To this day I believe I was set up!  Those who know the truth, may one day come forward and acknowledge what they did.  Until then, I will never know for certain.

I was a young Christian, and had just arrived at my second visit to what we  called “Mini-church.”  It was a home-group, but back in those days, they were very uncommon and this one had 40 people in it. 

During my first visit, someone found out I played guitar.   Ten minutes before the start of this second meeting, one of my new-found friends approached me with the con:  “Jim, our normal guitar player is not going to be here on time, would you mind playing guitar during worship tonight?”  Yeah, I would mind , I thought.  I don’t know any of the songs, and I don’t have a guitar.   Practically reading my mind, he told me that the regular guitar player had “just happened” to leave his guitar at the house we were meeting in and I could use his.  Without waiting for my answer, Mike handed me the guitar and pointed me to the back room where the singers and the flute player were running through the songs.   I was trapped with no means of escape.

How did it go?  In my opinion, it was a horrible train wreck.  I did not know any of the songs, and the charts were absolutely no help!  So I winged it.  Everybody could tell!  When the meeting was over, Cathy (the flute player) asked me if I would like to be the regular guitar player.   Now I ask, does that seem like a set up to you?

For some reason, I still don’t know why,  I said yes!   That is how I got started leading worship.   Twenty-four years later I have led worship all over the world… Read the rest of this entry →