For the fourth consecutive year, we (Eric and the worship team of Beth Israel Messianic Synagogue) were offered the distinct privilege to lead worship at the MJAA Southeast Regional Conference, in Orlando, Florida.
This year, we led worship during the (Friday) Erev Shabbat service and the (Saturday) Yom Shabbat and Torah Service. We led the conference congregation with some of Beth Israel's original songs and arrangements, such as Adonai Rachum, Out of Egypt, His Eyes, Lai Lai Hey Hey, My Shepherd, Like The Rain, and Ma'oz Tzur. We also led the Shabbat Hebrew prayers, as well as the ten prayers surrounding the readings from Torah, Haftarah, and B'rit haChadasha, using my arrangements of musical accompaniment for each of these prayers.
We received wonderful feedback about the times of worship, and by far the favorites were Ma'oz Tzur and Like the Rain. So many of you asked for written music and recordings of Like The Rain, so I'll be making that available online very soon, along with other favorites at Beth Israel. There was also great interest in the musical arrangements of the Torah service prayers from Rabbis and worship leaders, a couple of whom purchased the Hebrew Prayer Project sheet music and congregational license.
The most exciting part was connecting with fellow worship leaders, musicians, and others in my generation who are the leaders of tomorrow. Virtually all said the same thing to me: we need new music; we need exchange; we need to fellowship with each other; we need to be supporting one another. This fired up my motivation to be a facilitator of this, and triggered more ideas for a worship conference at Beth Israel in 2012.
It was humbling and exciting to hear from some that I need to make myself available to disciple and mentor other worship leaders...something I would be so happy and excited to do. I will be thinking through how to do this in the months to come. It also fortified my vision for a book I am sketching ideas for on leading worship with God's direction and leading worship teams in practical ways.
It was also great to finally meet Aaron Kasdan and talk about the Asheville Music Festival. More to come on this in the weeks and months ahead.
For those of you who have been waiting for my praise and worship album, be encouraged! I spent some time with Ted Pearce, asking him questions and his advice on the whole recording process for a project on this scale (I'll share more on this in a future post). I got very useful feedback and encouragement from Ted, and I'm so grateful I had the opportunity to spend some time with him. He even said he'd like to help any way he can, so how great that would be!
To sum it all up, this conference was another great experience of worship and fellowship, and of stirring up vision and excitement for what's ahead!
