BLOGS

Good afternoon, fellow human beings.

This here is an update on how the "Aaron Keyes Worship School" (A.K.A. "The school") is going.

We've been very busy the last two weeks since we got started. Aaron's basement is almost finished. We have been sleeping down here for almost a week now. The painting is all done except for a very, very little bit of edging. The electrical work is all done. The kitchen isn't done and there is no plumbing down here.

We've led worship several times at several places so far, and we'll be doing even more in the future. I'll be leading this Sunday with Isaiah at a church in Covington, and then helping lead at a youth event in Grayson.
Let me tell you about the thing in Grayson. Grayson UMC is starting a weekly youth worship service on Sunday nights, and we met on Wednesday with the Youth Pastor and the Middle School leader to begin planning for it. The school is basically going to be doing worship for this service every week. The way this will look is that probably two of us will go every week to lead for them. We're going to be basically starting from scratch with the students, as far as worship is concerned. We're going into it assuming that they don't know anything about worship. This is going to be a wonderful learning experience for all of us involved. The youth leaders there have never done anything like this, nor have their students, and we have the opportunity to really shepherd this group of students in worship every week. It's going to be awesome. I'm pretty excited about it.
Really though, leading worship is the minority of our time spent for the school. The majority of the emphasis is on truly and deeply studying the Bible, not just what it says about worship or music, but just understanding the Bible, in general. Aaron wants us to know more than just how to be good song leaders, but to learn to be pastors in worship. My heart is to learn how to orient my whole life to be focused on true worship to God.

Did you know that the first time the word "worship" is mentioned in the Bible is when Abraham is going up to sacrifice Isaac? That should tell us something about the emphasis of worship in the Bible. That worship is about obedience, and sacrifice...and not primarily about music. Check out Genesis 22 for yourself. See what you think it tells us about worship. Also, look for the parallels to the story of Christ.

In the next couple weeks, we're going to be getting a different place for a blog set up for the school. There will be our calendar, as well as our study assignments and our thoughts on leading worship. I'll be getting you a link to that.

Take care, keep praying for me, and seek God. He desires you. Really.

-Daniel