God was good to us at WorshipGod09: From Generation to Generation. I know in a few days all the mistakes, problems, “things I wish we had done better,” will be more evident to me, but right now I’m very aware of many specific ways that God answered our prayers.
One of my favorite parts was getting to spend some time with folks I haven’t met or have only known through the Internet. Had a great time with some of the Acts29 worship pastors from Louisville, Seattle, St. Louis, and Dallas. Thanks to Tim Smith for setting that up. Also got to hang out with the folks from Enfield, the band that leads the music at Grace Community Church’s Resolved conference each year. If you happened to be in the Worship Team Evaluation seminar, you got a taste of what outstanding musicians they are. Humble and joyful, too.
Loved meeting some of the folks who came from far away to be at WorshipGod09. Steve and Keiyeng from Australia, and Fred and Reuben from New Zealand. Bilge and Sylvia from Germany. Just amazed they came all that distance to be with us.
In the weeks to come I’ll be sharing some highlights and reflections from the conference. In the meantime you can download the main session messages from the Sovereign Grace site. They were:
Wed. PM – The God of Worship (John Piper)
Thurs. AM – The Heart of Worship (John Piper)
Thurs. PM – The Leaders of Worship (Jeff Purswell)
Fri. AM – The Church of Worship (Thabiti Anyabwile)
Fri. PM – Lessons Learned from Three Decades of Leading (CJ Mahaney and Bob Kauflin, interviewed by Jeff Purswell)
Sat. AM – The Future of Worship (Bob Kauflin)
Also, check out the main session and seminars from previous WorshipGod conferences. Lots of good stuff that we couldn’t include this year.
WorshipGod08 – Rediscovering the Psalms
WorshipGod06 – The Glory of His Presence
WorshipGod04 – It’s Not About Us (main sessions only)
I will post the links on my blog as well. Every worship leader needs to hear these sweet truths!
Thank you for organizing the conference, Bob, and for all the work your people did. I drove up from Waldorf every day with one other person from my church. Because of traffic on the beltway, we weren’t getting home until midnight, then we’d turn around at 6:30 the next day. Neither of us consider all that drive time (600 miles total and 2.5 hours up on Thursday morning alone) to be wasted. We were so filled and ready to return to our church on Sunday, and we’re excited for what lies ahead. I’m planning on bringing a larger group in 2011 (and getting hotel rooms!). Thank you. Loved it!
PS. Thank you for entreating Enfield to play! I thoroughly enjoyed Oh For That Day.
Thanks so much…I was moved by God in ways that I thought unimaginable. Especially by the words during worship about condemnation. It’s all taken away by the power of the cross.
Thank you for the ability to revisit reprocess and rejoice…I praise God for His grace through you guys!
Bob and everyone –
THANK YOU for an amazing conference. I was totally blown away by God – in many ways it confirmed what I’ve already known but just with such power and conviction – it’s not about the music. If we think it is, we are missing the point – it’s about the glory of God, revealed in his infinite mercy thru the Gospel of the Lord Jesus – that’s why we worship and that’s who we worship. It’s about representing that truth in everything we do in leading! Completely blown away. Sooo GOOD.
See you at Next 2010 and definitely with my whole team at WG11!
-M
PS: I “live-blogged” (tried, anyway!) each day if anyone is interested in daily recaps.
Thanks so much for providing these resources, Bob. It really means a lot to me as a working worship pastor at a low income church to be able to get at the content without having to pay an arm and a leg for it. :)
Have you considered zipping up all of the sessions for people who would like to download them all? Also, if you zip up the individual sessions, you’d save on bandwidth. I don’t know what kind of agreement you have with your CDN but depending on how popular the files are it might make a big difference.
Just a thought.
Bpb – thank you for your leadership of this conference. I came away refreshed, better equipped, and re-focused. Everyone on our worship team who attended really encountered God in powerful ways. I know that your prayer was that fruit would come out of the conference, and in my case and my team’s case, God answered that prayer. I am so grateful to God for your ministry, example, humility, and love for the Savior.
Bob, I thank God for you and your team in putting together such a great conference. I was encouraged and equipped and can’t wait to start processing some of what God taught me. Looking forward to bringing some team members along for WG11.
-Jon
Thank you so much for all the efforts that went into this conference Bob. God has always been faithful to teach and speak to me in specific ways at these events, and this year was no exception. And one of the huge means of grace is your thoughtful preparation, skillful leadership, and humble application of your gifts, which is so evident. Grateful to God for you and your ministry.
One thing have i asked of the Lord, that i would seek after: an iPod Touch. *Sigh* He didn’t give it to me. Guess i’ll be working up more faith for the WG11 giveaway.
Bob–
I echo the heartfelt thanks from all the others. Keep going! On the way home to Missouri, my wife and I talked about how we would like to hear an album of new recordings of “old” Sovereign Grace songs. Have y’all ever considered that?
John
John, as a matter of fact we were just talking about redoing some old Sovereign Grace songs. Thanks for the confirmation!
The conference was a tremendous experience and I had the joy of having seven people from our congregation attend. Thank you for putting on the conference.
This is probably the wrong forum to ask this question, but does anyone remember the title of the sermon by Jonathan Edwards on 2 Corinthians 4:4 that John Piper recommended? I don’t even remember which session he mentioned that sermon.
Dave, the name of the sermon is: A Divine and Supernatural Light Immediately Imparted to the Soul. It’s available at the CCEL site.