It's Good Music
There are a million things/people that go into making churches great. Because of this it's easy to overlook or begin to expect the great things that just are.
A little context before I share my lived experience. As I've often said, I grew in a small town in Northern Wisconsin. The church my dad pastored was a small church with a small budget. The role of the "worship leader" was often volunteer and in seasons when it was paid, it was miniscule. For many years this task fell to my mom. My mom would be the first to tell you that she's not a worship leader. But something about her realization that this was the case combined with her willingness to do it because she loved serving the church made her efforts all the more admirable.
The church, Prince of Peace Christian Church, I often describe as a small community full of Flannery O'Conner characters; salt of the earth people that reveal the best and worst parts of being in a small town church. The worship leader would get the latest music from Vineyard, Hillsong, or whoever else was doing something worth hearing at the time, and translate these audio masterpieces into something our 5-6 piece ragtag worship band could manage. And we would sing, fervently.
Church is a tricky business because with everything you do, you have to bring a second set of tools to evaluate the worth of something. In business, it's about success and making whatever choices are needed to make something successful. In the church we define success differently. We care as much about the person performing the music as we do the performance of the music. For this reason, I always loved the efforts of the music band at the church I grew up in. They were earnest and sincere if not abundantly talented. And that matters.
My parents, who are currently in town, often marvel at the massive amount of talent that exists in one place when they visit UBC. There are 20+ seminary students with more religious education than most pastors in rural settings. There are hundreds of eager Baylor students every year with a desire to bring their musical talent to the stage. There are Ph.D. students of all disciplines to bounce ideas off of and sharpen thoughts. There are business school professors to serve on the finance team and folks with extensive management experience to serve on the HR team. There are all kinds of people with years of their own ministry experience who are content to lead a mi casa. We all have Baylor to thank for this. Waco is a wealth of Christian resources.
I was reminded of this, this week. I've posted in this newsletter the last few weeks that UBC has been involved with some other churches in planning ecumenical services downtown for lent. Our first one was Wednesday and it happened to be the day that I/UBC was leading worship. A few months back, in preparation for this moment I asked Tye swing by and play a ditty. Fast forward to this last Wednesday ...
In my car on the way to church a half hour before I'm supposed to meet the other pastors to be begin setting up for the service ...
click contacts ... select tye barrett.
Me: Tye, first i have i have tell you something, and then I need to apologize for not reminding you sooner.
Tye: what?
Me: today is that lent thing you were supposed to play for.
Tye: oh crap, you're right, that's even on my calendar
Me: (surprised tye keeps a calendar) shoot are you out of the state?
Tye: no, on my to Fort Worth to pick up some music equipment stuff.
Me: Awesome.
Tye: let me check I might could get Jameson to play.
5 minutes later ... phone rings.
Tye: yeah, Jameson is going to do it
Me: Awesome.
I interrupt this story to bring you a picture of Jameson
(this is my favorite one)
And Jameson (Tye's equivalent of the Edge who often plays on Sunday mornings ... in case you don't know him by that name) played ... and it was fantastic. And then I reflected on how effortless that was for Jameson and his comparative superiority to all the musicians that came through the church I grew up in ... and how Jameson is just one of the many talented people who make our Sunday mornings so fantastic ... I thought to myself, "we are so spoiled."
So thank you to all of you musicians who so often could be elsewhere making money and living the big life, but have decided instead to stay here and lead us. And thank you to our fearless leader in this department, Tye "Tiger" Barrett, who one day a few years ago decided to put on these shoes that everyone thought were going to be just to big to fill and started walking just fine.
Meet The Finance Team
Meet Paul Taft
Family: Married to Linda; Children: Chelsea (27) and her husband Stephen, Jon (25), Lillie (20) and Callie (17)
Vocation/Job/What I do: Compliance Officer for Extraco Banks
Favorite Movie: Rainman
Best Restaurant in Waco: Home
Chapter from the Bible that is meaningful to me: John 14
Best Television Show: romantic comedies on Netflix
Favorite Holiday: Christmas
Something you might not know about me: I am a preacher's kid, and I was a volunteer fireman in college.
Hobbies: reading, watching movies, playing board games
Leadership Team Nominations
- UBC is governed by an executive body which we call the leadership team.
- The leadership team is made up of 7 non-staff members of the UBC community.
- Leadership team terms last 3 years.
- A year term runs from July-June.
- The existing leadership team selects new members as old members rotate off.
- The leadership team meets once a quarter (July, October, January, April) and for any other emergency sessions.
- In the April meeting nominations for new leadership team members will be reviewed and voted upon.
- A new leadership team member's first meeting is the July meeting.
- There is one spot being vacated this year.
- We are now accepting nominations for leadership team members.
- Nominees can be self-nominated or nominated by someone else in the community.
- Those wishing to nominate themselves or someone else should send nominations to josh@ubcwaco.org.
- We are taking nominations between now and April 20th.
DR T-Shirts
Friends, would you consider buying a DR shirt to support our missions team in May? T-shirts will be on sale through March 31st.
Click here to check them out.
Christ in the Dessert Experience
As many of you know, Craig led a trip of UBCers to the Christ in the dessert monastery for spring break last week.
Hunter Schroer wrote about it and it was posted on the UBC blog earlier this week. Please take a moment to read about it if you haven’t.
Lost and Found
- A children's black Hanes hoodie, size M
- a pink/blue/yellow play phone that talks in Spanish/English
- a small tan bible
- brown soft cover message bible
Children’s Ministry T-Shirts
We have t-shirts left for children and adults
Children and other UBCers can purchase them for $8
UBCKids Volunteers get a free shirt as a token of our thanks for their help
People can email me (emily@ubcwaco.org), come by the office during the week or find me in the foyer after church Sunday (I'll be sure that I have someone their to collect money and hand out shirts!
Work Is Worship
3-23-14
Coffee Makers:
Coffee Clean Up: Kaley Eggers & Emily Driscoll
Greeters: Michael Scott & Kelli Gunter
Announcements
- Sunday Sermon Text: Exodus 17:1-7
- John Sunday School: John 10:1-21
- Christians in the Headlines: Obama Care & Christians
- Psalms of Ascent Sunday School: Psalm 126 & 127
- If you feel like the music is at times too loud, we have earplugs available next to the mints out front.
- The Empty Nesters will be meeting for dinner Friday March 28th @ 6:30 at Don Carlos. Please contact Linda Taft taftchef@gmail.com if you are interested in more information.
- The UBC families will be meeting at the Baylor soccer field after church this Sunday the 23rd. Pizza will be provided for lunch. We’ll be playing games and hanging out. Bring your “can get dirty” clothes. Email josh@ubcwaco.org if you are interested in more information.
Do you have an Emergency? Do you Need to talk to a Pastor?
254 366 9779
(please do not send texts to this number)
Leadership Team
If you have a concern or an idea for UBC that you’d like to share with someone that is not on staff, feel free to contact one of our leadership team members.
Chair: Jana Parker jparkerslp@gmail.com
Kristin Dodson kschwebke@prodigy.net
Kaley Eggers kaley.eggers@gmail.com
David Wilhite david_wilhite@baylor.edu
Austin Tiffany Austin_Tiffany@baylor.edu
Byron Roldan Byron_Roldan@baylor.edu
Teri Walter terijan@gmail.com