Teaching Hospital

Boy, what a break I’ve taken from blogging!! If you care about the length of my non-bloggerness, I’m sorry. I do want to talk about what’s been happening since the last time I blogged.. This could be long.. :/

I had the great honor of helping host a try-out for our youth ministry’s worship team. We auditioned about 20 musicians in one night and boy was it intense. Out of 20, we kept about 5. What’s amazing about these try-outs is number one – they’re youth from our church and number two – they get to do more than just be a part of a band. We’ve dedicated ourselves as leaders to self-less discipleship of these young guys, and man are we loving it.. I love seeing new peeps come into the team, get their paradigm shifted after they see what we’re all about, and then just dig into Jesus and the team. I think that’s what keeps me going when things get tough.
In that process, there’s something else I really want to brag on us about. Something I feel like we’re doing so right that I can’t imagine doing it any different. That’s the rotations we have on Wednesday nights for our services. Right now, as it stands, we have about 30 musicians total on our youth ministry’s worship team (a.k.a. “Oneband”) Something my friend and fellow worship leader Jon Morris have dedicated ourselves to is getting out of the way for young guys to take our place. I would say that about half of our team is under the age of twenty. (HOW AWESOME!) We are devoted to seeing everyone of these musicians someday becoming the worship leaders we can only dream of being. Creating what we’ve learned to be a “teaching hospital.”
Having 30 musicians on the team I’m sure you guys are asking: How in the world to you coordinate? or Thirty people can’t play at once?(peacefully) This is where the rubber meets the road for us.. We could build a super band every night, our “All-star team” so to speak. But we mix it up. We mix up the talent, we mix up the worship leaders, and sometimes we mix up ourselves, hahaha. So every single night you will see a different combination of worship teams on stage – guys in their mid-twenties and tenth graders, sharing the stage. I LOVE IT. This has great commission written all over it, because everyone gets a shot, not just the super-stars.
This method has been a lot lot harder than the way we were doing things before. (All-star team) We’ve had to sacrifice musical excellence for God’s calling over the ministry. We’ve had to sacrifice time for extra rehearsals. Like I said before, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I get to invest both spiritually and musically in a younger generation that’s going to do bigger things that I’ve ever dreamed of, now that’s exciting. I think when multiple passions combine is when you find your niche. That’s where I am, and that’s where I’m going to be for a while!!!!!
Thanks for reading -
Casey

“I GOT YOUR BACK” LOVE

I know this might be cheating but for my next couple blog posts I’m going to just use some quotes I’ve heard from inside the “marketplace,” AKA the world. This week’s quote is actually from the one and only John Mayer on his most recent album “Where the Light is,” great CD recommend you iTune it. (If that’s a verb.)

Anyway – in the quote he talks about love and how he’s tried “every approach.” I think that’s really where I am right now, I’ve tried every approach, but I haven’t tried everything. New car, maybe some relationships, possibly social networking, or maybe ministry – (the work of the Lord, not the Lord of the work.) I think sometimes we see the “roman candle” love in all of these things instead of looking for the “I Got Your Back Love” of Jesus. You say cheesy, I say try it and see… I hope you enjoy this quote and as always… Thanks for reading..
Casey Craig

“So check it out right, I’ve tried every approach to living. I’ve tried it all. I haven’t tried every thing, but I’ve tried every approach. Sometimes you have to try everything to get the approach the same, but whatever. I’ve tried it all. I’ve bought a buncha stuff. I went “ehh, I don’t like that.” I kinda came in and out of that a coupla times.

I thought I would shut myself off. I thought maybe that’s cool. Maybe that’s what you have to do to become a genius is you have to be mad. So if you can get mad before the word genius, then maybe you can make genius appear. Right? That doesn’t work either.

And I’m in a good place. I’ve paced myself pretty well. I’m 30, I’ve seen some cool stuff. I made a lot of stuff happen for myself. I made a lot of stuff happen for myself. That’s a really cool sentence when you’re in your 20s, right? “I made it happen for myself.” But all that means is that I’ve just somehow or another found a way to synthesize love. Or synthesize soothing. You can’t get that, and what I’m saying is I’ve messed with all the approaches except for one, and it’s gonna sound really corny, but that’s just love. That’s just love.

I’ve done everything in my life that I’ve wanted to do except just give and feel love for my living. And I don’t mean like, uh, Roman candle, fireworks, Hollywood hot pink love. I mean, like, “I got your back”-love. I don’t need to hear “I love ya.” You guys love me. I love you. We got that down. But some of the people who would tell you they love ya were the last people to just have your back. So I’m gonna experiment with this love this. Giving love. Feeling love. I know it’s corny but it’s the last thing I’ve got to check out before I check out.”

A Recent finding..

     When you have the opportunity to give up something that’s easy for you to do for something that challenges you, do it.

     Weight lifters don’t get strong by lifting the same amount of weight, of lowering the weight over time.  They get stronger by facing an amount of weight that challenges them or pushes them to become stronger.

     God has not called us to be comfortable Christians but to put ourselves in situations that draw us closer to him and the calling that he has for us.

God honors a sacrifice over time, not overnight.

- Thanks for reading.

  Casey Craig

Genesis Wrap? Rap? Up.

In lou of meeting Jacob Schlegel and the enormous amount of pressure he put on me to update my blog(j/k), I’ve decided to update..

I honestly don’t know what kind of Rapping/wrapping I’m doing right now, but I’m going to recap Genesis here for everybody!

Genesis 2009 went off without a hitch.

Just to clarify, Genesis is an anual youth and young adult conference held at the church I attend here in town Harvest Time.

My favorite part was probably Mike Mille – such a dynamic speaker, he said, “The reason the devil is always so mad is because God fired him and hired you.” And of course, the worship was amazing. There’s something about the dynamic of a room stuffed full with 1200 people all anticipating God to do something amazing for both their lives and the lives of others at the conference. It’s amazing to me how faithful God is to his people. I’m so blessed to be a part of such an amazing team, this thing wouldn’t have been possible without each and every single person. Here’s a little sample of me leading the song “Who You Are” by The Desperation Band. – Unfortunately, you’ll have to download it from this amazing web hosting site.. THIS WAS A MORNING WORSHIP SET!! I’m saying that to say, listen to all these people singing this early in the morning! AMAZING!! Here’s some pictures too!

- Thanks for reading

Casey Craig

Creator

In a recent effort to start journaling and writing songs for our church, I have started Louie Giglio’s book called “Journey.” it’s a very interesting concept – Taking scripture and having the reader write a song/poetry to portions of Psalms, pretty simple but brilliant. Here’s a compilation of thoughts from last night, the passage was Psalm 33. Hopefully Jon Morris and I can salvage some of these and make them great songs.

Hear my voice, my cry
My desperate, devoted, sin-stained heart cries for more of you.
More of your truth that’s set us free
More of your love that makes me need more of you and never lets me down
Because the Earth stands still when you hold your breath
The heaven’s are full of the words of your mouth – and by you they were made.
You hold the seas in your grasp
Your power is amazing beyond belief and your
kingdom is to be praised.
You made it, perfected it, and sustained it. In one action.

I’m truly excited and honored to have the privilege of serving with such awesome people. I can’t stop enough to think about how awesome it is to be a part of such an awesome, talented, god-inspired team of musicians and leaders. I thank God for each and everyone of you everyday.

- Thanks for reading

Casey Craig

Real Christianity

I’m really sorry that I haven’t been blogging lately.. I guess my time has been consumed with to many other things. Today, at my awesome job I had a sweet revelation. I had a meeting with My boss today which was not exciting. She is one of those people who expects me to be a saint because I told her I went to church on Sunday mornings. Her exact words were, “since you say these thing here, what you say at church isn’t true.”

Wow.

I’m flabbergasted. So I explained my approach to the religion of Christianity to her. First off, I’m not Jesus. I try to be LIKE Jesus but not HIM. If I tried to BE him I wouldve killed myself a long time ago because truthfully it’s a hopeless effort. Secondly, I’m a human being. Honestly put, I’m trying harder not to cuss at customers or let my temper get out of control. Or give in to urges to smoke weed and drink like I did for a year and a half – breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Honestly, there are things I have to devote a lot more time to not doing more so than talking about how much I dislike my job. So what do I do? There ha to be some kind of resolve, some kind of happy medium.. Nope, there’s Jesus, on the cross dying for the things I say at work when things aren’t going my way or a manager decided to not be nice to me. There’s Jesus when I have that selfish desire to give into worldly temptations that ruined my life for a year. Just Jesus..

So it’s official. I’m not perfect, honestly I’m not trying to be. So if you think I should be a monk because I’m a follower of Christ, then please, let me follow your example… Thanks for reading..

Casey Craig

Expectancy

I’m still getting used to blogging on this site, so this is pretty short.  Hope you guys like this or it gets you thinking..

I started thinking about expectancy and how we use the word in the Christian culture, especially in worship.  

       “We always say stuff like, blow our expectancy out of the water..”  

                       – or -

       “Set our expectancy high for this retreat, or this night.”

Last night I started thinking about putting limits on God as well.  I believe that whenever we think about an expectancy, even if it is God blowing our expectancy out of the water, we are putting limits on God.  I serve a limitless God, worthy of every single ounce of my praise. I hope my expectancy doesn’t place limits on his move in my life.  Thanks for reading.

 Casey Craig

First Post

I shared this with our team right before our summer retreat this year.  

We’ll start with some scripture..  Always a good start..

Matthew 21:1

1As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”  4This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:  5″Say to the Daughter of Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’ “[a] 6The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. 7They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them. 8A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,  ”Hosanna[b] to the Son of David!” 
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”[c] ”Hosanna[d] in the highest!”

 10When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was moved and asked, “Who is this?” 11The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Lets key in on something that not to many people look at in this verse, the Colt.  The origin of the word Colt literally means “burden bearer.”  The young male donkey is stubborn by nature. The colt is expresses meekness and submission to the will of his master under his burden.  Under the burden he carries, the colt continues on, obedient to the will of his master.

 Do you have a burden?

Matthew 11:28-30

28Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

 29Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.  30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

What God needs is people who are willing to be burden bearers.  you will never labor, successfully, or for a long amount of time unless you have a burden.  Anytime someone says burden referring to church, its not something that makes you boring, tired, lethargic.  It’s an assignment.  A lifelong goal.

What is your burden?

A leader is a byproduct of being a laborer.  

A laborer without a burden is just a busy person.

 Are you a burden bearer?

Jesus could have rode in on a Stallion, or a seasoned battle horse, instead he rode in on a colt, a burden bearer.  Jesus chose the young, male, never-been-trained, never-been-ridden donkey.

The Colt had never been trained.  He Never had any kind of seminary training.  never been to worship school to be trained to lead worship.  He wasn’t ever mentored by Billy Graham.  Because you don’t know all the theology or have the Bible memorized, doesn’t mean you don’t have the responsibility to carry Jesus. The colt wasn’t trained, he was simply available.

The Colt’s only purpose was to carry Jesus through the city.

 Are you ready to move your “City?”

Matthew 21:10 – “The whole city was moved.”

      MOVED - Strong number 4579 - To be thrown into a tremor, to quake for fear.

It says that the whole city was moved.  This was one of the biggest occasions to ever happen in Jerusalem.  PERIOD.  This was less than a week before Jesus was crucified.

Our purpose as worship leaders is to move the people we are leading into the presence of God.  It is Impossible for God to move through us unless we assume the position of the Colt and carry the burden of Christ to these people.  

“If any man desires to come after me, let him deny himself, carry his cross and follow me.”

Anybody who is willing, faithful, and submits to God, can carry him where he needs to go.  You don’t have to be trained, you don’t have to know every verse in the Bible, you don’t need past experience.  The Colt had never been ridden before.  You are qualified to carry Jesus to this place, you just have to be willing. Thanks for reading..

 Casey Craig