highschool worship snapshot

i recently cleaned out a bookbag that contained a lot of junk from my old apartment on 29th street. a lot of it was from my childhood: school papers, notes, books, christmas cards, CDs of groups i used to listen to… and one particularly interesting find…

a folder/binder from my high school days that contained a lot of transparencies that i used to use during worship—yes remember those? an overhead projector that shot a bright light through these transparent sheets of plastic to put lyrics on the wall? where the person manning the projector would need to perfect the art of moving the sheet in the opposite direction so that it would move in the desired direction on the wall? yes i had a folder full of these sheets that i acquired through many worship sessions. i decided to open it up and i found the following sheet of paper inside:

it was probably one of the last worship sessions i led in my high school days when i still used to use this folder (i’m sure it was from my HS days bc of what was on the back of this sheet). while my just-for-myself-handwriting is still pretty bad for other people i notice that i haven’t switched over to writing my lowercase ‘d’ in the lazy manner that i often write it now (looks like the “d” you’d write when doing a partial derivative in calculus).

anyway, it’s such an interesting find because it’s a look into my 17/18 year old worship leading self. i know from looking sheet that it is a planning/brainstorming sheet for a prayer & worship meeting because it follows an ACTS (adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication) rubric that i used to employ often. it looks like i started over a few times or added a bunch of subheadings. i know i’ve modified this rubic since, simplifying it to just BIG God, little us, the cross, and our response (yeah i don’t have a cool acronym for this one).

what’s also interesting is that i still sing these same songs… like… all the time. i still plan worship sets on scrap pieces of paper. i still draw arrows connecting song themes. i still group songs into categories and then cross songs off as i need to restrict myself to a time limit.

i wonder what it would be like to meet myself from a decade years ago (wow, it’s been a decade since HS for me). i wonder what i would say to my younger self. what bits of wisdom i would try to impart… but as i look at this sheet, i’m also wondering what kinds of things my high school self would tell me of the present day. what kinds of drives and passions have i forgotten or left behind. how would my younger self challenge me to live today?

anyway it was an interesting find… kinda like an unintentional time capsule. just wanted to share it.