Jeremy Armstrong

Lincoln Brewster Shreds...

Some of you may have seen the parody videos of amazing guitarists with the sound slightly altered. Well this one is of Lincoln Brewster and the creator has done a genius job of hacking away in beautiful garageband mediocrity (to put it nicely). Phil Sillas and I have been playing this at least once a day to get "inspired." Hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Conference Pics

one more thing, 

I have uploaded a ton of pictures from the conference (taken by myself and our mighty art director, Mark Reid) to our Flickr site. If you are interested, take a look here.  And we don't mind if you download a couple, just keepin' it real =)

Defend the Weak

Hey guys,

A couple of people have asked about the words Matt Redman added to the song "Everlasting God" at the pre-conference. I happened to video it, so you can check it for yourself. It's at the end and it totally amplifies the message in Brenton's song. nice little addition.

Shaver Lake and the Lead Worshipers...

Where I lead worship, you can ask just about any of the members what their favorite part of any activity is, about 90 percent of the time the answer is music. Yay me. You gotta love that. And the classic part is that I’m about as hacky as they come on the guitar. The group I play for is made up of a mixture of college-aged-kids and young adults with disabilities. And if you want to see “Blessed Be Your Name” sung the way God intended it, come on out for a visit some Monday night.

This past week I had a couple days away from the magazine business and headed up to Shaver lake (which is in the middle of California) with my group. And there is this one guy who is a pretty good friend of mine. He calls into question the popular use of the term lead worshiper. Actually, because of the nature of my group, I’ve always kinda had a problem with that one. It just seems so arrogant. To stand in front of a group and say that I am the lead worshiper. I just have such a hard time swallowing that. Especially when I look around and see so many more people who are leading me—kids in wheel chairs, kids with Down Syndrome, able-bodied young people with arms around the core members. Any of these people might be the lead worshipers. Maybe the ones sitting in silence the most.

Of course, I believe that there is a truth to the fact that, as the leader, what you focus on, is what the congregation will focus on. If you are standing like a nimrod, pointing to your ear because your in-ear isn’t working, or if you completely stop playing and because your D string broke on your Tayolor guitar, well you know what everyone else will be focused on. In the same way, if you are focused on God… well you get it.

But, still I cant say I’m the lead worshiper.

I see it as a kind of worshiping with one eye open. You HAVE to be aware of your surroundings when you are leading people. Because you are not the only one who draws attention to and from God in a service of worship. One of your roles is to help keep those distractions to a minimum, you do this in rehearsals, practice, sound checks, so much so that you are able to freely worship in a service—you are the worship leader. So because of that, we can’t just space out. Our role as the leader is to also keep in touch with the lead worshipers. See where they are headed, be in touch with them. Let them help us discern the spirit of the moment.

Any way, I asked my friend who uses a wheelchair to get up and lead with me for one of the songs during a service at camp because he doesn’t get “on stage” that often (no ramp). The rest of the week all he could ask anyone was, “Remember when I was leading?” In my mind my response was, “Of course I remember. How could I forget: you lead me every week.”