It Must Groove: Spain

We have a short break now so I thought I would do a little update on our day. The day started pretty typical with breakfast before our first session. This morning we got to try a famous pastry in the region compliments of Jona and it was yummy.

The pastry known as Hojaldres.

Jona applying what I believe is olive oil on his toast and then…

add a little salt to the mix and you have breakfast of champions!

This is what happens when I left my camera unattended.

Tan representing - showing some love to the Seattle Sounders.

After breakfast we headed back for our first worship session. We discovered today during the worship time that the Spaniards are very expressive outwardly except in expressions of worship and of being vulnerable in a safe environment. Peter encouraged them to open up a bit and asked if we could pray with them, especially if there were going through tough times in life or struggles, etc, and only Tan responded. It was, to me, an indicator of what came in our next session.

Pau giving sharing the devotional this morning. He talked about going to the Bible as our original “song book.”

Peter talked about planning a service order and the flow of a worship set. It has been made known to us that the churches here don’t have the freedom of a service order. They have a loose order which includes allowing people to stand up in the middle of the worship time to request a song (that may come from a thousand page hymnal) , say a prayer and/or talk about their dog that passed away and give a testimony. They asked how the flow of a set can be worked into spontaneous requests. There was also a suggestion/comment that at some churches, women were not really permitted to share but were allowed to request a song and that was their only way of expression. We told them that it all had to be of a sincere attitude and not one of rebellion that these women make their requests known.

As the questions came about the “order” of the services here in Spain, I observed an under lying theme; traditions were getting in the way of a true personal experience with Jesus. They struggle with why they are not seeing many more people come to discover the real Jesus, yet they don’t realize some of the things they do are hindering them from the mission. The people are ready for a change but are faced with resistance. I understand cultural implications, I am after all a foreigner with certain “church” traditions from my past. However, I also know and am experiencing what it means to be on a journey to discover Jesus and what it means to follow Him and that He is Lord of all we do and the Church is His and we are being called out.

Needless to say, I am quite burdened for the people and I will be praying for breakthroughs and life transformations to come through Jesus and the people as they leave and return home will have supernatural, God-given, creativity and that Jesus is lifted up and people will drawn to Him.

Carlos (keys) & Delia (vocal) leading their team in a rendition of “Be Thou My Vision” – they wanted us to critique them and give them pointers. I was able to share with Carlos a bit and Peter encouraged Delia.

Peter having a “dad” moment with Erik Molina. I think Peter misses the E-man.

Siesta is the best “invention” ever! We had a nice afternoon nap after lunch and it was good! That helped me for the next session. Kris and I did a bass and drum combo session. I only realized after the session that we had gone for slight over 2 hours. It was great to work with these guys and helped them develop as better players. Once again, these guys are a tough read – we couldn’t tell if they were getting what we were saying or they were benefitting from it because they all kept straight faces and weren’t overly responsive. Ultimately I think we did get through.