Phantom and Israel Houghton

Went for Phantom of the Opera last week with Kellie and it was awesome. Though this is my second time watching the musical, it's still fantastic. The main cast of Christine and the Phantom was amazing. More than the musical, Kellie and I also enjoyed a rare date night where we can stroll slowly on the streets and eat ice cream without needing to share with kids and worrying about the mess.

Two days later, I was in another concert. This time, it's with the 2 kids (Kellie was having her discipleship) and we were there for Israel Houghton. He's a multiple gospel grammy award winner and really huge in New Zealand. Nearly all the churches uses his songs.

Well, we were there at 7.30pm but he didn't really come on till like 9.00pm. Before that, it was performance by some local artist. Though it was not bad, the kids got really tired when Israel came on. Just after the first song, Ethan was asking to go home (thankfully without any tantrum). Don't know how I manage to make him stay till 10.30pm without much fuss while Caitlyn was sleeping on my tummy (I always know there's a reason for it!)

Israel was no doubt a very good worship leader and a very annointed one too. He ushered in the presence of God effortlessly but I was quite distracted the whole time. Everytime he uses his own songs, the audience will clap wildly, doesn't matter if it's a fast or slow song. It shouldn't really be a problem if we treat this as a concert but in a worship settings, I found myself distracted. When he doesn't use, the audience just seems to quiet down and listen. Are the people there worshipping God or are they worshipping the person?

I thought it was just me being 'critical' but in the workshop the next day, it was very interesting that Israel made mentioned that 'don't clap or cheer for the sake of doing it, do it when you know why you are doing it', and he used the previous night as an example. He said we must break the yoke of performance. He went on to give a very solid teaching based on Isaiah 49:2-3. It's about being selected to serve God; needing to be sanded to hit the target and needing to settle to blossom.

He states that God wants to focus on
- the set behind the sound
- the life behind the team
- the song behind the melody
- the story behind the show

He finished the session with some Q&A and I can truly say that I'm really blessed by this successful yet humble servant Grammy award winner.