Posts by Jon Nicol
Soar on Wings Like Egos, 5
5 Questions to Clip Our Ego Wings I sometimes look at the young, hip worship band members in the “famous” churches and wonder if they’d let me play guitar on their team if I attended their church. I think I’ve got the chops to hang with them. But I exceed both the age and weight…
Soar on Wings Like Egos, 4
Soar on Wings Like Egos, 4 Read Part 1 Read Part 2 Read Part 3 5 Questions to Clip Our Ego Wings I remember my brief stint as a trumpet player in the junior high band. Whenever multi-measure rests occurred we had to just sit there while the saxophones played something cool. (Those sax players…
Worship Planning: Soar On Wings Like Egos, 3
Worship Planning: Soar On Wings Like Egos, 3 Read Part 1 Read Part 2 5 Questions to Clip Our Ego Wings “I just worship so much better when I’m on stage.” In the not too distant past when I’d hear something like this from one of my worship team members, I immediately saw warning…
Worship Planning: Soar On Wings Like Egos, 2
Worship Planning: Soar On Wings Like Egos, 2 5 Questions to Clip Our Ego Wings Read Part 1 Every team has a griper. You know, that person who’d complain if his ice cream was cold. It’s like someone’s been spitting in his Cheerios every morning since he was nine. It’s easy to get frustrated and…
Worship Planning: Soar On Wings Like Egos, 1
Worship Planning: Soar On Wings Like Egos, 1 5 Questions to Clip Our Ego Wings Let’s call her Lydia. If Lydia’s voice was an Uno card, it’d be a Wild Draw 4. Great when you’ve got it; bummer when someone else does. When Lydia’s voice is on, it’s fantastic to listen to. When it’s off,…
7 Deadly Things that Worship Musicians Say
7 Deadly Things that Worship Musicians Say (or at least are thinking…) 1. I have the “spiritual gift of music,” and I’m called to be on the team. First, is music a gift? Raw talent and the opportunity to learn and grow – yes, those are gifts from God. But I don’t personally don’t believe…
Here Be Dragons
Here Be Dragons At the edges of the world where the sea was yet to be explored, an ancient map-maker wrote HC SVNT DRACONES: Here Be Dragons. Places unknown, unexplored, untamed. But where dragons be, there also be gold and other treasure. We went off the map this past week at my church. Beyond…
Operation Fresh Jawbone
Operation Fresh Jawbone “Where’s he going with this?” I wondered as the speaker pulled out an animal’s jawbone as an object lesson. Whenever a pastor mentions a jawbone, especially one belonging to a long-eared pack-animal, you know the story is going to feature the great dark hero of Israel, Samson. But we were commissioning ten…
The Preferred Future (or, Why I Get Up at 5am)
The Preferred Future (or, Why I Get Up at 5am) Vision. This is a black-hole subject. What I mean by that is it’ll suck you in and you probably won’t find the end of it. There have been oodles (yes, oodles) of books written and talks given on vision. Some agree on some things. Most…
Whining, Dreaming, and Just Dealing With It
Whining, Dreaming, and Just Dealing With It Last week we talked about getting real with our current reality. Jim Collins in his business book, Good to Great* illustrates this idea with Admiral Jim Stockdale’s story. Stockdale was the highest ranking US military officer in the “Hanoi Hilton,” a POW camp during the Vietnam War. He…