wyf4lyf
07-14-2007, 11:39 AM
Hi everyone,
I'm Nina -- pronounced "Knee-na" which is relevant since I recently underwent knee replacement surgery. :eek: I've been married to my wonderful husband, Glenn, for 22 years and we have 2 great kids, Caleb who will be 20 (yikes!) next month and Jake who is 16. Ah the teen years...
I'm the Worship Pastor at Vineyard City Church in Tucson, AZ. I've had that position for a bit more than 5 years. (Where has the time gone?!) Prior to that, we attended the Vineyard in Palo Alto, CA, where I was on the worship team on and off (mostly on) for 12 years, starting as a keyboard player and vocalist, and then was the leader for about a year during a transitional time...and then was a substitute leader after that. The Lord spoke very clearly to my heart in 1993 that He was calling me to be a worship pastor...it was a 9-year journey of laying it down again and again, lots of tears, lots of questions. Ulitmately, LOTS of refining. I can look back at many things during those years and see the "why" but at the time, the waiting was tough. We moved to AZ to support our then-associate-pastor and his wife who were moving from CA to AZ to senior pastor a small church. When he took the job, there were about 80 people in the church. By the time he and his family moved here, there were about 55, and by the time my family got here (6 months later...we had a house to sell before we moved), it had dwindled down to 35...and then got to about 25 at one point. What a journey! There was already a worship pastor in place, so I figured I would support him and be mentored by him. Well...our boxes weren't completely unpacked when I was told that the worship pastor was burned-out, had never felt called to that position, and really wanted OUT. God is a sneaky God, isn't he? Our pastor, the worship pastor and I worked together on a 3-month transition so that it wouldn't be too sudden for the church or the team. So that's how the Lord began the fulfillment of the call I'd heard 9 years earlier!!
I share all of that because I imagine there are some people on this forum who are in that waiting process... waiting for a promise of God to be fulfilled. It's worth the wait. And the biggest thing I learned is that it's too easy to make an idol out of the promise...out of the destination...when what the Lord wants is for us to trust Him and put the promise on the back burner and not have it consume our lives. It was a hard lesson for me. If anyone is in that place right now, I'd love to share more and pray for you. Feel free to write!!!
My heart as the leader of this ministry can be summed up by our 3 priorities -- Love God, love each other and musical excellence...and in that order. I've been in too many situations where it was all about the music...done out of love for God, of course...but there wasn't much happening by way of getting to know each other, caring about each other, etc. We practice once a week and begin each time by checking in with each other, how's the week been, etc. We take time to pray for each other, and also to worship together a bit before we dive into whatever we'll be working on.
In the past 5 years, I've seen us grow immensely in our musical skill, but far more important to me is that the 12 people involved in the band, along with the folks on audio, video, and our intercessors are all ONE TEAM and we all love each other. We have A LOT of laughter together. I hear so many horror stories of in-fighting and jealousies, "us vs them" mentality between band and sound team, and I give glory to God that we have none of those issues. Of course, you never know what's around the corner. But I praise God for what we have now.
I lead mostly from acoustic guitar and occasionally from the keyboard. I do love playing and singing from the keys when one of my other leaders leads...takes me back to my roots, plus getting to sing harmony again from time to time is a delight that I miss when I'm leading.
Right now our church meets in a school, though we are hoping to begin to look for a building to lease within this next year. We have about 100 adults now who regulary come...though never on the same Sunday (except for Easter)...and lots of kids. I have one other worship leader who leads for me once a month so I can have a regular break and I'm also in the process of mentoring a 3rd leader. I feel really blessed to have this for a church our size.
As for the rest of the team, we have 12 on the roster, but the configuration changes from week to week depending on availability; typically we'll have a full band twice a month (acoustic, electric, keys, bass, drums, vocalists)...and then some kind of acoustic band the other 2 weeks. That can range from me with a guitar and another singer, to 2 acoustics, keys, congas, djembe and several vocalists. I like how the Lord has given us a mix of things so that our congregation doesn't get too used to the same kind of sound every week. I am beginning to think about perhaps forming set teams...smething I'll be praying about for the next few months.
I'm almost 46 years old, so that makes me kind of ancient in this biz...but I like mentoring younger people, especially women.
And obviously I still don't know how to be short and sweet on these forums!! If anyone read all of this, then you get a gold star. :)
Looking forward to getting to know you all!
Blessings...
Nina
I'm Nina -- pronounced "Knee-na" which is relevant since I recently underwent knee replacement surgery. :eek: I've been married to my wonderful husband, Glenn, for 22 years and we have 2 great kids, Caleb who will be 20 (yikes!) next month and Jake who is 16. Ah the teen years...
I'm the Worship Pastor at Vineyard City Church in Tucson, AZ. I've had that position for a bit more than 5 years. (Where has the time gone?!) Prior to that, we attended the Vineyard in Palo Alto, CA, where I was on the worship team on and off (mostly on) for 12 years, starting as a keyboard player and vocalist, and then was the leader for about a year during a transitional time...and then was a substitute leader after that. The Lord spoke very clearly to my heart in 1993 that He was calling me to be a worship pastor...it was a 9-year journey of laying it down again and again, lots of tears, lots of questions. Ulitmately, LOTS of refining. I can look back at many things during those years and see the "why" but at the time, the waiting was tough. We moved to AZ to support our then-associate-pastor and his wife who were moving from CA to AZ to senior pastor a small church. When he took the job, there were about 80 people in the church. By the time he and his family moved here, there were about 55, and by the time my family got here (6 months later...we had a house to sell before we moved), it had dwindled down to 35...and then got to about 25 at one point. What a journey! There was already a worship pastor in place, so I figured I would support him and be mentored by him. Well...our boxes weren't completely unpacked when I was told that the worship pastor was burned-out, had never felt called to that position, and really wanted OUT. God is a sneaky God, isn't he? Our pastor, the worship pastor and I worked together on a 3-month transition so that it wouldn't be too sudden for the church or the team. So that's how the Lord began the fulfillment of the call I'd heard 9 years earlier!!
I share all of that because I imagine there are some people on this forum who are in that waiting process... waiting for a promise of God to be fulfilled. It's worth the wait. And the biggest thing I learned is that it's too easy to make an idol out of the promise...out of the destination...when what the Lord wants is for us to trust Him and put the promise on the back burner and not have it consume our lives. It was a hard lesson for me. If anyone is in that place right now, I'd love to share more and pray for you. Feel free to write!!!
My heart as the leader of this ministry can be summed up by our 3 priorities -- Love God, love each other and musical excellence...and in that order. I've been in too many situations where it was all about the music...done out of love for God, of course...but there wasn't much happening by way of getting to know each other, caring about each other, etc. We practice once a week and begin each time by checking in with each other, how's the week been, etc. We take time to pray for each other, and also to worship together a bit before we dive into whatever we'll be working on.
In the past 5 years, I've seen us grow immensely in our musical skill, but far more important to me is that the 12 people involved in the band, along with the folks on audio, video, and our intercessors are all ONE TEAM and we all love each other. We have A LOT of laughter together. I hear so many horror stories of in-fighting and jealousies, "us vs them" mentality between band and sound team, and I give glory to God that we have none of those issues. Of course, you never know what's around the corner. But I praise God for what we have now.
I lead mostly from acoustic guitar and occasionally from the keyboard. I do love playing and singing from the keys when one of my other leaders leads...takes me back to my roots, plus getting to sing harmony again from time to time is a delight that I miss when I'm leading.
Right now our church meets in a school, though we are hoping to begin to look for a building to lease within this next year. We have about 100 adults now who regulary come...though never on the same Sunday (except for Easter)...and lots of kids. I have one other worship leader who leads for me once a month so I can have a regular break and I'm also in the process of mentoring a 3rd leader. I feel really blessed to have this for a church our size.
As for the rest of the team, we have 12 on the roster, but the configuration changes from week to week depending on availability; typically we'll have a full band twice a month (acoustic, electric, keys, bass, drums, vocalists)...and then some kind of acoustic band the other 2 weeks. That can range from me with a guitar and another singer, to 2 acoustics, keys, congas, djembe and several vocalists. I like how the Lord has given us a mix of things so that our congregation doesn't get too used to the same kind of sound every week. I am beginning to think about perhaps forming set teams...smething I'll be praying about for the next few months.
I'm almost 46 years old, so that makes me kind of ancient in this biz...but I like mentoring younger people, especially women.
And obviously I still don't know how to be short and sweet on these forums!! If anyone read all of this, then you get a gold star. :)
Looking forward to getting to know you all!
Blessings...
Nina