How God Has Prepared Me for Ministry
I'm grateful for my years at Multnomah Bible College, but am keenly aware that two decades of elder meetings did far more to equip me for the reality of ministry. Similarly, I've undergone two years of intense formal guitar study under recording artist Paul Chasman, but a thousand praise gatherings have taught me far more about leading worship.
I now know firsthand that God can grow a sleepy country church of 60 nice folks into a vibrant force of 500 worshipers. I've seen His power transform druggies into disciples and heal cancer.
I treasure my on-the-job training. Ministry itself has offered on-going, grueling courses like conflict management, vision casting, church discipline and dozens of other necessary subjects. In the work of shepherding, I've come to understand the importance of equipping and releasing people for ministry.
Above all, through hand-on ministry God has convinced me of the primacy of genuine worship. John Piper is right: Worship is the white-hot fuel that drives everything else Christians - individually or corporately - can be or do.
Both locally and globally, God has placed before me open doors. I've spent hundreds of hours interviewing some of the finest authors, composers and worship leaders in the world. These have included Piper, Andrae Crouch, Twila Paris, Chris Tomlin and many others; such interviews have taken on a life of their own. From 1996 to 2001, my work was featured in every issue of Worship Leader Magazine. I've co-hosted CompuServe's Worship Forum and written for Cornerstone and CCM Magazines. These many experiences grew into two books for Kregal Publishing, at their request. Our God Reigns arrived in Christian bookstores in 2000 and Celebrate Jesus was published the summer of 2003. My current articles can be found at Integrity Music's website and at Crosswalk.com.
God has allowed me to travel, teach worship seminars, and be interviewed by more radio stations than I can keep track of. I've taught music at two Christian Schools and was an adjunct instructor at our local community college until I moved to Iowa.
I'm a bit uncomfortable documenting these things, lest I appear to be blowing my own horn - I want my life to be about blowing Jesus' horn!
I write this though, because I've been asked how God has prepared me for formal ministry; He has done so in generous but unconventional ways. God's people seem to have agreed: in 1995, I was ordained by the Chapel of the Hills Community Church. In 2000, I was commissioned as a Worship Development Missionary by American Missionary Fellowship. In 2006 I received my Certificate of Christian Ministry from the Evangelical Free Church of America.
I desire - ultimately - to be prepared for the next season of God's calling, a season in which I hope to help equip and release young worship leaders for the future. I also have a heart to see struggling churches improve the effectiveness of their worship ministries.
