I should talk a little about Worship. When you hear people talking about worship or worship and praise, most think of the music at a charasmatic church. That is part of it. First off, worship is thanking God for what He has done, is doing and is going to do. Praise is thanking God for who He is, Lord of Lords, King of Kings. That there are the very basic definitions I could come up with at 7 am. We can worship and praise God in many ways. The Bible speaks of singing, dancing, raising our hands, clapping, kneeling, bowing, waving banners or flags, playing instruments and MAKING THE JOYFUL NOISE. That is where I come in. I am the leader of the NOISE!

here are some defintions of noise from the dictionary...

Noise - sound, esp. of a loud, harsh, or confused kind, loud shouting, outcry, a nonharmonious or discordant group of sounds.

well, lets look at the original Greek word for noise...

echeo - to make a loud noise, i.e. reverberate:--roar, sound.

echos - a loud or confused noise ("echo"), i.e. roar

I am supposed to be helping people make a joyful noise on Sunday morning, a loud, nonharmonious roar. That is encouraging. God doesn't care if we have the best voices. We don't have to have perfect pitch, Its not a performance or concert. God is listening to our hearts and where those noises are coming from. We are just called to be obedient and do as the Bible says. We don't have to be the best singer, we are just called to sing and participate in corporate worship time. God created all of us and knows what each one of us is capable of doing. He is pleased when we are obedient and just does what he says. He is not looking for the next American Idol, He is looking for the next heart that is trying their best to follow the words of the Bible and do what it says. God is pleased by obedience to His word, the Bible. Do we go to church to make God angry.. ahh, hope not. We were created to please God.

So, find a church with some worship music you can relate to and that you feel connected to so you can participate. Its not supposed to be weird and uncomfortable. There are many churches that offer all different kinds of worship music, from hymns to rockin' worship. I like to mix old with the new, since we have people from teenagers to 80 year olds in our Sunday morning worship time. I want everyone to feel connected and free to get involved and sing and dance and raise their hands and play their tambourines and shakers and just MAKE THE JOYFUL NOISE.

God invented music. It is meant to be given back to Him! Amen!

Psalm 100:1 Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands

Psalm 66:1-2, 4 1Make a joyful noise unto God, all ye lands 2Sing forth the honour of his name, make his praise glorious. 4All the earth shall worship thee, and shall sing unto thee; they shall sing to thy name.

Till I ramble again

In Him

Tony

An Outlet...

Howdy all. I am creating this blog as a new outlet for my ideas and thoughts. You can read along of just ignore them as the ramblings of a worship leader...

Just a real quick note about me.. My name is Tony and I am a worship leader at Calvary Assemblies of God in Dudley, MA. I have a wonderful wife and 2 fantastic girls. I also do my computer geek thing for my 9 to 5 job. All in all, just a regular guy who loves music and loves to use his musical gifts to glorify God. Next time, we will get into some good old ramblings...

God bless!

In His service

Tony