A late mother's day post... sorry Ma'... I didn't think of the idea to write it till today.

When I was growing up my mother was the Worship Director at our home church Park CRC. My dad was also heavily involved in Worship ministry at our church through being on praise team, running sound, and for a while he even sang in the choir. As a result of this I was always at church. It makes sense then that eventually I would start to be heavily involved in Worship ministry. In 3rd grade my parents bought me a bass guitar for Christmas, Im pretty sure my mom had me playing on praise team by fourth grade (even though I was terrible) and eventually I began singing in choir, singing on praise team, and in middle school I even picked up acoustic guitar.

Worship Ministry was a family thing. My mom played piano and lead, my dad played guitar, my brother played drums, I played bass, my older sister played piano, my other older sister played viola in the church orchestra… Eventually us kids figured we might as well embrace it because there’s no getting out of it (but some how my younger sister got out of it…).

As someone steeped in Worship ministry from grade school, I have learned a lot from my Mother about Music and Worship. Not to mention the fact that she was my main professor when I was getting my degree in Music and Worship. But after doing full time worship ministry on my own, what I’ve recently realized is the most important thing that she taught me was something that I didn’t even realize she was teaching me.

When we were growing up, often times on the way to praise team rehearsal my brother and I would ask “So what songs are we doing this week?” My mom would always respond “Oh… something about Jesus, the cross, and God and stuff…” We’d always get so frustrated because we thought she didn’t pick cool songs and she just didn't want to admit it to us. What my Mother was teaching me (through what I thought was avoiding the question) was that it doesn’t matter how cool or catchy or fun the songs are, what matters is what the songs are about. And they should be about ‘Jesus, the cross, and God and stuff.’ (Not all popular 'worship songs' are...)

Before I even understood what worship was, beyond just singing at church, my mom was instilling in me the value for Gospel shaped, Christ magnifying, God glorifying, Spirit lead worship. And for that I’m very thankful.