This is so sad, especially when his background is worship leader and Church planter. His wife Lisa grew up in a charismatic church, and they were leading worshipin such environments. They are extremely talented musicians! I'm not American so I don't fully understand the (Church) culture over there. Is it common that people leave the Christian faith for some kind of interreligious belief? I have read that young people/young adults are frustrated with the American Christianity, and leave churches en masse. Especially frustrated with megachurches with more focus on strong leaders than on Jesusbeing the head, and putting up shows etc. Some leave for house churches, some for more liturgical churches, and some lose their faith, and some get into yoga, mindfulness and eastern philosophies. What's your experience or perception? Do you know what happened to Gungor?
@tanjaostman and mindfulness!!!!!!! Will try to resist my soap box on that issue. suffice to say that (and this is my considered/experienced opinion) anything that promotes emptying your mind is utter rubbish! That, in a nutshell, is mindfulness.
Jo had to to learn to deliver a programme for offendors that uses mindfulness...first time she was trained up, she passed and was considered exceptional, but she quit before the training course had completed because of that 1 issue, & then took a vicar (so called) & the woman who wrote the course - a Christian (so called) who both said it was great. Now (5 years on) it isn't used hardly at all, by any of her colleagues - who all avoid it!
By God's grace (& - we believe - her efforts the first time round (she has never had to deal with 'that' element & manages to avoid it
As for yoga - ugh!!!!!! So many Christians are pulled away from Jesus by that, but that is the single aim of yoga (being acceptable to Christians) & it does it well
@tanjaostman this is the YouTube video I mentioned https://youtu.be/qrS-xo6kj5c
@Berrybunchfamily thank you for your earlier comments! Very interesting to read! I have listened 10 min in, and will continue. Since I'm into music, it interests me.
@tanjaostman I have lots of thoughts on this topic, having been a worship leader for more than 3 decades across traditional to contemporary, and childrens worship
@Berrybunchfamily nice! I have also been involved in worship leading (singing and playing the flute), and singing in a all white gospel choir for youth as a teen! But the worship leading when I was 20-30. There is a time for everything... The first thing I do when I go to make breakfast is playing worship songs. They are life to me. My husband plays the piano. My son is a great drummer.
@tanjaostman ace. I'm a keyboard man cos I never had the finger strength for a piano
You got a proper little band there 🙂
@Berrybunchfamily Here is my son playingdrums, three years ago when he was 10!https://youtu.be/0ayurlCnui8
@tanjaostman wow. He's fabulous!!!!! I really enjoyed that - thanks for sharing
@Berrybunchfamily yes, he's got a great sense of rhythm! He has even developed since. He should do new recordings. We didn't just record with our phones, but my husband set up microphones. It takes some effort to stage it. I should encourage them to do it again.
@tanjaostman it takes quite a bit of effort! we know only too well
this is one we did (Jo and I), very early on last year, when we didn't really know what we were doing
they were a bit rushed fro a project we were working on
i'd love to take some time to do this, properly, with the songs i've written
i'm not so happy with how it turned out, but i do love worshipping with my wife 🙂
@Berrybunchfamily Thanks for sharing! Beautiful! I recognized the song from Jesus Culture. I love it. It doesn't have to be technically perfect when it comes to worship - the heart and passion behind is more important. Especially when you gather with other believers to worship.
@tanjaostman Yep. Exactly. God is after our heart, not our qualifications
@Berrybunchfamily just to clarify, since my English is not perfect. By all white gospel choir I just meant that we were Finnish youth singing black gospel. Not that people of other colors weren't welcome - we would have loved it. Just that there were no black people living in my town when I was a kid. 😀
@tanjaostman thanks - I thought that's what you meant ;-)
@tanjaostman John Cooper (lead singer of Skillet, and a fantastic brother in Christ) did a special, video, podcast on exactly this issue, joined by his wife - Korey Cooper (she is such a daughter of the King!) Jeremy Camp, his wife and another lady I don't know anything about
I watched a good portion, and it was great (well, being totally honest - Korey Cooper, John Cooper and Jeremy Camp were amazing...the other two, not so much for me...)