A Reflection On My 2020, And Looking Ahead To 2021

It's been over 2 years now since I last used this blog, but (as I will go into later), re-launching this blog is something that is on my list of New Year's Resolutions for 2021.

Despite 2020 being the weirdest year ever, with so much disappointment, as I was writing my last entry into my prayer journal on New Year's Eve, I realised that this was still a significant ear for me, and there was still so much to thank God for during the year 2020. He has been so faithful to me, and has still continued to be here with me on my journey of worship!

First of all, I finished my degree in Mathematics this year with a First Class Honours! It was such an achievement, and though I'm still waiting on that graduation, I was over the moon with my results as I honestly didn't think I had it in me. The weather was also gorgeous over the summer, and I had so much time to be able to relax every day, and to spend a lot of precious time with my family. I still managed to go on holiday too in the summer, including going abroad to meet up with my family over there, and also for our amazing beach holiday to St Ives every year. 

Finally, I started working at St James in the City as Assistant Worship Pastor and Anglican Chaplaincy Assistant. Who could have predicted when I first joined St James as a student, and when I felt that calling from God to lead worship, that it would lead to this? I certainly wouldn't have imagined this would be what I was doing back when leading worship was something that absolutely terrified me and was often the source of many tears! But now, looking back, I can see that God aligned so many things in my life over the years to lead to this stage in my life, and doing something that I am so sure that God has called me to gives me such joy and fulfilment!

This leads me to look forward to the year 2021! There is still so much uncertainty across the world, and especially in my own life, but I know that I can be assured that God will lead me to where I am meant to be next, and I am excited for all of the hope that I can bring into the world by doing something that I feel called to.

I am always a big fan of the New Year's Resolutions, as it is a time to reflect on the past year, and make a list of the ways that I can improve in my life, and really try and live life to the full! (And also my making a clear list, I can easily track what I am aiming to do, and less things get forgotten that I want to achieve). I must admit though, I usually only make the sort of resolutions that are realistic and I am certain I can stay on track with, which often does involve not setting myself strict numbers with anything, just to "do this more" for example. 

Now is the time for me to list all of my 2021 Resolutions, and hopefully I'll still be on here next year to look back through them. And since I'm also putting them on the internet, anyone who reads this can definitely hold me accountable at the end of the year, so here goes:

1. Make reflective journalling a priority: Since around 2017, I started journalling in so many aspects of my life including: prayer, dreams, discernment, my journey to leading worship, and songwriting. I've always had so many different journals on the go, but I feel like I became really out-of-habit throughout 2020 because so much less seemed to happen than usual, and I often felt like I was lacking creative inspiration in my life. However, this is now my main priority to re-focus on in 2021. Reflecting on these old journals after a year or so has also shown me how much God has been working in my life, and I often feel that He speaks to me so clearly in these moments, which is something that I have spoken about in the past to my mentor Zoë about. Therefore I feel that creating a lot of space for reflective writing where I can look back and see how God has been speaking to me will be so significant in my whole journey of God's calling in my life, and discerning what is next for me!

2. Restart this blog: This one will definitely be one that will be easily forgotten, but I've written it on here so that I will be much less likely to forget. Best of all, I got a new laptop for Christmas this year, so I will have no excuses for not writing anything over this year. Over the past few months, I've actually written the odd "paper blog post", which is basically where I write something in a notebook but in the style of writing that I use on here. I may upload these onto here if I get the change because I really like picking a theme of something that is currently on my hart, and writing about it in a creative way whilst being fully aware that God will be infiltrating His thoughts to me in this process. It is something that I enjoy so much, but often feel like it will be a lot of effort to try and relaunch this blog (tick!) or just worry about putting so much detail about my life on the internet. But then if anything I write does bless someone else, then it's all worth it for "eternal" purposes, isn't it?

3. Read the books that I have lined up for this year: I make some sort of reading resolution each year as I have way more books that I want to read than I have time for. However, I feel like I absolutely smashed this resolution in 2020 (HOORAY!) as I read 17 books (I think) across the whole year, as lockdown over the summer gave me so much time to read a whole 13 books that I'd been wanting to read for a while. I think that I have at least 9 books that I would like to read this year. I'm a much better reader in the summer when I can sit outside all day and read than in the gloomy winter, so I think I'll use my usual target of "one book per month" to kickstart my reading habit in January, and maybe I'll surpass my expectations and read 12 books in 2021!

4. Start (and hopefully finish) the HTB Bible In One Year app on my phone: I've had this app on my phone for a while now, but have never started it because it hasn't been the start of a new year. Today is my opportunity to start reading it, but as this is definitely something that I could easily forget about, I'm going to try and find a fixed time each day (potentially after I've had my lunch) and then set myself daily reminders on my phone until it becomes a habit.

5. Immerse myself into songwriting again: This is something that I should be tapping into often, given my Assistant Worship Pastor role, and part in the church creative team. However, I find it so difficult to get into the right mindset of creative songwriting as it is something that never comes naturally to me. The last time I was able to overcome this resistance, and "turn on the tap of creativity" as our Creative Director Matt would say, was in May 2019. But it was such an anointing experience, and there was something really special in creating something that was from God as a gift that will bless others! In looking at all things creative with this perspective, I feel like I can be more bold and get past my fears that creativity from "nothing" seems to bring and overwhelm me with!

6. Finish my sign language course: I started this course over lockdown and learned so much, but then I went on holiday and felt out-of-sync since then. I'm hoping to restart this course again, and hopefully fly through what I've already learned once so that I can move onto so much more! It's also something that more recently, God has put on my heart and I've really felt a strong calling to learn sign language. It began when I was watching Miracle On 34th Street, where Kris Kringle could sign fluently to a deaf girl, and it was so significant for me as I realised that it would be an amazing thing if we could all clearly communicate with the deaf community, especially since lip reading is impossible with the rise of face masks. Then later that week, I had a dream that we had a student come to St James who was deaf, and I fluently signed to her. It left a strong feeling that is still with me, and therefore I know that it is something from God; something that can really lead to positive change in the world!

7. Learn how to type properly: I've added this one for various reasons. Firstly because, as I just said before, I'm aiming to start using this blog again, so if I can type more efficiently, that will save me a lot of time. And also because now that I have this super-speedy new laptop, I'm more willing to use it more for creative tasks, so learning how to type with my whole hands, not just my two fingers, will be a very helpful skill. My brother has been learning and practising proper typing recently, so I'll be coming to him for advice with all things typing-related.

8. To be more confident: My final New Year's resolution! This has been a target and goal of mine every single year since I was around 11, so for the past decade! And also a big prayer of mine throughout the year too! When I was younger, it was always so disheartening that I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere with my confidence, but I've made so much progress recently, and I know that I have so many opportunities in 2021 to grow my confidence more in various settings that I had to add this one again! I can see that my growing confidence has been a significant journey for me, and I am so thankful that God has faithfully been with me, and that even when I couldn't see it at the time, I was still growing and making progress!

So there we are, my 8 new resolutions for 2021. I'm excited to hopefully come back here at the end of 2021 and reflect on how much God has done over the past year, using whatever circumstances the year throws at us for all glory!

If you've made it this far through all of my ramblings - well done! And in the words of our Creative Director, there is so much to look forward to in the year "2021 - The Best Is Yet To Come!"

Lois

A Reflection On My 2018

I was reflecting on all my achievements and accomplishments this year; I have done so much more than I ever thought I would do.

At university, I finished my first year with a first, averaging at 78%, and stayed in Liverpool beyond my exams because I finally felt that Liverpool was home to me and that God has put me in the right city. I also got to enjoy the amazing hot extended summer here in the UK, both in Liverpool and back at home.

I travelled more than I thought I ever would, which mounted up to 60 days of the year (this adds up to just over 8 weeks of the year). I got to explore the city of York for the first time, I visited my cousin in Germany, after my last visit was four years ago, I had a family holiday in the lovely Keswick, I went to the festival Big Church Day Out, I went on holiday to France and got to explore the beautiful south coast, I attended the Keswick convention, I was a leader for the second year running at Cumbria Christian Youth Camp, I had an amazing holiday in St Ives and I visited London twice: to see my cousin and to watch some shows at the West End.

However, my greatest achievement this year has hands down been the fact that I have led people in worship this year. After finding out at the end of 2017 that this would be my responsibility within the Christian Union, I assumed that I would just about get by in this role, but it wouldn’t be anything special. How wrong was I back then?

I didn’t have to wait long for my first experience of leading worship as I was thrown into it unexpectedly in March because of a misunderstanding. Looking back, this experience certainly wasn’t an error, but rather it was an opportunity that God had given to me.

Overtime, I was able to really grow in confidence with both having to play my guitar and sing in the presence of other people. I even bought myself a new guitar because deep down I knew that this was what God wanted me to do and I should start taking it seriously.

The new guitar was so beneficial for the new academic year in September as I took over as worship coordinator at the Christian Union. I started off with very little confidence to play in front everyone watching, and I struggled to feel like I had the authority to lead everyone else. The CU weekend away was such a beneficial experience for me as I was able to follow someone else’s lead and not have to worry about making mistakes in front of an audience. It did take a few weeks, but eventually I felt comfortable leading worship at CU as I grew in confidence both in leading the band and in leading to everyone else.

And how could I forget that we got a new worship pastor at our church this year? When it was first announced in January, I was adamant that I would not be getting involved with the worship team at St James in the City because I assumed the worst about whoever was taking over, presuming them to be a perfectionist who wouldn’t be interested in beginners, so it has definitely been a shock to look back at 2018 as someone who is fully emerged in the worship team at their university church!

Even when I joined the worship team in October 2018, I felt that as a complete beginner, I would need about two years of just playing in the team before I would be capable of leading worship myself. My first experience in the team had gone well, and I enjoyed following the lead of the worship pastor, so I got complacent with this idea that I could sail through and enjoy helping out. Of course, God had other plans because in November, I was faced with what was a tough decision for me at the time: do I lead one song the next time I would be in the worship team or not? After a lot of prayerful consideration, I decided to lead worship at the front of church, which was a huge step for me, but it was definitely the best decision because of how connected I felt to God whilst I was leading, and the amazing response that I had from others. 

How could I ever doubt that God wouldn’t have delivered 100% for me? I am currently laughing inside at how wrong I have been with the plans that I have wanted for my life versus what God already has planned for me. I needn’t say more other than God definitely wins!

My 2018 has been filled with so many experiences that have shaped me into a more confident person and a bold and faithful servant and I am in awe at how successful of a year I have had. Looking into 2019, I am finally able to trust in the plans that God has for me and know that even though I don’t know what will happen, He is always working for the good of those who love him, and who have been called according to His purpose!

Lois

A Serving Leader

Yet again, the idea of leadership seems to have occurred in my life again! It is as if God is nudging me to try and become a better leader because everything that I do at church seems to revolve around the idea of leadership, especially within worship!

Our student group talk was led by my friend Andrew; it was on the topic of leadership, of how we could all learn from the church leadership advice in 1 Timothy 3, regardless of what we do after we graduate.

We had a discussion of the best qualities of a good leader: someone who knows everyone’s strengths and weaknesses, someone who is fully aware of each responsibility, knowing how each role works, can delegate well and who leads a lifestyle that others should follow.

Of course, these were all great qualities that all great leaders possess, but for those of us who don’t currently have those sorts of characteristics, aspiring to become any sort of leader can be quite challenging, and cause you to feel like you mustn’t have been called by God to lead at all.

Whilst I was processing this idea of clearly not having what it takes to be any sort of adequate leader, it was time for our worship pastor, Matt Courtney, to share what he thought was the most important aspect of a good leader!

He told us that the best leader is a serving leader; one who is always willing to serve others in their position of responsibility. His wisdom is beyond words, especially when I realised that this analogy was connected to the life of Jesus: the perfect leader who came down to earth, not to be served, but to serve.

This has really taught me how to work on becoming the best leader that God wants me to be; to serve others as Jesus did!

Lois

Being An Inspiration And A Leader To Others

I have never really considered myself to be any sort of inspiration to others; what is so special about my life that I would have the ability to inspire others?

Furthermore, to hold the title of any sort of leader seemed even more of a ridiculous idea to me! Who am I to confidently lead others when I feel that I have no influence or inspiration towards other people?

You’re probably wondering where this is all going. It all started the day after I was on the worship team for the first time. I was yet again approached by our worship pastor Matt, who asked me to consider attending the termly worship leader meetings with other people at church. My initial thoughts were that of course I am not ready to even consider leading worship in church, he was really getting ahead of himself. He did, however, back himself up by saying that it was also aimed at future worship leaders to have an insight into this role, and to connect with the other worship leaders within the church. Of course, food being provided was also a selling factor!

When I was still unsure of whether to accept, Matt then told me that I was a true inspiration to others. I didn’t really know what he meant, so he elaborated by telling me that when I faced my fears by standing up at the front of church in the worship team, people were really inspired by such an experience.

The following Sunday, I explained to him that my flatmates have now had to hear me play the guitar, which is not good! However, he told me that “Your guitar playing is great Lois, you did everything right last week”. I then told him that after our CU meeting last week, the one that was full of disaster after disaster, our UCCF staff worker told me that my guitar playing had really improved over the last week, but of course, it was from playing alongside Matt, whilst I was “Learning from the real professional”. He seemed to find this amusing and told me that although this is his job, people didn’t see him as being remarkable; he was just like every other typical male worship leader, and people would never be surprised by this. However, apparently when people saw me at the front of church, they were inspired, because “To see someone like you build up the confidence to step outside of their comfort zone and worship reassures them that maybe they could do the same”.

Again, Ed’s message really must have spoken to me if I was able to step out of my comfort zone during the afternoon service at church whilst I was on the worship team. My next step is to now carry on inspiring others by stepping out of my comfort zone, and in time maybe even lead others, because as Matt always likes to remind me, “The best is yet to come, Lois”.

Thank you for reading this post. I now feel like I am fully submerged into a worship leader lifestyle somehow, and I have really enjoyed writing these posts recently!

Emily Toole and myself, after we decided to start using Matt's signature phrase "The best is yet to come" in our daily lives!

Lois

Beneath The Surface – More To A Person Than They Let On

This post was inspired by the fact that I had to leave during the middle of a church event for two hours because I had a flute lesson on Wednesday 17^th October 2018.

I was approached by Matt, our worship pastor, who asked me where I disappeared to during this period. I told him that I went off to my flute lesson and he seemed surprised, claiming “I didn’t know that you played the flute Lois”. He then asked me for some more information, so I told him my small history of how I taught myself to play the flute when I was 14, but I could never read music, so I never progressed. However, when I started university last year, I decided to start having flute lessons and to take exams, and I absolutely love it so far.

He seemed inspired and said to me “That’s amazing Lois! It must take real musical talent, and to sing and play the guitar too. I’m really impressed Lois”. My friend Tog then said that I was basically “A musical prodigy” and then they seemed even more impressed when I told them that I play in an orchestra too, even if I am behind for someone of my age, but it is still so much fun. They were then claiming that there seems to be “Nothing that I can’t do because I seem to be good at everything”, which I know is certainly not true, especially since at a younger age, I always felt that I could never find anything that I excelled in, and it was sometimes quite disheartening. As a result, to have people really believe in me was so encouraging.

I feel that, especially at university, people often hide parts of themselves that they don’t feel confident in sharing. For example, I had a conversation with my flatmate a few weeks after moving in about my orchestra. She seemed really interested in the fact that I played the flute and the guitar, and then told me that back home in Northern Ireland, she used to play the piano and the cello in an orchestra but has given them up now. A friend on my Maths course also told me that she learned to play the piano when she was 12 and would really like to start playing again, and possibly even start learning the guitar. However, none of these people would have shared this information with me had I not started the conversation with instruments that I play.

To be perfectly honest, I can completely empathise with them when it comes to sharing information that you are slightly self-conscious about, in this case because it involves playing an instrument, something that requires a lot of skill and confidence when it comes to having to volunteer your services with this skill. Back when Debs was worship pastor at church, I mentioned that I played the flute so that I could join the Christmas orchestra at church, but never once did I mention that I played the guitar and that I had become a worship leader at my Christian Union. Looking back, it seems completely ridiculous; she was the one person who could guide me the most, but I was too shy to offer my services in worship at the time, and it was only because my friend Simon deciding to spill the beans about me before I was able to openly chat to her about worship and receive support from her.

Back onto the topic of getting to know people, our current worship pastor Matt seemed to realise that there was more to me than I let on. Now I can see that after my first appearance in church when he told be that “This was just the beginning” and that “The best is yet to come”, he knows that as much as there is still so much for me to learn and improve on, he somehow sees potential. When he first asked me if I would attend their worship leader and potential worship leader meetings, I deemed the idea as crazy, because of course I would never have it in me to lead worship at church, but now I know that even just attending these meetings would enable me to get to know the stories of the entire team, which will help us to function as one body of Christ!

“For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ” 1 Corinthians 12:12

Lois

Learning To Move On From Our Mistakes

I always feel like the major downside of leading worship is that you are held accountable for your mistakes, particularly when the whole band is relying on you. I have always found them awkward to come back from, especially with all eyes on you.

Most people who know me well know that I always lack in confidence when I do things upfront. When I first told my mum that I would be in the worship team at church, she asked me if I was going to play my guitar unplugged, so that no one would hear my mistakes that I made. Truthfully, I would have loved to have done that, but I knew that the rest of the band would not have allowed this to happen because they have the same liability of making mistakes as myself.

On my very first day of being in the church worship team, our worship pastor Matt made a mistake with lyrics during two consecutive songs. As a band, we just kept going, and he did too, after trying to find the humour in it. He was easily able to carry on with the song and move on from the mistake.

At the end of worship, we all had a gathering of prayer, where Matt thanked Jesus that he “Loves our worship, mistakes and all”. He then admitted to it being embarrassing when everyone sees your mistake at the front and that “It wasn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last time” that something like this happens. Somehow, it was really encouraging to hear that even the professionals have their flaws; they just know how to recover easily.

Two days later during our worship at the Christian Union, we had a completely disastrous situation. Twice during our worship, my friend Simon’s keyboard decided to cut the power unexpectedly. We had no idea how or why this happened, but it was very difficult as a band to recover from. Simon, not knowing what to do, got to work on trying to turn the keyboard back on, whilst myself, on guitar, and my friend Carolyn, on the ukulele, tried to carry on, completely embarrassed that all eyes were on us as we tried to recover from this situation. During the second incident, Simon’s head was covering the only set of chords that we had between us. This happened to occur as we approached the bridge, the most difficult chords of the song, which meant that freestyling was impossible and we both had to stop completely and attempt to sing unaccompanied until the keyboard power returned. Fortunately, we were covered by Andrew Bailey on the cajon, who kept going for us, and we were truly thankful for this.

The next day, I explained to Matt of our disastrous situation at CU. He reminded me that mistakes are such a common thing to make and his advice was to learn how to carry on as normal by singing until the situation is solved because the audience still need to be led, and they will always look to you, the worship leader, to do this.

I feel like the possibility of making a mistake upfront is always the main thing that holds me from wanting to lead worship in church at all. I have been given lots of support from Matt recently about making mistakes as he seems to know exactly what to do in such situations. His main advice to me this week was to always play “Wrong and strong” and that if you just move on with the mistake, people rarely ever notice. He confessed to me some of recent mistakes that he has made recently, to reassure me that it is a common thing, that it happens to every worship leader, and that if making a mistake during worship is the worst thing that can happen, I really have nothing to worry about when leading worship.

There are still so many things that I need to learn and experience now, before being left on my own to lead worship at church. Although the idea still does completely terrify me, I am almost certain that it will happen one day; I now need to learn how to come to terms with this reality and let Matt guide me in every way!

Lois

Have I Found My Calling In Worship?

This is an account of Sunday 14th October 2018, the very first day that I was on the church worship team for "vocals and guitar".

To say that I was nervous for my first experience in the church worship team would be an understatement. The day before, I decided to try and practise the songs, but I found myself in a state of tears, and having a hard time because I was still recovering from a cold.

I turned up at church at 8:30 in the morning for team rehearsal and I just really didn't want to have to  be there because of my nerves and because of how tired I was. Everyone else was practising on their instruments when I arrived, but I just couldn't bring myself to prepare on my own, where everyone else could hear me. When it was time for our sound check and we had to run through each of the songs, I was at the peak of my nerves. However, we took our time to learn how to play each song as a team, and our new worship pastor Matt made sure that we all knew what we were doing. At this point, I was sorted for my guitar playing; I'd had to plug my guitar into the sound system, which did mean that everyone would be able to hear me, but Matt was also playing the guitar, and I knew that I would be fine if I just followed his lead.

Then came the scarier part - having to do the vocals too. I was told that I would have a microphone, so I panicked and immediately told them that I had extreme microphone phobia, something that I have had my whole life, which meant that I would be keeping a steady distance between me and the microphone. However, during our song preparation, I decided to edge closer, knowing that when the church would be packed full of other people singing, the pressure would be reduced as they would hardly hear me.

I was also given some words of encouragement by my friend Andrew, who told me that my singing was nice from what he could hear in the in-ear device, so I shouldn't have anything to worry about. I was also reminded by him that because of all of the instruments in the band, it would be really hard for me to solely hear myself sing, so I should not be put off my this.

It came to the first service of the day, and my nerves had completely gone! I realised during our sound check earlier that this experience had been the highlight of my entire week, and maybe the highlight of University this year! It just felt right for me to be doing this and I really started to gain confidence throughout the service! At one point, I really felt that I had found my calling, and that this is what God wants me to do!

The church sermon, by Ed Down, was about generous giving to God, and how we should have to give up some things to follow Jesus. I was deeply moved by this sermon, and I knew that God was telling me to give up my comfort zone, my shyness and my reservedness, and to really praise my God!

After the service, I was encouraged greatly and given complements by people at church, and it really fuelled me on and got me excited for the second service of the day.

As a worship team, we all had lunch at Matt's house. It was an afternoon of team bonding, before we headed back to church for our 4pm service to get back into it. Although the afternoon service is always the more popular service of the two, I felt that I was much more confident for this one. So during our rehearsal, I really went for it, standing as close to the microphone as I could, in the knowledge that I wanted to give God my all and not care about the thoughts of myself or anyone else.

We decided to make some additions to "I Give You My Heart" by Reuben Morgan from what we had done in the morning, so we had a run through for the first time, and I sang my heart out to the point where as our student worker Tog was walking past, she seemed to do a double-take, probably to verify that it actually was me singing, and she wasn't just hallucinating. Of course she seemed surprised, but I just carried on, slightly amused by her reaction.

Ed's message from this morning had really stuck with me, and I decided that this afternoon, I would give up all of my reservedness and stand as close to the microphone as I could, knowing that I just wanted to give God my best efforts!

There were a few times where I was completely absorbed in the worship and I closed my eyes to let God take over. Other times, I looked out onto the rest of the church, to discover them all in a really deep state of worshipping God. I saw that there was no one watching me, and that there genuinely was no pressure on me, just as Matt had promised from the start!

After the service, we had a team chat and prayer, where Matt really focused on the fact that our mistakes don't matter to God. I was told by the team that I performed so much better during the second service because I was strongly singing into the microphone. I then decided to share with Matt about how Ed's sermon had deeply moved me to want to give up my comfort zone to focus on God and all that he had planned for me. He seemed really pleased and encouraged me to keep going with the worship.

Then finally, as I was leaving church, I thanked Matt for all that he had done for me, and told him that much to my surprise, I had thoroughly enjoyed my time on the worship team this week, and I couldn't wait for next time. He told me that I had only scratched the surface with the musical gifts that God had given to me, which really put everything into perspective, of how God is always behind each and every one of my successes. His epic final words of encouragement were "Lois, this is only the beginning. The best is yet to come. Next you'll be International Worship Leader, Lois Pritchard". It really made me laugh, even if he was being serious, but I was left with a smile on my face that nothing could take away. I ended the day completely overjoyed with all that God has blessed me with. I will truly remember this day for a long time!

Myself and my amazing worship team: Matt Courtney, Becky Brydon, Andrew Bailey and Alex Benjamin

Lois