I have one of the best jobs in the world. Leading worship at Freedom Church is one of the best opportunities that anyone can ever accept. And even better, I get to co-lead with one of the best worship leaders on the planet, Blake Goss as well as partake in one of the best worship bands, Freedom Live.

Leading worship has been something that I have been passionate about for the past few years of my life. I was only recently introduced to leading a short 2 1/2 years ago. During my junior year of high school an old student pastor of mine invited me to lead for the middle school group since the usual worship leader wasn’t going to be there. I had never sung before. I have never played a musical instrument before. I basically had never done anything that embraced the idea of leading worship.

I went in the day of, did a very rough practice with the band and took the stage. Ever since then, leading worship has been an unbelievable passion that I have. Looking back on the day, I will never forget the opportunity that Andrew Graham, the student pastor at the time, gave me. Since then, I have begun to “evolve” as a musician but still have a LONG way to go.

A few years later, during my freshman year of college, Pastor JR Lee and Todd Lollis invited me to lunch to tell me about Freedom Church. I grabbed lunch, ended up visiting the church, and got a random phone call from Blake one day asking me if I could play acoustic guitar since their usual guy wasn’t going to be there. Ever since then I have been able to co-lead with Blake every Sunday.

I love and have embraced this aspect of worship and service to God. It is an amazing privilege to lead at Freedom Church and experience what God is doing in and throughout the church.

Blake and myself get an excellent opportunity to embrace the culture of Freedom Church and, in turn, respond to that through writing music. We have been writing songs for particular series and ideas that have sprung from Freedom Church and have incorporated them into our worship on Sunday mornings. You can check out more about writing music here.

This upcoming fall we will be entering into the studio to produce our first ever CD that will be a response to our first year as a church. This is going to be a great opportunity for not only our church to have but also for other churches to hear our songs, and hopefully utilize them within their culture. We want our music to be God-breathed, Freedom inspired, and open for others to use. We believe that God has spoken life into our music and are extremely excited about getting this CD out to the public.

If you ever get a chance, be sure to swing by Freedom Church and experience what God is doing in the church. We exist so that people who are far from God can experience life in Christ. My avenue is leading worship. Other people get an opportunity to respond through greeting, ushering, setting-up, tearing-down, etc. Everyone’s part is equally as important so that the people who walk through our doors can encounter God and pursue a relationship with Jesus Christ.

What do you currently do at your church to help people who are far from God experience life in Christ.

Spent the past week developing our Freedom Live musician/singer application. It’s an extensive process that requires a lot from the applicant as well as from us on our end here at Freedom Church. We created this application to help with the process of obtaining new musicians/singers and getting them involved within the life of Freedom Church. We believe that this application will help us propel to the next level of music within our church as well as relay our culture across to interested applicants.

If you are intersted in applying for a role on the Freedom Live Worship Team or getting a copy to incorporate into your churches culture, please shoot me an email at tyler@freedomlive.net with all of your info so we can get this info to you as quickly as possible.

Been listening to the new United album for the past few days as well as went to their concert last night.

All I can say about the new album is: WOW!

The music, writing, composition, passion, heart behind the project is phenomenal. I also love the fact that they are rising up a new generation with a new style and new heart towards this music. You can hear the new style in the way songs are written, the way they are sung, and the way they are played. The CD has “next generation” written all over it.

Here are a few thoughts from the CD (and concert) that I think all worship leaders should take into account::

1. it’s not about complexity but simplicity. some times as worship leaders we try to write, write, re-write, and then write some more. Rather than coming up with cool ways to say the same thing we have been saying for years, write simply from the heart. You can tell that these lyrics have that concept written all over it. The words are simple. The words are life-changing.

2. be worshippers, not leaders. i know that the title says “worship leaders” and I know some people change it to say “leaders of worship” but I say extract the idea of leading and engage with God, the creator, when you are playing. If you are worshiping, wholeheartedly, authentically, unashamed on-stage, then you will be ultimately leading the crowd through that engaging worship. Blake, the worship pastor at Freedom, has been breathing this verse’s life into us before every Sunday morning experience: “And when I am lifted up from the earth, all men will be drawn to me.” John 12:32 – in this regard lift up the name of Jesus and he will draw the people unto himself.

3. bring the kingdom of God here. this falls right in tune with the previous point. one of the pastors from Hillsong made this point last night and it has been stirring within me ever since. In the old testament the temple was used to contain the presence of God; a place where heaven and earth met. Christ was crucified. The veil was torn. God’s “presence” was released. When we accept Christ our body becomes a temple, a dwelling place for God on earth; we become the vessel between heaven and earth. We are the ones who are capable of bringing the Kingdom of God here – through the power of the Holy Spirit in us! Through your worship bring the Kingdom of God here!

Again, the CD is phenomenal and God-breathed. If you haven’t had a chance to purchase it,  jump on iTunes and spend the $10. You won’t be dissappointed.

Headed out Thursday in the AM to Unleash up in Anderson, SC at NewSpring Church. I am extremely excited to head up their with a bunch of Freedom partners and re-connect with Brad Cooper and Davey Blackburn (the student guys over at NewSpring church). Those guys are doing phenomenal things up their and I’m pumped to continue to learn from them.

Last year Freedom had just launched (3 months in) and we brought a few of our staff with us (about 6 total). This year we are completely stepping it up! We are now 1 year and 3 months old and are bringing 30+ partners with us to share in the vision that God has set on Pastor JR’s heart as well as learn from one of the best churches in the ENTIRE WORLD!

It’s going to be an incredible time to invest in our partners as well as connect with them on a deeper level and show them that God has HUGE things planned for Freedom Church and Acworth, GA. I continue to stand by the fact that we seriously have the best group of partners on the entire planet and Freedom Church could not happen without them! They seriously understand and believe that we are here to “reach those who are far from God so they can experience life in Christ”

It’s going to be a great time and I’m already ready to leave….just 1 more day…

D-Now  Season has officially begun for churches.

I always love this season not because I plan a D-Now but because our band at Freedom gets called to play a few over the new couple of months.

It’s always fun being able to travel and worship in a different environment with a different crowd of people that you are used to. It’s extremely exciting to see what God is doing all across this state as well as this country.

We have our first D-Now of 2009 tonight in Atlanta and I’m pumped to get this season kicked-off!

Our worship pastor was suffering on a cruise this past week to the Bahamas and was therefor not at church yesterday.

I had the priviledge of leading worship yesterday and it was extremely exciting. It definitely put me into a new element. I have lead worship for a couple of years at different student ministries but never on a Sunday morning, and all I can say is that it was extremely exciting and put a whole new perspective on music in my mind in how it relates to the people at FreedomChurch.

My favorite part of the morning, during both service, was when I had the chance to back away from the mic during Mighty To Save and actually hear the crowd singing back. That is one of the most gratifying moments as a worship leader, to actually know that it doesn’t matter if you are singing or not, the people are going to continue worshiping.

Set List:

Happy Day

Your Grace Is Enough

Beautiful Jesus

Mighty To Save

Salvation Is Here

Pretty fun weekend with a few dissapointments involved…but that’s okay. I’ll live with it.

1. Went to a Halloween party Friday night at someone’s house I didn’t know with Ian and Chelsea. Me and Ian got the dance party started and then faded back into the darkness after we busted a move.

2. We didn’t dress up for the Halloween party. Instead we found glow sticks there and wore them as jewelry. We were “rave”-ers.

3. Saw UGA get KILLED by Florida. Sad day but oh well. I still stand by my statement -”as good as UGA is supposed to be, they will never be a GREAT team.”

4. Went to 13 stories with Chelsea, Ian, Kelsianne, Maddi, Matt, Austin, and Mackenna. 13 stories wasn’t that great but the girls sure were scared. it was quite a sight seeing them run away from the chainsaw man. Was it worth the money? no

5. We decided that the haunted house wasn’t scary enough so we rented One Missed Call. It wasn’t scary either.

6. Time fell back an hour on Saturday night. It was glorious since I have to be at chuch at 6am. But this week it was 7am. Well it was still 6am but felt like 7am….then again I didn’t go to sleep any earlier than normal so it was still a night of only a few hours of sleep.

7. We kicked off our DebtFreeAcworth.com series! This series is going to be crazy good.

8. Played for the students over at Alpharetta UMC. They were crazy as usual and it was super fun. We even had Matt as our roadie this time. I feel like I am moving up in life.

9. FreedomGeneration small groups are now going to meet at Johnny’s Pizza on Sunday nights at 6:00pm! Nothing like some good pizza while studying the Bible. I’m pumped!

Today was a great day at Freedom! If you missed it, here are a few things that happened:

1. The auditorium got a nice little makeover with some new lights, a hazer, and some extended staging. It was great today.

2. Our FreedomGeneration meeting went really well today and we challenged the kids to do some big things. August 17th is going to rock.

3. J.R. had an awesome, yet simple message today. If you missed it be sure to check out the podcast!

4. The set-list today was a ton of fun!

Let God Arise -Chris Tomlin

We Are -Blake Goss

Beautiful Jesus -Kristian Stanfill

So Small -Carrie Underwood

To Know Your Name -Hillsong United

5. Sad I won’t be there next week since I’m going on vacation, but be sure to be there for our Let Freedom Ring Series!

Heading down to Alpharetta UMC for a concert tonight. Pretty excited about it because its always nice to play a good, long, worshipful set. Yes, worshipful is a legit word.

I’m just excited to see how God is going to work in these kids lives tonight.

With that said, hopefully we will be recording another video blog thingy to go up on youtube. Check back!

So I’ve been out of town since my last post so I haven’t been able to update for a few days. But now I’m back and ready to roll. This is going to be real short because I am extremely tired (since I only got about 4 hours of sleep last night) so I am about to take a nap.

So here is my:

Extremely Quick Memory Shot from the past weekend.

Went to Greensboro for a DNow with some of the guys from Freedom Church. It was nice not having to play this weekend and just sit back and enjoy Blake and Ian rock it out.

We stayed at a lake house for the weekend and simply relaxed on the water for 2 days. It was phe…nom….en…al….

Today:

Got in last night late and up early this morning for Freedom. Great day and great set list:

All Because of Jesus -Steve Fee

Let Me Sing -Todd Fields

Alive -FreedomLive

Beautiful The Blood -Steve Fee

Came To My Rescue -Hillsong United

I have some cool stuff that I have been researching that I will be posting later this week. Look for it. It may be extremely interesting to you.