Ben Pettit

Sept 28 at Westside

Mighty To Save
Ready Now
I Have Decided To Follow Jesus
Salvation Is Here

This week at Westside we are playing a new song for us. It’s called “Ready Now” by Jared Anderson aka the good singer in Desperation Band.

The song starts out very chill but builds into an awesome bridge that might by mislabeled and should be really the chorus.

I’m ready now, I’m ready now, I’m ready now, do what you will.

Now honestly, there is nothing fantastic about this song in the sense of a music analysis. The form is very predictable V, C, V, C, B, C, C. A long with a very simple form, the transitions from each section are predictable and simple. I wonder though if the quarter note rhythm is the reason it has a relaxed feeling. It some how makes us feel like we are walking at a comfortable speed. The instrumentation chosen gives a non-busy, minimalistic, and free feeling.

Fortunately for us at Westside we are very blessed to have two guys, Bill and Bill, who are our auxiliary percussion players. They are wonderful at everything they do. It’s amazing what having a shaker player does for your sound. Last night Bill played shakers on Ready Now and it literally made the song.

Rehearsal went well last night and if any one was out of it, it was me. After about 30 minutes into the rehearsal, major fatigue set in for me. I was so tired I could not see straight. I’m not just saying that, I got really confused about where we were on the chord charts. I felt disoriented. I had been running up the stairs to the sound console and back to the stage all afternoon. So today, the Lord is rest, and in him I lay.

Today at Westside Church

Friend of God (Israel Houghton)
Jesus Messiah (Chris Tomlin)
How Great Is Our God (Chris Tomlin)
Breathe (Marie Barnett)
Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) [arr by Chris Tomlin]

This morning was “powerful”, in every since of the word. As a worshipper, have you ever felt like you could literally cut the Holy Spirit with a knife? Today was that day. I want to experience what we did this morning every Sunday of my life. Today was not another Sunday. Today was a day of LIFE CHANGE.

Lord, I don’t know how you are going to work through me at Westside. I feel like I am so in over my head. But I know that you have called me there for a reason. I know that you will be with me always. And in you Lord. I find rest.

Westside, get ready, the best is yet to come.

Good question. I took a position as full-time Worship Leader of Westside Church in Simpsonviile, SC. It’s been really fun so far. I’m leading worship this weekend and I am so excited about it!

More ramblings later.

Sitting here in the silence of now. I feel as if I am suppose to love as hard as I can, right now. Tonight.

I often need to discern the difference between intense ambition and passion with anxiousness. But alas, I still feel it, in the depth of my soul. It’s a stirring in unrest. It’s not a movement where 16 to 25 year old boys wear girl jeans, tasteless hair cuts, and listen to whiny rock. I’m not talking about a music genre or dressing classification commonly called “emo“. I’m speaking of something so much deeper. Much greater. An emotion that cannot be contained. If I hide it away in my heart it will scream out of my bones until I am weakened and surrender to it.

The most powerful word I have heard, other than scripture, was on a Monday night of a Monday through Friday summer church camp. Most pastors wait until Thursday to have “cry” night. Cry night is the night where the gospel message is driven home. When this certain pastor was asked Monday night after the service why he preached the token evangelistic salvation message on Monday, the first night of camp, he responded “Because as far as I know, today could have been our last day together”.

I’m not sure if it is our Americanized Christianity or what, but feel in America there is not an urgency to share the gospel of Christ. Sure, an influence, but not an urgency. I mean an urgency for instance where we are screaming in the phone “911, I’ve been in an accident. I am losing a lot of blood and I am turned upside down.” A need to be healed, restored, RESCUED. Don’t you know, don’t you realize? Jesus paid for you and I. For our every thing.

20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galations 2:20

On the contrary in China for instance, to be a Christian means you give up everything. In China there are no colors of the church wall to complain about. There is no power struggle of budget allocation between ministries of the church. Rather, they meet in secret. If you become a disciple in China, you lose your inheritence, your family, and probably most of your friends. Your life as you knew it, is no longer. When you become a Christian in American, what did you give up?