WWOB in 2015

Exciting days at Worship Without Borders! After Yuma, AZ and India, we were thrilled to return to The Dalles, OR where we started our married journey together back in 1974! Pastor Dan Trautman, Worship Pastor Shawn Lutz and the worship team at First Christian Church welcomed us warmly for a great weekend of worship and growing in Christ. Loved working with their choir also as a special treat! We had a wonderful time of discovery in worship on Saturday concluding with a great worship service in the evening. Maryl and I got to play cello and flute for the worship and then I had the joy of playing cello accompaniment to the choir. We had a completely different set for the Sunday worship with Shawn leading. What a delight to experience praise and worship in this beautiful setting in The Dalles. Thanks Shawn Lutz for a great weekend!

After The Dalles, Maryl and I flew to the Los Angeles area for 10 days of ministry and meetings with pastors, missionaries, family and friends. Our host for the first weekend was Gateway Church of the Nazarene in Murrieta, CA. Pastor Bill Grigory and Worship Pastors Rick and Sara Brummett prepared the church for a great weekend of teaching, impartation and release in worship and song. Many of you know that I come from a Nazarene background and my dad was a Nazarene pastor in Washington, so this was extra-special for me to minister my worship seminar for the first time in a Nazarene setting! What an honor. I felt right at home!

Friday night started with our Vision of Worship with a great response from a good gathering with a lot of the church showing up! I love it when the whole church gets to hear God’s heart for their church! Saturday was powerful with every session seeming to hit strong chords in everyone’s hearts. I ministered on the Heart of Worship with a study on John 4 and the woman at the well. Then we moved into more practical areas of the worship team, leading, flowing, engaging. We ended the day with a great session with their choir (two churches in a row with choirs!!!). They were all readers, so I gave them a couple of charts and they immediately learned them so well we were able to minister both of them in both services on Sunday morning!

Sunday was just sweet all the way! From the opening song by the choir (Doxology) into the worship set led by Sara (Maryl and I got to accompany on flute and cello – I was able to borrow a nice cello from a young man there), followed by my favorite sermon on worship: Extreme Worship – Shachah and Proskuneo. Since there were two services the first one was a little rushed but still a great response at the end for surrendering our lives in worship. The second service I was able to go a little deeper and got everybody bowing and the response again at the end was beautiful as many came forward for prayer. We were treated so well and honored at every turn by the whole church but especially Rick and Sara – we were deeply impacted by this – thank you Rick and Sara! You are amazing!

We had a great week after we left there! We went to Ventura and spent the night there with my nephew Jay Smith and his family. We went in and saw Ventura City Church (Pastor Jude and Becky Fouquier) and heard some great worship there. Jay has the stories! Wow – all over the world, healings, deliverance, conversions, power and Holy Spirit. We had an amazing and stirring time there. The next day we met with Danny Hanafi, an Indonesian pastor who was our His Tapestry translator in 1989 in Indonesia, and has now personally planted over 1100 churches around the world! For Easter his church in Monrovia performed Les Miserables (from Broadway) and packed the house 8 times! What a vision! He was so encouraging and we set up a full worship seminar in October! That night we went into a Beverly Hills hotel and got blown away by what is happening there. Packed house of mostly young people eagerly listening to my other nephew, Pastor Judah Smith deliver about a 45 min sermon that was astounding from John 5. Wow! they saved seats for us right up front and he introduced us to the whole place when he started. There was about 500 people in the first service.

We stayed at  hotel in Rancho Cucamonga for the next few days. We met with an Indian pastor, Pastor Rahul Patrick Singh, and his family on Thursday. We had a blast catching up and encouraging them. and playing with their girls! :) Our hosts for the rest of the week were Pastor Dan and Karen Burr with Crossroads Community Church in Rancho Cucamonga. They invited Maryl to speak at a ladies luncheon on Saturday. I heard she did an amazing job speaking – they were so impressed they talked about having her preach on Sunday! :) which I was glad to do but she nixed the idea! :) The Burrs church is small but strong. they are looking to possibly merge or connect with another church as a campus. Their worship team is top notch though and we hope to come down again and do some work with them. I did the ‘shachah’ and proskuneo and they loved it with a great response at the end. they got me a 3/4 cello and it did well! We spent the rest of the day catching up with the Burrs. Wow, what a story they have and we share so much in common!

We flew home Monday night, full and satisfied that God had directed a great week in LA. In July, I head to Japan, Cambodia and Malaysia for 19 days of ministry! Thanks for your prayers, support, notes and encouragement as we continue to bless cities and the nations!

Blessings,

Tim and Maryl

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