Worship Team in Fremont
September 28, 2009
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It was an honor to meet you in person today, I have always wanted to see you and have been anxious for today to come –I have admired your preaching skills ever since I first came to Shepherd and saw you up there on the screen, you were amazing. We had a great service. I’m thankful that you could come all the way up here in the mists of your busy schedule.
Anyways, here’s a brief (hopefully brief) summary of how the band was formed at the Shepherd of the Hills Church in Fremont:It was nearly 2 years ago in the fall of 2007, when Kevin Kelly (the harmonica player) asked me to provide some music at this church when people are dining. I accepted his request and came to Shepherd for the first time. Soon enough, the worship leader at my own church (Centerville Presb. Church) left the job, so our church had to worship leaders in and out being interviewed. Manny saw this opportunity to ask one of the interviewees (Mike Spain) to play at Shepherd during worship time. When Mike came on board with this job; I played with him during worship to learn more about this position. So that was the Fremont Shepherd of the Hills band for nearly 7 months until Mike left toward the end of summer in 2008. That was when Manny saw that I had enough experience to take over Mike’s job –for I have been singing for quite awhile during my summer youth concert – as a worship leader at Shepherd. I played every Sunday with Kevin Kelly leading the church into worship.
During this transition, I have tried many guitar/bass players to accompany me to lead worship. However, none of these players worked out. Toward the end of 2008, Manny had been constantly asking me to recruit the whole band, but it wasn’t an easy task; no one had the mind to commit to a job like this. Finally I remembered the musically talented youth I’ve met during the summer youth band concert in 2008- Connor Fisher (guitarist) , Logan Fisher (bassist) and Mike Ryu (drummer). I asked them to be on board with me in the beginning of 2009 and they happily accepted my request.
In the beginning when the full band was formed, Manny didn’t think we were ready to take on 4 times a month to lead worship, so we had the opportunity to lead worship about 2 times a month. And every Sunday morning after Sunday school the band would practice at our church’s high school youth room – we had all the equipments for the whole band. And Sunday evenings we would be at the church an hour early to set up and prepare to worship the Lord.
A few months had passed when Manny recommended me Jessica Diesta for playing the sax phone with us. We gladly accepted her as a member of this worship team around March of 2009. We have been a band ever since – we would always practice on Sunday mornings and we would go to Shepherd whenever we had the opportunity. The band has been improving ever since the first time we played. We were nowhere near where we are right now at worshiping the Lord.
Shepherd of the Hills has been giving us a wonderful opportunity to use our talents to worship the Lord and help to bring the church into worshipping too. Furthermore, I believe that God has been leading this band into the right path; I believe that God has been planning this before I even knew how to play guitar; and I believe that God still has the plan for us to help to lead people into the worship of the Almighty God. And this band will do whatever God has in His way to glorify Him through our talents.
