FredMcKinnon.Com

When you say “praise Him in the dance” and think of incorporating “dance” as an act of praise … what comes to mind?

How about this?  1300+ people from a church in Budapest Hungary rehearsed this dance and came together and “danced” to celebrate Easter Sunday.  What’s even cooler?  They are organizing the same thing for Easter 2011 … worldwide.  For more info, visit www.uptofaith.com

HEY -

We interrupt your afternoon with a quick announcement (yes, two blog posts in one day!) ….

TONIGHT, I will be joining several others in a live, online discussion, sponsored and hosted by the AllAboutWorship Podcast.

The topic?  Senior Pastor and Worship Leader Relationships!

Check out the details, and join us tonight!

Wednesday, July 14 2010

Last night, millions of viewers said “farewell” to a guy named Captain Phil Harris of the F/V Cornelia Marie. Although he passed away in February 2010, the rest of us experienced his passing via the “reality TV show”, “Deadliest Catch“.

I’m not sure when I got hooked on this show … and I don’t quite understand why I will watch the same thing (cussing, smoking, throwing hooks, and pulling in crab pots) for hours upon hours.  I’m intrigued by the personalities.  Overwhelmed by the work.  Energized by the risk.  Captivated by the rewards.

Captain Phil was quite the case.  Supposedly, he was the exact same kind of person “off the camera” as “on the camera” … the same guy before and after their “fame” from being on TV.

Captain Phil … he smoked like a train, cussed like a sailor (oh, wait, essentially, he was a sailor, or a fisherman, at least!) … fought with his crew, fought with his kids … yet, was clearly a compassionate, loving man.  My wife and I were in tears as he loved his boys, showed them deep affection, and told them the four words that EVERY BOY WANTS TO HEAR FROM THEIR FATHERS:

“I’m Proud Of You”.

So … why this eulogy over a guy I never met?  I’ll tell you – Captain Phil represents something very powerful to me.  He represents the kind of guy that Jesus sought out to be His disciples.

18 While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.19 And he said to them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.  (Matthew 4:18-19, ESV, YouVersion.Com)

We hear all the stories of how Simon Peter must have been.   We infer from the stories in the Bible that Peter was rough, tough .. I bet he had quite the mouth on him.  I bet he could fight with the best of them, and could beat anybody in poker.

I bet when Simon Peter dropped his nets and followed Jesus … that his personality, and perhaps, even his habits, didn’t change overnight.

He wasn’t in a suit.
He wasn’t carrying His Bible in a leather case with a cross on it.
He wasn’t speaking King James.
He probably wasn’t clean shaven and polished.

He was ROUGH around the EDGES.

Jesus wanted Him.  Jesus called Him.  Of all the righteous, religious, uppity-fancy people walking the earth … and Jesus chose people like Simon Peter … like the tax collectors … the prostitutes … and yes, people like Captain Phil.

Did Captain Phil know Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior?   Well, I doubt any of us can answer that for sure.  Before you fire off your comments about how a Christian would never use that language, just stop and consider what I’ve written above.  Maybe you don’t smoke and cuss … but those are outward expressions of a sinful nature (and perhaps, just culture and physical addictions) … and I bet if you wrote down your less-visible “inward” sins … you’d back down …

All I can say is … I hope he did … ’cause I’d like to go fishing with him in heaven.

Farewell, Captain Phil Harris.

Introducing, “The Forge Conference” … something I’m very excited about.  I’ll be there leading/teaching, along with tons of your favorite artists, worship leaders, bloggers, and friends.

This worship and ministry training conference is ABSOLUTELY the BEST BANG FOR THE MONEY out there when it comes to conferences!

I hope you’ll come join us in New Jersey Sept 30-October 2, 2010.

To help you … we’re doing a FREE REGISTRATION GIVEAWAY at TheWorshipCommunity.Com – so if you’d like to go, register in the contest!

Forge Pricing is $99 a person or $67 a person for teams of 6 or more
The Forge Conference
Sept 30th-Oct2nd
Ocean Grove NJ

About Conference:
The Forge Conference is a melding or forging of two visions God gave to:
Doug Gould, Joel Klampert, Adam Fagan Kela, and Jack Osteen.

Vision one is creating a worship and tech training conference that is small and reasonably priced for teams to come to as well as instilling into attendees the true heart of worship.

Vision two is creating a conference that is designed to make people in ministry get real and get deep. It is a conference that is more like a retreat and deals with the heart issues in ministry and teaches people in the trenches how to make Christ center within the context of relationships.

Those two visions put together creates a conference/retreat that serves the local small church and builds Christ’s church through an atmosphere of Unity in a way that has never been done before.

The Bottom Line is: Training, education, stretching, healing, relationship, unity

Speakers/Artists Include:

Brenton Brown, Joel Auge, Mckendree Augustas, Grant Norsworthy, Fred Mckinnon, Joel Klampert, Doug Gould, Sheri Gould, Brent and Tammy Hodge, Jack Osteen, Adam Fagan Kela, Jonathan Lee, Shannon Lewis, Travis Paulding and MUCH MORE!!

How cool is it when you fly up to New England and join a praise team consisting of folks you have “known” via the web/blog/twitter world but never met in person.  Can this group really fit together?  Can they pull off more than 30 songs of music and lead a group of people into worship?

That’s what happened for me last weekend.  I was invited to come lead worship and play keys at two events hosted by Lifepath Church in Rhode Island.

“Stirred But Not Shaken” was a men’s retreat held in a retreat cabin up in in the snowy mountains of New Hampshire.  Then we had a big night of worship on Sunday evening at Lifepath in Middletown, RI.

Joining me was Joel Klampert (guitar), Chris Moncus, (photos and fill-in bass) Conner Byrd (guitar), Michael Mahoney (bass), and David Klampert (drums).

I’ve had the privilege of meeting some of my “internet” buddies face to face a few times already.  This experience was no different.  An instant connection and a deep sense of comfort and familiararity (spell check says that’s not spelled correctly, oh well) was there … I knew about their wives, their families, their jobs, their churches … [sarcasm] thanks to this thing Al Gore created called the internet.  [/sarcasm]

When we arrived in NH we were without power … and stayed without power until the early Sunday morning.  This meant leading worship with flashlights on our music because the generator was barely strong enough to power our sound equipment and the much-needed heat.  When evening came it got dark … very dark … and the two or three lamps we added to the generator overwhelmed it so much we had to go old-school.  Acoustic guitars … singing in the dark.  40+ men, singing at the top of their lungs, “open the eyes of my heart, Lord …. open the eyes of my heart … I want to see You” ….

What?  We didn’t require the latest, greatest songs and the mega-band?  Nope.  We had it, we used it, it was good … but I think one of the most sweet memories I will have from this weekend is standing in the dark (completely unable to play or participate musically due to the lack of power) and just watching Joel and Conner resort to grabbing their acoustic guitars and leading us in the pitch, black night.  Wow.

I felt like a Christian in the early church – maybe in a cave in Antioch, hiding out from pending persecution.

Our “night of worship” was a beast – 20+ songs in 2 hours.  I had only played or led maybe about 5 of the songs.  I learned them on the flight.  The people showed up and expressed themselves in worship and adoration.  It was awesome.

Thanks, guys, for an awesome event.  Thanks to the people in New England who came and shared these days with us.  It was incredible.  To my new friend, Jack Osteen – wow, what incredible words you gave us.  I left challenged from the Word of God and your touch.

For the Kingdom,
Fred