RussHutto[dot]com

Join me, Fred McKinnon, Jeff Miller, Rich Kirkpatrick and many other worshipers as we embark on this study together. Using the power of online community we’ll be all over the world, yet doing this study simultaneously! I can’t wait to get started!!

Bloggers please consider copying/pasting/personalizing this announcement on your blog! This is going to be a phenomenal time of “unity” and authentic community with participants from all over the world!!

This is a 9-week study that we will begin the week of January 12, 2009. Each day we will share our thoughts on the daily devotional and then participate in the Group Discussions each week - as a group of united worshipers on TheWorshipCommunity.Com in the forums.

(daily and weekly discussion will take place in this thread of the TWC Forums)

“The goal of this study is not to help us fall more in love with worship. Rather, these daily, intimate encounters with God can help us fall more in love with our Father - which is the very essence of biblical worship”. (Darlene Zscheck, Hillsong Church, Australia)

“Dwayne Moore has a desire to see the body of Christ truly understand what it means to honor God with our worship and let our lifesongs sing to God in spirit and in truth”. (Mark Hall, Casting Crowns)

“Dwayne Moore’s ‘Pure Praise’ gets at the heart of true biblical worship. If you’re looking to grow your worship ministry team in it’s understanding and desire to worship our Creator in spirit and truth, this book is for you. The weekly studies are practical, insightful, and full of biblical wisdom aimed at getting the reader to grasp how our Creator designed us to worship. This book is a must-read for any worship ministry team, and I’m glad to recommend it”. (Rick Muchow, Pastor of Worship, Saddleback Church)

“Dwayne Moore has a writing style that makes you feel like he’s right there with you, walking you through each devotional. ‘Pure Praise’ is highly relational and delivered in a way that will minister to you in your personal worship journey as well as find its way into your worship training resource library. This book will help you understand not only the meaning of worship, but also provide you with real tools for leading and ministering in your role as the worship leader.” (Julie Reid, former Executive Editor of Worship Leader Magazine)

Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity to study with your fellow worshipers.

Purchase your copy of “Pure Praise” at Next Level Worship’s website here:
http://blog.nextlevelworship.com/pure-praise-worship-study/

Cost is $14.99

Once you get your book ordered, post a response in the “Pure Praise” discussion area of the forums so that we know you’re with us! Be sure to check the box to subscribe to the thread!

See You in the TWC Forums on Monday!! Or sooner even!!

Russ

I grew up, for the most part, in a household of Jesus followers. My parents committed their lives to Jesus when I was two. All I remember is Jesus. I don’t have any pre-Jesus memories.

I know some people have testimonies in which God has radically changed their lives and delivered them from things that would make a sailor blush, but not me. Oh, I’m not ashamed of that. In fact, I feel so blessed to have been raised by Godly parents and thirty years later to still be walking the narrow road following Jesus.

I get music from both sides of my family tree. My mother’s parents were bluegrass/rockabilly/country musicians and my father’s side has a big jazz influence. Both of my parents are very talented musicians and/or singers.

Naturally, I picked up instruments and learned quickly. I started on the trumpet in fourth grade and didn’t look back all the way through college.

Watching my dad lead worship was definitely very inspiring. You know how it is, dad is a hero to a boy who wants to be just like him. And, through the years, he’s always been my inspiration.

Along the way, probably in middle school, i started playing drums and keys. By early high school I was leading in our youth events. We would do community youth services. What we called “Youth Jams” - looking back it seems kind of cheesy, but we loved it.

We moved a good bit during my high school years, so I didn’t really settle into a good rhythm until college. I led worship for a time at “Life Ministries” - a campus ministry at Georgia Southern University. Some people that shaped my life then were Doug Watson and Don and Kim Williams. During that period, I would commute to and from my home church (70 miles one way) to lead worship. Back then it was part-time.

Eventually I would become the full-time worship leader/youth pastor and that season was wonderful! For about 10 years I served at the same church working with teens and music. It’s kind of funny when I think about that, because I still think of myself as so young. How could I possibly have 10+ years experience in ONE LOCATION!? But I do, and it was great.

So that is what has shaped me. I’ve been here at House of Joy for the last 2.5 years and it’s been a great journey.

With the new year comes a fresh start, even though technically most, if not all of us, are the exact same people on January 1 that we were at 11:59 pm on New Year’s Eve. There’s something about celebrating this holiday that puts us in the mindset of wiping the slate and starting clean.

That said, I’ve been thinking about my blogging journey for the last few days. I knew I wanted to do something “new” and fresh with russhutto.com in 09 but I want it to be so much more than a theme change or adding a new “blog series.”

So instead of kicking off a new series called “Calorie Counting Wednesday” or “To Do List Tuesday” for the new year, I’m just gonna be me. Oh it’s definitely gonna get a little more focused around here, but a more focused me. I’ve seen blogs come and go. I’ve even had a few of my own that ended up on the heap over the last 5 or 6 years.

So, right here and right now, in 09, I’m asking myself again, “Why Do I Blog?” Last year, around this same time, I wrote a series of posts about blogging. I’ve been going through them this morning and predictably my reasons are basically the same!

But honestly, I think the MAIN reason I blog is you. I love connection. I love the friendships I’ve made on this blog journey. Some of you I’ll never meet face to face in this life, but I feel an authentic community through blogging.

I know that Papa is always praying for people.

I know that Brent & Tam are raising Godly kids (setting a great example for me in the future).

I know Mandy is pursuing her dreams in songwriting.

I know Fred is running a great ebiz and leading a dynamic team at SSCC.

I know Johnny, Mike, and Joel are passionately engaging people with music for worship.

And of course there’s others. And those one liners don’t sum up all of who you are and what you blog about, but those are things that I love about your blog journey.

These things, these facets of your lives are the biggest reasons why I blog. Of course, I can’t write about those things in your life like you can, so I write my own story, but I think the wonderful thing about being alive today and having access to such technology is the weaving of the individual threads of our personal stories into one big tapestry, a masterpiece directed and orchestrated by God Himself.

In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we’re talking about is Christ’s body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t. (Romans 12:4-6 MSG)