I asked one of our worship leaders at The Landing to give his take on leading worship there. Here’s what Robbie wrote:

Leading Worship at The Landing at Saddleback Church is a super sweet experience. In the past year God has taken me on an adventure that I never thought I would be a part of. Our band was able to play a huge festival in Tijuana, Mexico where 2,800 people were saved. Straight after that I went on a solo tour in South America for one month. Playing shows, even speaking at some churches. God has brought us on this amazing journey.

During my travels God really showed me that worship is not just that part of a church service where you stand and sing a few songs. It’s way more than that. It’s life. Worship has to be everything you do, whether it’s picking up your mean little sister from school, or working a boring shift at Starbucks. God wants us to live to worship him in everything we do. We were made to worship.

Doing something like leading worship at The Landing is what I’m all about. I love reaching out to the youth, especially in worship. I like to show them that Christians can Rock out too!!

Its been an honor to work with the staff from The Landing. They are all such great people who have such a huge heart and passion to do what they do. God is doing something; he’s working on something great with this generation. I’m sure many would agree. The Landing is such a great place for today’s youth to find a home. A safe place where they can be themselves. Where they can talk to someone about what’s going on in life without being judged or looked at all funny. I would’ve loved something like this back in the day. So glad that we are able to be a part of The Landing. We cannot wait to Worship there again!

Robbie Dye

Keep updated with local shows coming up: www.Twitter.com/robbiewdye www.Facebook.com/robbiedyesmusic

Erika shared this 4 times at Saddleback Church the week of our Celebrate Recovery Summit. So great!

A few weeks ago to promote our new ministry, The Landing, our High School Ministry put this video together. Good stuff…

I found this over on MoreThanDodgeball.com

Last weekend our students ran the entire service. They put these amazing videos together for the event. The most impactful one is the video testimonies. These were followed up at the end of the service by both of the students live on stage under spotlights on a dark stage telling how they were rescued from their previous lives and are now following Christ.

One of our students, Jason Bohen, gave one of the best presentations of the Gospel I’ve heard in a long time. It’s amazing what students are capable of. Every element of last week’s service was outstanding.

I am broadcasting the services in this series live online here on VolunteerYouthMinistry.com. I send out a Twitter update prior to going live. If you want a reminder to watch, just follow me on Twitter.

This student is one of many who don’t attend our church, but use our skate park on the weekends during services. These students have a rough appearance and a demeanor that communicates they’re not interested in talking or having anything to do with church.

A security guard (who was a police officer for 30 years) stereotypically wouldn’t mix well with this crowd. This is true not just because of the occupation, but because Matt, the guard, is older, tragically “unhip”, and not somebody who displays an “I a skater who can do a phat ‘rolling nosehook impossible……board side kickflip out….ollie……manual…..’”-attitude. (I had to ask a student for what to put for skater tricks – I hope those words make sense to somebody – I don’t know what they mean.)

What’s happened is Matt has broken through the barriers to reach these students. Dug down into the soft part of their hearts and led them to the road to healing. Matt recently gave his testimony at a weekend service. His is an amazing story of personal tragedy and recovery. Not everybody has to go down this road to reach these students. Matt is an example of what can happen when youth workers care enough to take the risk to reach into the lives of “unreachable” students.

Here’s Matt’s story:

Our students wrote the script for this based on their own experiences. It made such an impact when they performed it at our high school service that they performed it for our adult service then for our college service. I’m sure they’ll perform it for other venues as well. I love what students are capable of when they are encouraged to step out and allowed to take ownership.

Last night at church, Nathan told me about a new ministry at church he’s been invited to participate in. He was invited by somebody who saw him doing a skit for the High School Ministry. The excitement in Nathan’s eyes showed how much this new venture meant to him. I asked him to write his story so I could post it here. The point is for this to be an example of the importance of an invitation to ministry.

Here’s a video of the skit Nathan mentions in his testimony. It was very well done and had a great impact on our service that week. Nathan’s testimony is below.

Hello my name is Nathan Ochoa. I am a senior at El Toro High school. Recently the church I attended (Saddleback Church) had a weekend in which the local high schools put on a weekend service, with almost every aspect of the service run by high school students.  When El Toro’s weekend came up being one of the known student leaders at my school and our high school ministry (HSM).  As a part of our student produced and run weekend, we wanted to put on the Lifehouse-Everything Skit and I took the lead role as Jesus.  After hours and hours of practice we preformed at all four of our weekend services, and 4people gave their lives to Christ after seeing the skit and relating to the girl with all of her struggles.  Little did I know after putting on this skit for HSM did the head director of the drama department saw the skit and contacted me about auditioning for a lead role in this ministry’s first every play.  I have little to no experience with acting. I was really hesitant about this opportunity. I went to my family and friends asking them for advice on whether to go with the audition and possibly embarrass myself or not respond to the email and go about life like it never happened.  After a couple of days and the audition date was fast approaching I decided to go ahead and run with this God given opportunity!
After the audition I was called back! Turns out I got not the lead role but a smaller role (a lot smaller) which has like 15lines or something, but that didn’t bother me at all.  Just getting a part in this play that I thought I wasn’t good enough to even try-out just showed me that this could of been something I would of missed if I didn’t give it all to God and run with this. I guess to close this please if you are unsure about a opportunity that comes up, to pray about it and run with it.  I would of missed this window that opened for me and I would not like for it to happen to someone else.

www.saddlebacktheatreconnection.com

Thank you for your time and God bless,
Nathan Ochoa