FredMcKinnon.Com

I’m 39 years old. I will hit 40 in November.
I’ve been involved in church music since I was a kid.
I’ve been on a praise team since I was in High School.
I’ve been a worship leader (either as a volunteer or as paid staff) since the early 90’s.
I’ve been on church staff since 1995. Yep, that’s 15 years.

I am discovering a profound truth about Worship/Music Ministry.

Picking songs and leading music is a very small part of what this job is really about. This job … this ministry … it’s really about:
* leading people
* bridging gaps
* listening and learning
* being a peacemaker
* navigating through personalities and expectations
* managing volunteers
* building relationships

Playing the music and leading the singing on Sunday?

That is by far, the EASIEST PART of this job!

Hey Everyone,

I’m a few hours from boarding my flight to Austin, TX for the annual National Worship Leader Conference. A fellow blogger, friend, Worship Leader, and Contributor for TheWorshipCommunity.Com will be making the trek with me … thanks, Russ Hutto!

As with the Willow Arts Conference, I’ll be blogging from the conference in Austin. For more frequent updates, you should be following my twitter account.

Pray for me, especially on Thursday from 11:00 – 12:15 CST and 1:45 – 3:00 PM CST, as I”ll be teaching the “Worship + Web 2.0″ class.

Hope to hookup with Chad Wright this trip, and many other bloggers and friends. If you are there, twitter me or email me … we’ll find a way to hookup. Me thinks we’ll crash a restaurant or hotel lobby after one of the night concerts!

More to come,

Fred

Hey Gang,

I’ll be spending the bulk of this week in Chicago at Willow Creek’s Arise Arts Conference. For those who missed some posts over the weekend, checkout yesterday’s Worship Confessional and this weekend’s “Free DVD” challenge for CareNet.

So I thought I’d start this week off with a little bit of personal humor. While I was doing a concert at Ft. Belvoir in Virginia a couple of weekends ago, I had three people … count’em … THREE PEOPLE make comments about my “accent” … only, it was about my “lack of accent”. I was pretty disappointed that I’ve lived on a resort island with a melting pot of north/south/east/west folks so long that I’ve lost my redneck flare.

The truth is ….

“I live on an upscale, beautiful resort island in Southeast Georgia, but I’m really still a hunting, fishing, 4-wheelin’ redneck. I can skin a buck, I can run a trot line.”

Further inspired by my buddy Brent Hodge’s pics of some fish he caught (if you call that a fish) with his son, I went on a quest to locate real video footage from my glory days as a South Georgia Redneck.

I present to you, circa Summer 1994? (freshman in college), “Redneck Worship Leader Goes Fishin”.
Background: I love bass fishing. This was an early morning trip to a great farm pond in Telfair County with one of my best friends ever, Tommy Joines. We took along the camcorder (you remember, those huge black, plastic VHS ones?) and were making our own “fishing show” like you see on those outdoor channels. “Hank Parker Outdoors” was my favorite of all-time (hence, my whistling the theme show). I never would’ve guessed that during this morning I would have the honor of landing a monster 10-pound largemouth bass … and catching most of it on video. (we would’ve captured more of the fight, but we were hung up in stumps, and Tommy had to drive the boat before getting the camera).

Things to look for:

1. way-cool “I’ve gone to college now” blend of college student meets redneck attire.
2. the hook literally falls out of the fishes mouth when I grab it.
3. this was the day of 0% body fat. No need for Carlos’ challenge back then. (oh how times have changed)
3. enunciation is the key:
Pounds = Pow-wends.
Myself = My Se – yelf.
The Wall – da wa-wahl.

Hope you enjoy.