Beautiful Things

On Sunday, Hello Kelly led worship at 247, a church in Burlington that I’ve been attending for a year.  It was a really great night.  I was encouraged, moved to almost-tears and impacted hugely.  Here goes nothing …

I’ve led worship at 247 a couple times now.  But never with Hello Kelly.  Hello Kelly plays original music in any music venue that will tolerate our loud drums and slithery synths.  I write and sing about faith sometimes, but that’s not the focus of the band.  The focus of the band is to encourage, empower and challenge “Kelly” (our listeners) to sink their teeth into life.  That’s deeply connected to faith and God, but leading worship isn’t something that Hello Kelly focuses on.

However, as I’ve said in past posts, I think it’s important for bands to be adaptable -- and being available to lead worship is, in theory, another service that a band like Hello Kelly can offer in order to stay busy on the road.  And sure, leading worship on Sunday with Hello Kelly was a good way to start figuring out how viable that service would be in the future … but that isn’t the reason I agreed to do it.

The reason in three-fold: 1. I wanted us to play together in a different context than usual, 2. I wanted the guys to attend my church and see why I like it so much, 3. I wanted the four of us to share the responsibility of leading people in worship.

It went AMAZING.

In the past, when I’ve led worship at 247, we haven’t had a ton of time to prepare week-by-week, so sometimes it’s difficult to put together super dynamic sets, transitions, etc. with only limited time.  (That being said, the tech and music people at 247 do an incredible job of crunching and pulling it together beautifully every week.  I’m not a fan of flashy churches, knee-deep in technology -- but, amidst all the lights and subwoofers, there’s a spirit of humility at 247 that I really respect.)

The point is that leading worship with Hello Kelly at 247 was different because we WERE able to take some time to prepare properly.  Could we have prepared more?  Absolutely.  But I was VERY pleased with how everything turned out.  It’s easy to fall into the position of thinking it’s OUR responsibility to lead people in worship.  But there was one song in our set list that jolted me out of that mindset …

Our setlist was:

Song of Hope

Everlasting God

Surrender

Here I Am to Worship

Beautiful Things

Beautiful Things is a song by Gungor.  It was introduced to me by my friend Chris Vacher.  He couldn’t have been more enthusiastic about this song and when I (finally) listened to it, it hit me like a ton of bricks.  I’m breaking my “no YouTube during Lent” rule to show you target="_blank">this link -- but it’s a beautiful song, so I don’t mind.)

The lyrics talk about God creating beautiful things out of the dust, the destruction, the pain … out of us.  And after rehearsal on Sunday afternoon, I was praying about the service and that song kept rolling over in my song.  In hindsight, I think God was trying to tell me: “Don’t forget: You just strum the guitar.  You’re the not the point.  I’m the point.”  Humbling.

When we got around to playing Beautiful Things that night, I could feel an intense energy throbbing in the place.  It was slightly crazy.  I had to fight back tears as I sang the song -- I almost didn’t make it through verse 2.  My bandmates said they didn’t need to watch me for the cues.  We all agreed that it was like we were all being controlled by a gigantic puppeteer in the ceiling.  That was some “You’re not the point” related craziness, indeed!

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Will Hello Kelly continue to lead worship?  Probably occasionally.  I think it’s important for the band to focus on what it does well -- which is play rock shows to “Kelly”.  But I definitely relished the opportunity to play in that context with my new guys.  And from time to time, maybe on Sunday when our schedule forces us to skip church, I think we might put Beautiful Things into our original set.

By the way … go download/buy/steal Beautiful Things by Gungor.  If you steal it, then give it to somebody else too.  Dang, that song is beautiful.  Every time I hear it, something new is revealed to me.  In the context of Tonguetwisted Ink, it’s intimidating and slightly crazy that God can take a humble writer a twisted tongue like me and give me  a platform from which to speak/write/communicate.  The possible springing up out of the impossible -- that’s a Beautiful Thing.

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We’re playing 4 shows this weekend and it’s going to be hyper fun but super exhausting.  I’m so glad that I’m posting again.  I’ve missed sharing my thoughts on Tonguetwisted Ink.  I have a very long list of things I’ve been meaning to blog about … so I have some catching up to do!

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francy