- I had spent about six weeks trying to find someone to lead worship on this trip and could not find anyone.
- Carla, my wife, normally leads worship on the trips we lead, but because it was Holy Week, she had stay home to practice with the choir.
- Christy Barnard, AIM’s project leader and worship leader coordinator, also had lots of trouble finding a worship leader and finally moved Arnie off of another trip that didn’t have enough participants.
- Arnie got sick and could not go on the trip.
- I called both groups coming on the trip and asked if they had anyone who could lead worship. They both said no. As a matter of fact, the Wyoming group was bringing their entire worship band…except for the guy who led it.
- I can sing, but am most assuredly not a worship leader as one currently thinks of worship leaders.
- Eric is a dancer/actor type, not a singer (at his own admission). In our ‘getting to know you’ conversation the day before, he mentioned that he liked to worship God in creative ways that were not just musical. (That’s the way I remember it, anyway)
At this point, I was starting to get a glimmer of the idea that God didn’t intend for us to have a worship leader for this trip and as the project leader, I needed to figure out how to run with that. (I know that sounds all fancy and religious. It would be more accurate to say that I was scared spitless and was looking for someone to blame. OK, not exactly; I was surprisingly calm about the whole ordeal, but still had no idea what to do.)
So, sitting in the booth at McDonald’s, I asked Eric (and Tori), “What would it look like if we had worship all week without a worship leader?”