Monday, February 26, 2007

Thomasville Disciple Now

This past weekend I had the priviledge to help lead worship at Thomasville, Ga's Disciple Now. Our 5-person band consisted of Elliott DeJarnett leading, his college roommate Bryan Fox playing lead guitar, Anthony McPhail on the base guitar and Caroline Darnell singing with Elliott. I can speak for all of us when I say we had an incredible weekend. D-Now was put on by 2 local youth pastors, Bobby and Floyd - sorry don't think I ever got their last names. Floyd is Cory Hallett's brother-in-law by marriage (Anne Marie's sister married Floyd). Do you even call him a brother-in-law? I don't know. I've never understood the nomenclature of family bonds by marriage. Maybe somebody can help me out? Anyway, we led worship for a group of students from all over the Thomasville area. About 7-8 different youth groups were represented, from all kinds of different denominations. I think in years' past only the Baptist churches were involved with the D-Nows. It was amazing to witness the unity that's present amongst all the different churches down there...which is something we are praying for here in Marietta.

We arrived in Thomasville about 4:30p Friday afternoon and began setting up at Thomasville First Baptist Church. The production came close to what we typically use at our summer camps; full of lights, smoke machines and a kick-butt sound system. That night we led worship for around 400 or so students and about 100-150 adult volunteers. I'm not going to brag...wait, yeah I am...the worship was pretty dang good. I could tell that they weren't quite used to the intensity of worship God brought through us. Don't get me wrong, there were more than a few people that had their hands raised, but a majority stood and just sang the songs. I will say that I couldn't see everybody from all the smoke that was around me! : ) After worship, we grabbed a quick bite to eat at Barberitos (so good) and headed to our hotel. Elliott and I shared a room, as did Anthony and Bryan. Poor Caroline had a room to herself. Saturday we woke up and went and ate lunch at the First United Methodist Church with their youth. Floyd is the youth pastor at this church. He kind of reminds me of Cory, except he's funnier...sorry Cory! After lunch we all (we being the band) took a leisurely stroll down Broad St in downtown Thomasville. We stopped in a few shops, including the very sketchy Wig and Accessory store. There is a music store in downtown Thomasville that is the oldest music store in America. It's been open since 1904! (You could tell by the limited amount of inventory they had...). Also, if you've ever been to Athens you have noticed the different styles of Bulldogs (excuse me...Bulldawgs) that decorate many of the street corners. Well, here in Thomasville they have random small animal statues, including dogs and beavers...yes, beavers! Elliott thought it would be funny if I took a picture with all of the dog statues (see below).

Doing an examination... Playing peek-a-boo w/ this one
Such a good dog... I see what your pointin at there fella...

After goofing off downtown, we went back to the hotel for a little nap time. We headed back to the church that evening to get ready for the night's service. Saturday night was such a good time of worship. There were about 800 or so people there that night! We led worship for about 45 minutes. The students (and adults) were much more engaged than the night before. There was a dramatic difference in the response of the body. The students were right on top of the stage. They had never heard of Marvelous Light before and it became one of their favorites! The Lord definitely reigned on the praises of His people that night! The intensity of worship reminded me a lot of the worship that goes on at summer camp. I do have a random, but stinkin' funny story that happened while we were practicing for the Saturday night service. We were running through Jesus Paid it All and you know the part where it says, "Sin had left a crimson stain..."? Well, Elliott thought the song would sound better if it went, "Jen had left a clemson stain...!" We all stopped playing and were like, "did you just say, 'Jen had left a clemson stain?'" We were laughing... (sorry, Anchorman quote there). You may not think it is that funny, so I guess the right thing to say now would be, "I guess you had to be there." Anyway, the speaker was a college pastor from Prince Avenue Baptist Church in Athens, GA. He spoke from the passage in Matthew 16 (vs 24-26) where Jesus talks about what it means to be a disciple and truly follow Him. I was definitely challenged when it comes to the things I have in my life as a priority over God. Can I truly say that I am able to deny myself of everything in this world for His sake? It's tough...

That night after worship we went to the fabulous Waffle House then went back to the hotel for bed. The next morning we were to lead worship at the morning services of 2 different churches (8:45am service at First United Methodist and the 11am service at Dawson St - not to be confused with Dawson Creek - Baptist Church). At the first service we played with the whole band and at the second service we did a little acoustic set with a djembe. This second service was rough. The students stood and the adults (where the average age was about 60 years young) stayed seated, blank stares and all. We plowed through that service and then headed back to our respective destinations (Marietta via Macon, and Athens).

All-in-all, the weekend was great. We got to meet a lot of great youth, youth pastors, pastors and adult volunteers. God showed up in worship, as He always does, and lives were changed. What more could you ask for?

I've included some more photos from the two nights of worship. Feel free to take a gander...










Grace and peace.

3 comments:

Camille said...

It sounds like an amazing weekend. I would love to hear y'all.
I love the pics of you and the dog statues! I have to say that all the UGA "bulldawgs" here drive me nuts. I am slowly getting used to them-after a year of living here-they used to drive me crazy!

Camille said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
tatum said...

1. i'm so pumped that y'all are a band.
2. i'm doing the beth moore study on daniel and i think you're name is fabulous.
3. claire showed me y'all's shirt...it's awesome.
4. me and amy saw a guy this weekend that looked like you. it was weird.