Okay I need participation? What is your favorite song? Do me a favour and comment on this entry. Let us know these 2 things...

1. What is your favorite song ever? (It could be anything)
2. What is your favorite congregational song? (That is a song we sing or have sung in church)

Here are mine. Please don't make fun of me..

1. "It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday" (Boyz II Men Version) I know I am going to get made fun of for this one. I don't care. Read my entries on criticism.
2. (This is hard, because this one always changes.) Maybe "Mighty to Save" (Right now)

If you missed the last entry here is the link to part 3. http://dougconnelly.blogspot.com/2008/02/criticism-part-3-answer.html

We have talked about the appropriate responses to criticism. The first response is to listen, the second is to answer, and the third and last is to dismiss.

Some people in life see only the bad side everything. I get really frustrated with these type of people, although I am probably that way sometimes myself.

With all of them, their silver linings have clouds. These people have the gift of dragging people down, especially themselves. It is hard, but we have to choose to not let them do that to us.
If you face someone who cannot be pleased, dismiss their invalid criticism.

Someone said that praise and criticism are windows to the heart. What a person praises or criticizes often tells us a lot about that person. What we praise often reveals what we value most.

At the same time, the things that we criticize often show our deepest insecurities. If I criticize you for being overly confident, chances are I might have a self-esteem problem. If I judge you for having a nice car, I may battle with materialism or jealousy. When we deal with critical people, we have to see past the their ammunition shot at us to their struggles.

The old saying is true, "Hurt people Hurt". I know this is a hard thing to do, but when we are faced with criticism, we must look at the person criticising and see where they are at. Maybe they are hurting, and they are leashing out. This will help us examine the criticism. Is it legitimate or is it way off base?

The bottom line is we can not please all people, but we can please God. When taking criticism we must either listen, answer, or dismiss. Regardless of those 3 we have to endure. I like I Thessalonians 2:4. It says "Our purpose is to please God, not people" If we know we are in Christ, we are forgiven and secure. In Christ we are free. We are what God says we are, not who people say we are.

Don't base your life on the opinions of people, but instead build on the truth of God.

We had great services this weekend. I really enjoyed the ING Sermon Series by Pastor Jeff. They were very practical, and spoke to me tremendously.

Everyone did a wonderful job.

Here are the songs that we sang...

-My Savior Lives (New Live Worship)
-Hosanna (Paul Baloche)
-Surrender (Marc James)
-At the Cross (Hillsong)
-Legacy - Special Music (Nicole Nordeman)

It is up. Our new website has arrived. I am so excited about it. Kit McKee has designed it for us. I just want to give him some props, because he has put a lot of time and energy in it. Thanks Kit, it looks great!

When you get a chance, take a look at it. It is http://www.babchurch.org/

There are a lot of cool features on it. This can be used as a great tool to bring people to our church.

We had a great weekend. Everyone did a great job. I am so thankful for the people in our ministry.

Here are the songs we did...

-Glory (Ethan Wheeler)
-Our God Saves (Paul Baloche)
-Sweetly Broken (Jeremy Riddle)
-Amazed (Jared Anderson)
-Special- Song of Hope (Robbie Seay Band)
-I Surrender All

If you are just checkin' in with the blog, here is the last entry of criticism- part 2 listen. http://dougconnelly.blogspot.com/2008/02/criticism-part-2-listen.html

As we talked about previously, the first response of criticism is to listen. The next response we have is to answer. Many times people may criticize you , because they simply want to voice dislike for you or something you have done.

When is it wisest to answer? Whenever you think that offering a response can help the person understand your posistion. But we have to be careful, because simply answering can easily turn into defensivness.

Many times we must answer critics when they are missing important info that could change their perception. (And if you think they are open to listening) Maybe they only know some of the story.

Gideon did this in Judges 8:1-2. It says "The Ephraimites asked Gideon, 'Why have you treated us like this?'... And they criticized him sharply. But he answered them..."

Gideon acted wisely. First of all he "Answered them". He gave them more information. In this case he told them how much he appreciated them. He built them up with encouraging words. Here is what happened in verse 3 "When the men of Ephriam heard Gideon's answer, they were no longer angry"

Many times a soft, humble, and wise answer can silence the critics. We must think out our answer carefeully, and allow the Holy Spirit to speak through us as we answer.

Just this summer, I had someone in a loving way, ask me why we did the music at our church the way we do? They also asked why we have contemporary music, and what is the purpose of it. After spending about 30 minutes talking to him, sharing my heart, and explaining the Biblical viewpoint and philosphy behind what we do, it made more sense to him. He wrote me a letter about 3 months later, and thanked me for taking the time to explain to him why we do our ministry the way we do. He also told me He understood it better and agreed with it.

Now believe me, it doesn't always happen that way, but I do think many times we can disarm people when we answer them properly.

So what happens when our critics obviously will not listen to us? We have to approach them in a different, difficult way.

Stay tuned to the next post.

Here is the first part of the blog entry criticism, if you misssed it. http://dougconnelly.blogspot.com/2008/02/criticism-part-1_15.html

When we have criticism in our lives, we must know who is offering the criticism, and why. We must diagnose the critic. Here are a couple things to do as you are dealing with a critic.

Listen to criticism when it is appropriate. In Proverbs 15:31-32 it says "If you listen to constructive criticism, you will be at home among the wise. If you reject criticism, you only harm yourself."

Some criticism is useful and it is given by someone who cares enough about you to risk offending or upsetting you. Their criticism is intended to help you and not hurt you.

My wife Heather is good at that. She will constructively critique me. She cares so much about me, that she will make an effort to help build me up. This is the type of criticism that will help us grow.

There have been many instances in my life where someone has critiqued me. Initially I did not want to hear it and many times didn't agree with it. After thinking about it, and allowing the Holy Spirit to touch my heart, I realized they were right. I changed what I was doing and was better off for it.

Consider the source. If the source is a mature Christian- someone you can learn from - pay attention. When someone cares deeply for you, the Bible say you are wise to listen, even if the truth hurts. If you don't, you are only hurting yourself.

Stay tuned for the next response. Answer

I will be the first one to admit that I make mistakes in leading worship, or in many other areas of my life. I had a flub this past weekend with one of the songs. I was trying to start cold on a chorus of a song, coming out of another song in another key. I don't have perfect pitch, but normally I don't have problems with this sort of thing.

The night before I nailed it, but in the 8:30 service on Sunday morning not so much. Anyways, it is pretty funny, and I thought you might enjoy seeing it.

What was even more funny, was that before the previous song, I had talked to everyone about making a joyful noise. It didn't matter how "well" they thought they were at singing. In hindsight I was just trying to give them an example.

The video quality is horrible, because it is off of a VHS tape that we recorded in my office. We probably have a better quality version of it somewhere, but I think that the quality of the video goes well with what I did.

Our church is coming out with a pretty cool website in a couple of weeks. There will be a link on it for blogs. So I will be linking my blog on it. This blog will be transitioning into more of a Worship Ministry Blog. Now I will still put some personal thoughts and even some personal happenings on this blog, but it will focus a little more on my role as a Worship Pastor at Broadway. I will also use it as a tool for our Worship Team.

For more of my personal and family things, you can go to my wife's blog.

So I need your help. I need you to comment on this entry and help me come up with a good name for this blog. Since it will be focusing more on our ministry, I have to come up with a different name. I need your help. What do you think?

Please help me!!!