Saturday, March 29, 2014

"Waiting For You" - (recorded for "The Rest Is Silence")



Several years ago, after a group of us had been hanging out following a mid-week young adults service, I sat down and and quickly wrote out the first verse and chorus of this song on the back of a concert flyer. A few weeks later, I found the paper and sat down at a piano and clunked through the melody and finished the song with a friend's guitar.

Hearing it come together with the smooth vocals of Molly (Nass) Molenhouse and the incredible piano movements of Tyler Huston (The Straw Theory, NovaLux) was so much fun - I've been tempted to re-record it, but there's something special to me about this take and how it turned out.

Feel free to take a listen:

The Heart of a Tyro

If you've happened across the MOTION Creative Arts page at NewLifeOnline.com, then you've probably read our description of the ministry and the roles of those that serve. If not, this is the text:



"We believe that creativity is a strong and dynamic catalyst for innovative missional movement within a community.
Every movement is propelled forward from a spark. We believe that the role of creative arts, whether in music, design, video, recording or any other form, is pivotal for creating motion in our community. Through creativity, we are inspired to use our gifts to worship our God. Through innovation, we challenge each other to reflect the most creative force in our universe, our God that created us all.
Matthew 5:16 tells us that when we display the light we have inside of us that those around us will see it and glorify our Father in heaven. Every aspect of our MOTION Team is aimed at providing avenues for creativity to be utilized to glorify God, to ignite our community into missional movement and to spur each other to do likewise.


Our MOTION Team consists of an incredible group of talented people! Several have committed themselves to development in leadership and others are training up members and growing the team. The MOTION Team (Music, Media & Tech) consists of 4 primary roles:

MOTION Team Maven: A Maven is defined as someone that "understands and passes that on to others". The role of a Maven in the MOTION Team is to develop others into strong leaders, to pass on their experience to others for the better of the team and to cultivate the core.

MOTION Team Journeyman: A Journeyman is a strong, dependable and growing leader in their field. The role of a Journeyman in the MOTION Team is to lead multiple teams as Directors or Administrators, recruit new members and to provide support and strength to the core of the ministry. 

MOTION Team Tyro: A Tyro is a leader in training. The role of a Tyro in the MOTION Team is to grow in the area they are committing themselves to for development. This includes team development, leadership training, logistical training and platform experience. 

MOTION Team Member: Our MOTION Team Members make the ministry of the team possible. They are key volunteers that have committed themselves to serving on a rotation in key areas in order to make the ministry amazing!"



I love how this team works together and the core of why we do what we do - and the people involved make it incredible! The part of this that sticks with me is how the roles evolve and, even more so, overlap... For instance, my role is as a MOTION Team Maven, to train up others into leadership and pass on whatever understanding I've learned along the way. But in order to be the absolute best Maven I can be, I need to constantly be a solid Team Member and an ever evolving Tyro. Often, we get this mentality woven in to our thought process that leadership and success are all about moving from a lower position to a higher position - and maybe in corporate structures that carries some weight. For others of us, we desire to be a part of something bigger than management, something that pulls in people from all aspects of life, something that has a movement at its core - for us, we need to understand that the strongest leaders are learners and do not see that as weakness, that those who lead well stand shoulder to shoulder with the team they serve, that being a Journeyman or a Maven means becoming keenly aware of how much you still have to grow.
Sure, leadership does tend to have positions and titles, but the amount of influence and impact that comes from it depends on how much the individual embraces every aspect of the team. If a leader simply morphs into calling shots and commanding others, their influence and impact shrinks to a single entity. Leaders that embrace the whole find the level of influence and impact swells to the size of the entire movement... and beyond.
The key to it is this - embrace the heart of a Tyro, no matter what position you hold.

*Want to get involved in MOTION? Go to: http://newlifeonline.com/connect/ministries/motion-creative-arts/get-involved-in-motion/ and fill out the quick form at the base of the page!