Stripped Down

Good morning bloggers!

I'm extremely excited for a bunch of worship opportunities this weekend! As we speak, my good friend Adam Strawcutter is working his was to the South Hills from Indiana Pa. Tomorrow morning he'll be leading worship with the Bridge band, and while he's in town for that he agreed to help me lead worship at my friend Jay Higham's new church plant here in Peters Township.

The fun part about worship tonight will be the complete lack of anything going on. No sound system. No flashy lights. No loud band. Just two guys with acoustic guitars and a choir of believers. It's as close as I think I'll get to what Jon Foreman has done after Switchfoot shows for a couple of years now, just a stripped down worship set. I'm super excited for it.

Don't get me wrong, I love to rock and roll with the best of them. Tree Anthem will always be my preferred style of worship music, loud and ruckus. But every now and again, I think it's really important to step out of what we're comfortable with and meet God in a profound new way. And for me at least, it's important from time to time to just trim the fat, to get all the distractions away, to take away everything that could get between me and the beautiful Savior.

And so perhaps this has more truth to it than just music. Perhaps today should be a day for all of us to strip down our relationship with God. Get away from the things that might hold us back, the things that might look like they're helping but are in actuality hurting. I'll give you an example that I've been convicted of lately. I am a sucker for a good devotional plan, a book that puts the words of God into my mouth for me. And while reading through these books every day looks like devotion, I started to wonder a few weeks back if I was actually communicating with God. The tool became the distraction.

So let's strip down from the garbage today. Let's strip down to basic worship, to un-hindered praise. Let's sing in a parking lot if that's what's required of us! Let's meet the face of God!

Godspeed,

J