The Holy Spirit led me to this verse last August as I was praying for our worship family and ministry. Originally, I was drawn to verses 19 and 20. It seemed a good thing for us to focus on, given the past two years – singing and giving thanks. So we committed ourselves to that. During this time, I was aware that my friend and our Worship Pastor, Dallas Lundell, was seeking the Lord for his future, and with great sadness we said goodbye in October of last year. Fortunately, Dallas, Kathy and family stayed in the area so we are able to connect from time to time, but we miss them very much as leaders of our worship family.
I stepped into a new role, Ashley Lehman added some hours to her week and we rallied the team together to pray and talk about what this new season would look like. We determined where our time and energy was best spent, started talking with Jordan Polson about the kind of person we wanted to fill the Worship Pastor role and set off in what we originally thought would be a season of survival. Not long into it, however, we clearly sensed this could actually be a season of assessment and growth. A season of pressing in to discover what God wants for us as a worship family and as a church family. During this time, verses 17 and 18 of the above passage joined verses 19 and 20 in our thinking, especially “be filled with the Spirit” and we began to pray into it. Derek Prince says, “The Holy Spirit is often the most ignored person in the church” and I would tend to agree with him.
We started thinking about this as a worship family. We looked for new songs like Rest On Us and Fresh Wind that we could sing together that would help us understand and hopefully experience the Holy Spirit. We planned some monthly nights of worship where we could spend an extended amount of time together lifting the name of Jesus and waiting on the Holy Spirit to minister to us and help us learn how we minister to each other in His presence and power. Some of our worship family chose to participate in the Deeper course that Hannah Dissen and Olga Chintea started teaching around the gift of prophecy and how God speaks to us by His Spirit. We have prayed continually that the Holy Spirit would have His way in our Sunday services as we worship together, study scripture together and pray together. We want to learn how to host God’s presence well.
As a worship family, we continue to focus on five important elements:
• Worship and Prayer
• Mentorship
• Skill Development
• New Music
• Service
We want to continue to do these things well, but we also feel this is a season to discover and experience a fresh wind of the Holy Spirit’s leading and power in each area. Starting last summer, some of our Junior High Students began meeting regularly with us to grow as musicians, singers and worship leaders. We have had many of them serve alongside us on Sundays since then and we are leading worship once a month at Junior High Youth. Recently, three of our Senior High students have started meeting and leading worship at Senior High Youth as well.
I am so grateful for those I have the privilege to serve with here at CrossRoads in the Worship Ministry. So many amazing people give countless hours operating cameras, running ProPresenter, sound and lights, singing and playing instruments. Ashley Lehman is a gifted, hardworking and Spirit-filled woman of God. Leanne Walker is new to our team and although her role took some time to define, she has jumped in with great passion and energy. Wally Hildebrandt and Eric Halchik lead our tech teams with skill and care. I love working with our Service Planning Team, made up of William Knelson, Wally Hildebrandt, Ashley Lehman, Leanne Walker, myself and others from time to time who are involved in Sunday Service planning.
Over the past year, some have had to step down from our Worship ministry because of life commitments or sensing God leading them to other areas of ministry or other fellowships. Some have returned as well and some new people have joined us. Again, those of us who are privileged to work at CrossRoads feel so blessed by God and by those of our fellowship we get to serve with each week.
Thank you to those in our fellowship who encourage us often, and thank you to those who ask good questions and challenge us from time to time. It is always important that we stay humble and have servant hearts in what we do, both towards Jesus and each other.
So in conclusion, I will direct you back to the passage of scripture from Ephesians 5. Let’s be a people who continue to sing together, who continue to be grateful and who continue to recognize that the Holy Spirit is, as Derek Prince would say, “The personal representative of the Godhead here on earth.” So now verses 15 and 16 deserve some attention, not to the exclusion of the others but in addition to them. Let’s be a people who seek God’s wisdom – not our interpretation of His wisdom and certainly not the wisdom of the world. I think we would all agree that we live in “evil days” so let’s commit to each other that as a grateful people led by the Holy Spirit together, we will “make the most of every opportunity.”
Blessings,
Dave Grobe
daveg@crossroadschurch.ca
