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

An Update On My Worship Journey Over The Past 7 Months

So it has now been over 7 months since I last wrote a blog post. Wow! Where did the time go? I guess things got hectic with university and my social life to the point where this blog somehow got neglected. However, as I have just began my second year of university, I feel that I should give this worship blog another go because even though I have only been back in Liverpool for 4 weeks, God has already done so many amazing things for me!

First I thought I would give you an update on everything that has occurred in my life surrounding worship, and briefly what I am up to now.

So way back in March, I attended a guitar basics lesson with my friend Poppy, led by our worship pastor Debs. She was so supportive and understanding, and made sure that we learned some valuable and transferable skills for the guitar. I then headed straight to the Christian Union afterwards to lead worship, and it seemed to be a success. I then continued to organise the team for the rest of the year, which was only until Easter, so I had a very long break over summer.

After Easter, around April time, I was given a really detailed and wonderful testimony by my friend Andrew, and it made me realise that I should really type out my full testimony from start to finish. I got going on the project, and realised that my closest connections and encounters to God were always when I was doing something music-related. One fact about me that not many people know is that when I decided to become a Christian, I sang out loud to God, with a song that was not well-known at all, and recently, I have figured out the chords to it myself to hopefully perform one day. My testimony also seemed to be full of coincidences across my whole life to the point where I realised that everything that happened so perfectly in my life was not a coincidence at all, but it was because of God intervening in my life. It made me so thankful for all that he had done for me, and made me want to only focus on him looking into the future.

At my church in Liverpool, Debs wrote two albums of all age worship songs, which was really quite incredible. One of the songs was called "Whale Of A Time" and is about Jonah in the Bible, who ran away from the plans that God had for him. It suddenly dawned on me that I was very much like Jonah because I seem to always shy away and avoid the amazing things that God has planned in store for me. Therefore, at this moment, I made the decision to not be like Jonah, but to always listen to God, and do what he has commanded me to do to serve him.

During the month of May, as well as finishing my first year of university, and being able to enjoy my very long summer, as a church we also had to sadly say goodbye to Debs, our worship pastor who has served the church for many years. It was very emotional, especially because I was always very grateful for the bond that I had made with Debs, and the fact that I was really growing in confidence because of her counsel. As I said goodbye to her for the last time in what will surely be a while, I thanked her for all that she had done for me, and she told me that I will always be growing in confidence before God. She was really humble about everything when we are in the presence of God, and she told me that she had 11 years of experience on me and that she was just like me when she began with worship. Mainly because of the fact that she could hardly look at the audience, and was quite hesitant. It was really encouraging to hear this from her, and to know that I can achieve a lot of things over time. I will truly cherish these kind words of hers.

Emily Toole, myself and Debs Davies at church, all in matching outfits, shortly before she would be leaving St James in the City.

In more exciting news, I bought a new guitar in July! I spend a few months trying to find an electro-acoustic guitar that was within my price range to use exam success money from my Grandparents over the years. My reason for choosing to pay more for an electro-acoustic guitar was that Debs had told me that I should go for it, because if I ever ended up playing on the church worship team, I would need to be connected to the sound system. Even though I thought that the idea was completely preposterous, I went along with it anyway. I saw a beginner guitar pack at a shop in Liverpool, which consisted of an Epiphone PR-4E guitar, an amp, a gig bag, a guitar strap, loads of picks, a tuner and some chord charts. I have never looked back since I took the next step to buy myself a guitar, apart from the fact that I had to carry a huge guitar box through the centre of Liverpool, and I was exhausted by the end of the day.

The day that I bought my guitar and had to carry the whole kit through Liverpool city centre with my best friend Sam.

During the month of July, despite being back at home for the summer, I still kept in contact with my church in Liverpool, to hear lots of exciting information about the new worship pastor, Matt Courtney, who would be taking over Debs. As soon as a I heard it was him, I recalled back to March, when him and his wife came to a St James in the City service, and I shook his hand at the end of the service. I sent him a Facebook request, and I really prayed that I would be able to get along with him, and that he would bring out the best in me during my time in Liverpool. I later received a message from him asking if we could meet up in August because he had heard lots about me from Debs, due to me taking over the worship at my Christian Union.

My meeting with him was a success. We went to a coffee shop in Liverpool, and he was just here to get to know me better. Right from the start, I kept reminding him that I was a complete beginner and that I really didn't have the skills to get involved in church yet. However, he kept reminding me that God will accept us as we are, and that we can only give him our best. He also told me that his last job was more music technology-based, and he just seemed really humble, especially when he was talking about presenting himself in front of God. He then told me that there was absolutely no pressure to join the worship team, he wasn't forcing me to do anything that I didn't want to, but he would love to have me in the team anyway! Somehow, I could really hear God telling me that I should just say yes, that I should go for it and not look back. Deep down, I also knew that this was something that I really wanted to do now, and also when I was younger, but just never had the confidence, or the opportunity to do so. I told him that I would happily be involved from time-to-time, just to test the waters, but only when he was leading the worship, so that I could follow his lead and guidance.

Then by this point, September rolled in, and I was moving back into Liverpool for another year of university. This year, I brought all of my instruments to Liverpool; guitar, keyboard, flute and ukulele, in the hope of really using my time wisely to become more confident in music this next year!

My second year of university has started full of hope and optimism, and I really can't wait to see what God has in store for me while I am here!!

Thank you for taking the time to read through an account of my last few months, and I promise that I will be posting regularly over the next year about everything that occurs in regards to my spiritual life.

Lois

Unexpected Worship

It's been a while since I wrote anything on this blog post, but worship at my University's Christian Union has been a little non-existent up until now.

Since just before Christmas, I decided to start re-learning how to play the guitar. I had lessons when I was about 8 years old, and I taught myself how to play quite a few songs when I was 15 so it was't too difficult to pick up.

Recently at Church, Debs our Worship Pastor, who will be leaving this summer sadly, has been sending me worship chord charts and encouraging me, as well as also offering to teach me earlier this week. Feeling inspired by her enthusiasm, I decided to bring my guitar over to the Christian Union this week. It was really easy to carry because I still play the nylon-stringed, 3/4 size guitar that I got for Christmas 10 years ago.

I was more-than-willing to get involved in practice before everyone arrived, and was feeling passionate about playing, which is very rare for me! However, my friend Simon, who was supposed to be leading the worship on the keyboard, gave up transposing all of my chords halfway through his task, and landed me with the job of leading the worship for this week!

At first, I was absolutely terrified because I had been landed into this unexpectedly, but I made the most of the opportunity that God had given me. The hardest part was definitely starting off, because everyone was staring at me, waiting patiently. However, with the help of my friend Andrew on the cajon, I was able to strum easily and in time with everyone else singing.

The song that we did was Here I Am To Worship, which actually went really well, and I felt so proud of myself afterwards for believing in myself to take a leap and lead in worship. And although there were only 11 people at this week's meeting, I felt that for the first time this year, people were actually singing, and were really passionate about it!

I really hope to be able to continue with worship leading, especially since I take over next week as the Vice President of the Christian Union, so I will have a lot more responsibility and be able to serve my God each week with the gifts that he has given to me.

I will definitely be posting more in the upcoming weeks and take you along with me on my journey of serving God in worship, something that I have wanted to do for many years, but just not had the confidence to do, until today!

So thank you very much for reading what feels like the first chapter in serving God through the act of worship!

Lois