RussHutto.com

My dad is my hero. Here’s a good word of encouragement from his blog this weekend:

Back in my early days as a worship leader (before history was actually recorded), I had an experience that really impacted the rest of my life. First of all, I come from a family of musicians, and have raised and launched a family of musicians, 3 of whom are worship leaders. God has been good to me! I guess you could say that music is in my blood. I had been involved in music long before God called me to serve Him.

So as a young worship leader I had a good amount of self-confidence, even though I was completely inexperienced. Notice I said “self” confidence. There’s something about musicians, especially if you have to lead a bunch of them. I heard someone once say that musicians are “squirrelly”. It really made sense to me because I am a musician. What he meant was that many musicians don’t like to be told how to play, how loud or soft to play, or how fast or slow to play, etc, when performing or rehearsing with others. The reason is because most really proficient musicians got that way by giving up thousands of hours of personal practice. To be an accomplished musician requires much personal time and energy. Many accomplished musicians become that way mostly by themselves. Of course, there must be teachers and/or mentors involved. But even at that musicians don’t receive from just anyone. They receive mostly from whomever they choose. So let’s just say that a musician’s ability to play represents much of who he/she is.

Back to that life-changing experience. I was a new worship leader. To me I was the hottest thing in a suit at the time. I was on the grand piano. We came out smoking the music. The first song was tight! Man, was I good! It came time for the second song and I ripped (with “self” confidence) into the 3rd song in the set list. You heard right…the 3rd song. At the same time, all other musicians and singers ripped boldly into the 2nd song in the set list. I was determined. I was the leader. I had much “self” confidence. I just knew the rest of the team would recognize that I started on the wrong some and would join with me. Nope! They barreled right on into the 2nd song. Listen, the whole group (but me) was singing one song…and doing it well. I (only) was singing another song…and doing it well. Finally I realized I had to stop this train because it was destined to de-rail very soon. I just stood up from the grand piano held up my hands until everyone stopped. I said to the congregation. “Whups! I think we’d better start this thing again.” After getting me on the right page, we restarted the 2nd song on the list and all went well. What an experience! I was so embarrassed. I wanted to crawl up under the lid of the grand piano (which was up) and close it! I had this really vain thought as we cruised through the 2nd song (the right way this time), “I wonder if people could really tell I messed up?” Remember I said it was a vain thought. The truth is, I just committed about the worst mistake a worship leader could make! I led in the wrong direction.

I’ll have to say that one particular experience changed my life. It humbled me. Even today as a senior pastor, I remember that event. First, we’ll never do things perfectly. And when we think we must, God will use similar events to humble us. Humility is a good thing even though we sometimes must learn it through our failures. Humility says “I can’t do anything without Him.” And it also says, “I don’t have to be perfect, because I can’t be perfect. I need Him to infuse my humanity to bring glory to Himself.” Humility definitely effects others, but it depends solely on our attitude with God. Philippians 2: 5 – 7 says, “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. The key here in humility is the emptying of “self”. We learn humility because Jesus lives in us. But humility doesn’t happen just because He’s in us. Humility comes from the “emptying of self”. God will use circumstances and events to help us empty ourselves. Humility is a powerful force that changes lives and situations. If you have a life-changing, humility-infusing situation I’d love to hear about it.

Stop by my Dad’s blog and say “hey” and tell him Russ sent you by.

One of the things we (my church) spend a lot of time and energy focusing on in how we do and communicate things is trying to break down the misconception that many people have in their minds that the people on stage and the people in the congregation are two different groups. There is a great divide, even if it’s unspoken, that exists in many people’s minds that separates what happens on stage and what happens off stage, especially during musical worship.

This is why we stopped calling our band the “worship team”…they are NOT the only team in church that worships or even “leads” worship. This is why we don’t call our auditorium the “worship center”…a room in the church building should NOT be the center of our worship lives. This is why we no longer call the music part of our gatherings “worship”, but instead refer to it as the “music” or the “musical worship”…worship can and should be every element of our worship gatherings. This is why we’ve developed a discipleship class that covers foundational Biblical worship that every member of our church is required to take…we want to give people the tools to dig in and learn more on their own about true Biblical worship.

No matter how clearly we communicate, no matter how many barriers we remove, there are still people who just don’t get it. But, it’s so worth it for the people who do get it and are freed from thinking that it’s my job as a “worship leader” to tell them exactly when and how to worship. I constantly remind the band (and anyone who will listen) that it’s our purpose to get the corporate ball rolling and then step out of the way and allow space for people to worship together freely in their own unique ways. It’s a blessing to watch people do just that, and frustrating to watch those who are always waiting for their cues.

I’m not saying that our corporate worship times should be a free-for-all and unorganized…God speaks strongly about corporate worship being focused and set up with holy boundaries. But, too many people can’t get past the great divide in their minds that keeps them boxed in to whatever they’re told to do.

How does your church address this great divide in your worship gatherings? Where do you see this misconception of worship show itself in the things that people say and do?

Visit Nate’s blog, Practical Worship.

Song: How Great is Our God by Chris Tomlin

Worship Ninjas: Mark Thomas (denverintranslation.com); Russ Hutto (russhutto.com)

Vid #1:

Mark breaks down this song and shows how he leads it from acoustic guitar. He mispronounces Russ’ last name since he’s never actually “heard” it pronounced live (only seen in the blogosphere), but after a throwing star contest in which Mark hits a dancing fruitfly at 600 yards, all is forgiven.

How Great Is Our God from Mark Thomas on Vimeo.

Vid #2:

Russ breaks down this song and shows how he accompanies the vocals with simple, straightforward chord shapes. At the throwing star contest he de-cigarettes a smoking camel at 400 yards, but it isn’t quite enough to win his family’s honor back.

How Great from Russ Hutto on Vimeo.

Tune in next time for more easy to follow song tips for Guitar and Keys.

Songwriting:

I started writing songs about twelve years ago.

Up until recently, the process has looked the same every time: wait for the muse – wait for the moment – wait ’til I can “feel” a new song/thought/melody – then RUN to the guitar and get it all down.

This, I’m learning, is not the most productive way to hone my creative skills.

Discipline of Creativity

New to me, and new to many of us, is the discipline of creativity. Being disciplined about being creative.

(Ugh. Seriously – could two more OPPOSING words be put in a sentence?!)

I’m learning now, that the songwriting process can occur a number of ways, and I’m familiarizing myself with each of them.

Practices of the Discipline of Creativity:

1) I might have a great song idea. I need to latch onto it and do some brainstorming, then set it aside for later.

2) I woke up in the middle of the night to a catchy new melody line. Don’t forget it. But don’t stay up all night hashing it out.

3) I have the time and I want to write, but I have no idea what to write about. I’ll go back to the resources from #1 or #2 and see what happens.

4) I don’t feel like it. I don’t have the energy. I hate my life right now and it feels impossible to write anything…. WRITE ANYWAY. I’m learning that I can write about how crappy I feel. And, viola, I’ve got a song.

Employing all of these practices keeps the creative side of my brain at work constantly… It keeps me going, it won’t let the creative Mandy check out for too long. And this has greatly increased my ability to write more frequently.

Whether you’re an author, a photographer, or a scrap-booker, I’m sure you can find ways to adapt these creative “disciplines” to your own life as well.

Mandy blogs regularly over at mandythompson.com and is a member of Our Creative Community (a blog community dedicated to creative discipline).