Went and worshipped with Phil Wickham last night at BIOLA. Wow, amazing sound, voice, band and sense of the presence of God. They have a Colplay meets Tim Hughes meets Kevin Max sound. His ministry in the Spirit is still growing, I can help him with that. I would love to mentor Phil. Encourage him and be a friend. He’s a true artists, gets into his vibe, his mode, sometimes leaves people behind, forgets songs, songs don’t always flow into each other, but I respect his gift and sense of waiting on the Lord.

In our contemporary churches flow happens quickly, not much room to wait for the flow to come. Phil, as any good Calvary boy, is learning to wait on the Lord while leading worship. He’s still got some bumps and bruises in his worship leading, welcome to the club right?, but his prayers, his memorization of Scripture, his anointing, for a 21 year old, yes friends twenty-one, is amazing.

Oh yes, and he writes amazing songs such as “Jesus Lord of Heaven”, “High Above” and others and he arranges old classic songs such as “Lord You Have My Heart” in an Coldplay vibe and feel, very cool.

He looks like a rock star and acts like one in a good sense of the word. The power point stunk, most of the songs he sang were not ‘on the list’. Again, that Calvary Spirit led thing, it worked 80% of the time. That’s good. May not work at a contemporary church but again, he’s young and learning. When he’d forget the words to the songs (not bad for singing over 20 songs in 1 hour, no music stand), he’d smile to himself. A bit childish, but I’ve been there. It’s better to ignore such moments. His guitar player was changing strings 10 minutes prior to the event, that was hilarious. Here they are leading worship to about 200 students inside a jam packed chapel, and the guitar player has his clipper out changing all 6 strings minutes before the thing starts. Been there. Can you say ‘out of tune’? They couldn’t find a table for their CD’s so they didn’t sell many records. The projectors kept turning off from lack of use, again, most of his songs were not on the schedule.

Yet in all, it was an amazing night. Why you say? Phil does everything ALL OUT, ALL THE TIME. I love that about him. After all, it’s the KING OF KINGS he’s singing to for goodness sake. I’d rather have that, and have learn how to put a set list together, how to read the audience, how to open your eyes at least once a night, etc, and have him BURN up there for Jesus in front of a generation bored to death, than the opposite.

I wrote Phil an email a few months ago to come to Bethany and do a worship night with our bands. After seeing him last night, I can’t wait to meet him, encourage him and see him at Bethany.

Phil, you’re great, I can make you better. Let’s work together soon.

I also spent time with Jeff who’s the worship director at BIOLA. He’s another young worship leader, 23, who just got married 4 weeks ago. Can you say lots of sex and going out to dinner every night? Oh those early years, where have you gone? I mean the out to dinner every night part of course…

Jeff is hungry for community. I asked him, “how can I help you?” He said, my wife and I need community, relationship. A lot of his current relationships are ending, his band “Alabaster” just broke up, people are moving out of state, he just graduated college, new marriage, ahhhh! So we hung out, got some water and coffee together, read him about King David being chosen by God through Samuel, I read him about Paul ‘fanning into flame’ the gift in Timothy. I read to him Eph. 4 about ‘equipping the body to do works of service.” It was good. I prayed for him and his wife, hugged him and invited him to come back to Bethany. They’ve been coming for the last few weeks.

Emergent worship leaders. In need of encouragement, guidance, mentorship and lots of love, lots of it. That’s what I do.