Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Just Like My Blog, I Get No Response

Wow, 9 months! That has to be a record.

And it makes sense that it takes that long considering I have tried my best to stay out of Jason's hair.

But he has to bite me in the rear end in some way, doesn't he?

For the past few months, I have been recieving wall posts on my Facebook from Jason. They are few and far in between ,but I get jsut enough of them to annoy me. And the reason why is this: Whenever he sends me a post it is something very simple like for example today's post was, "Hey Billy, what's new?" And every single time he posts something, I respond to it as soon as I realize he sent me something. I may not like him, but you gotta give him an A for effort. But the thing is, he NEVER responds to me...EVER. If I send him a long detailed response about the things I did, he won't respond. If I keep it short and sweet like I did today, he still won't answer. I even ask him what's going on with him because I legitimately am somewhat interested in what he's doing and he still doen't respond. It gets incredibly annoying when you talk to somebody and nobody comes back to you.

Jason, you're trying to extend some olive branch to me and to other people, but how can you do that if you're not even willing to engage other people in conversation. I'm giving you chance after chance after chance and all I feel is unimpressed. I'd like to see you try and do your sermon stuff in defense when you find out about this.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Just One Quick Burn...I Promise *shifty eyes*

A couple weeks ago I recieved an invitation to eat out at Five Guys Burgers in Northgate. I was pretty hyped cause I had never eaten there. Then Lent comes along and I decide not to spend any money on fast food. Now with that being concrete, I decided to change my RSVP status to "not attending". When I look at the list of people attending this is who I see:

Jason-Leader
Alula-Leader
Errol-Leader
Steph-Leader's GF

Wow. Sounds exciting.

This is supposed to be a thing to get the rest of the young adults to come to a Souled Out event and nobody shows up. Sounds like a successful idea, champs!

What about the idea of expanding it so that all the kids can come? At least it doesn't seem like a Jimenez family picnic.

God, that Five Guys invite looks so miserable everytime I look at it.

Psalm 98:4,
Kuya Billy

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

mister_b1LL, I Think You Need Love

I'm gonna take a break from my normal ranting to put some real emotion in a blog. If you think this is worth putting on Facebook, by all means let me know.

I have entered a slump. And by that I mean with women. For me it is a very important thing for me to have a girl in mind. But unfortunately, that is not the case. Since I broke up with shewhomustnotbenamed, I've tried to fill that hole that is in my heart for the past 7 months. It's not that I want her back because that is certainly not the case. I have moved on from her. The problem is that I can't find someone to take her place.

Back in the day I used to have a ranking system. I know it's a very stupid idea to have something like this because if you end up with #7, she'd be pissed off at you cause she wasn't your number #1. But it kept me going. I had a top 10 of who I'd like to go out with, and starting from #1 I would go down the list until I found somebody that would click with me and we'd go out. The list would consist of girls from every aspect of my life; school, work, church.

Since recently that list has been all but non-existant. I've left my former church in order to move to another church that as a scarce number of people around my age (18-24). I'm currently not in school and most of the girls at Hollister are already taken. The ones that aren't have no interest in me or I have no interest in them due to personal preferences. Plus most of the girls I don't get to see often because of work schedules.

I have reached this period in my life where I am just too old for the youngins and too young for the olders. For example, I once tried to ask out this girl who just graduated high school. Doing so made me realize just how old I was. At that time I was 3 years older than her. On the other extreme, there is another girl I know whom I feel she and I would really be able to click together, however she is about 7 years older than I am which is way out of my range and is probably also out of her range.

When you combine that with the fact that I have no real people around my age in my life, it complicates things.

I could definitely go the swingers route and go bar hopping every night trying to meet new girls, but 1) I'm not a drinker and 2) I'm not a fan of the potential one night stand. It's not a matter of confidence either. Ask any person at work and they know that I can talk with everybody.

I have just hit a rut. And it's affecting my personal life.

Without someone to pursue, I feel my need for physical satisfaction grow even stronger. Earthly needs outweigh my spiritual needs. In turn, I start to lose my focus.

I need love. No question about it. And I believe I need it soon. I'm not asking for a girlfriend, but I'm just asking for new doors to be opened.

Psalm 98:4,
Kuya Billy

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Last Rant As A Member Of Souled Out (I Hope)

APOLOGIES TO READERS: I’m not going to apologize for the material you’re about to read because this is honest talk that is straight from the heart. I’m apologize if there seems to be a lack of direction with this. I wrote this with full emotion and I wrote whatever could come out of my head.

A great song once began with the words, “Let it all out, get it all out..”
That’s what I’m gonna do.

I’m praying to God that this will be the last time I ever rant about Jason ever again.

Last Sunday, Brian chose me to lead worship for Praise and Prayer Night. Excitedly, I chose a lineup well before hand. In my opinion I felt that this lineup would be a more spiritually led lineup. But at the same time I was hoping that I would show the church what I’ve learned since leaving FACC. Each person has a different leading style, and for that moment I really hoped Jason had been watching.

I took the time to watch what the rest of the group was doing. I felt that the youth was sitting too far away so I got everybody to come up to the stage so we can do some close quarter worship, or CQW, if you prefer. Nobody wanted to clap or get active during Today Is The Day so I sat down with them for most of the set, adding the line, “I don‘t want you guys to look up to me during this time of worship, but I want you guys to look up to God.” And during the song I Exalt Thee, I kept singing the chorus repeatedly because I felt that the group was really feeling the song (not because of me, but because of God). It was all about knowing my audience, a lesson I learned at Christian Musician Summit by Overlake’s worship minister, Jesse Butterworth. I felt, from a leader standpoint, that it did start off rocky, but it ended up fine at the end.

The next day, Jason sends me a message on Facebook. I’m pretty sure that Jason wouldn’t want me to present this in public for the world to see, but seeing as how I’m on a roll of pissing people off, I say “Why not?” This is his full message, with nothing edited out.

Hey Billy,Thanks for playing last night. Take the time to assess how you did.

Questions like this help all worship leaders and directors over them.

"Was my heart right?"

"Was I singing to God, myself, or for man?"

"How did I do in taking others to the throne of God?"

"Is there something better I can do, or not do, next time to help others approach God's throne?"

This is for yourself.

I do have one note. Darlene Zschech said it best, "Our main goal (as a worship leader) is to step aside on stage and reveal God as the spotlight."Humble yourself.Another day in God's Grace.

Blessings,
Jason

Jason, first of all, these are questions you should be asking yourself every week. I obviously never go to FACC’s services to watch you lead, but my mom is always there every week, and gives me a clear picture of what you do during worship. She tells me that every week you go out there and continually try to get the audience involved by either clapping their hands or giving “I Have A Dream” speeches. Remember what I said about knowing your audience? Your audience is not a bunch of youth, you lead a bunch of 60-70 year old FILIPINOS!!! Culturally, we are more introverted in the way we praise God. We’re not known for raising our hands or clapping or singing along. You of all people should know that considering you’re late like all Filipinos are, but I’ll save that for another story.

Second, I see so many things that were implied in this message. Keep in mind you’re talking to a guy who speaks implied on the daily. And this is what you’re implying to me. The message that I’m receiving is that you think that I’m doing this as more of a performance. That I’m focusing too much on the music and not on God. I think you’re trying to base that around the practice. The last time I checked, practice is meant for us to focus on the music in the first place. That’s why I took all the time in the world to practice the music. I only had a half hour to practice with you guys since I had to scrounge up a team last minute and that of course could put stress on any leader. I’ll honestly tell you that during the practice I wasn’t thinking about God, but getting the songs down as fast as possible. Another implied message I’m seeing is that there is a very negative tone with this message. You sit here explaining all of my faults (implied of course), and the only sentence that I see that is actually positive is the first line. From then on, you start the hate. I’m gonna tell you right now that real leaders never do that when they send people a message. They take the time to explain what you did right and what you did wrong. They support the rights and help you find a way around the wrongs. You did neither. Instead you left it up to me to figure out what I did wrong and didn’t give me any way to fix it.

But because I’m here blazing on your methods of leadership, even though these questions were meant for myself only, I’ve decided to publicly answer them.

“Was my heart right?”-I can honestly say not for the first couple of songs. The reasons why were because I knew Frank and Ian had never played the songs before so in my head I kept thinking if they were gonna make mistakes or not. But when I started singing Your Love Never Fails and the rest of the songs following, I felt more into the worship and I started declaring that God’s love never fails as if I was conversing with him. My heart was also set on the last two songs, Above All and I Exalt Thee. Seeing the youth sing with their hearts really helped set my heart on God and not the music.

“Was I singing to God, myself, or man?”-This is a confusing question. Mostly because some songs are meant to be directed towards man so they would know about God. But that’s another story. This question in essence is the exact same thing as the question above, so you may refer to my last response.

“How did I do in taking others to the throne of God?”-I talked to Paulo about something like this. He told me that he was feeling it all night, especially during I Exalt Thee, all 15 minutes of it. I took one person to the throne of God. That’s good enough for me.

“Is there something I can do, or not do, next time to help others approach God’s throne?”-Here’s where your implied message will meet my implied message. I think I should have done less talking. Jesse Butterworth of Overlake Christian Church once said, “Nobody wants to hear the worship leader talk, that’s what the sermon is for. Shut up and sing!” Those were really his words, truth. But other than that, because a certain someone failed to state what I did well or didn’t do well, I cannot give a proper answer to this question. But if you were asking yourself this exact same question, I would be more then willing to answer it. Not only would I explain to you the things you didn’t do well, but I would be happy to point out the things you did well. Why? Because I’m a nice guy and I would be a hypocrite if I did otherwise.
I hope that you are asking yourself these questions as well, considering you keep putting me down in your messages. And as for that quote, that’s some good advice. Why don’t you take that into consideration.

I wish someday you can come into Northwest Church. I pretty much do the exact same things that I did for your administration in FACC. But here’s the thing; they respect me for it. They respect the fact that I am a young man who shows his maturity in the way that he leads. And this isn’t coming from a Tita or a Tito who is obliged to say that. This is coming from musicians that have played their respective instruments for up to 40 years. This is coming from worship leaders involved in the church all their life. These exact same people tell me what’s good and what’s bad about the way I worship. More importantly, they SUGGEST IDEAS ON HOW TO HELP ME OUT! You know why? Because they’re real worship leaders. These are people that give opportunities for all people in the church to take part in ministries at NW because they want everyone to expose their talent. If you don’t believe me, I’m leading worship on January 24th. I am openly inviting you to come celebrate with us at NW Church.

I think I said in my last blog that I don’t respect you and I never will. This message you sent me has cemented that statement.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Stop...Just Stop

Last Sunday, I went to Northwest Church. It was awesome as always. We had a guest worship leader by the name of Ariel Cepriano, and the worship was great. It was followed by a sermon that wasn't really a sermon but more of a laying out of the plans for 2010. But Chris still had some lines that I wish FACC would hear. Stuff like if you do too much in the church, most of the stuff you do will be lower in quality and probably would be counterproductive. And we finished off the first Sunday of 2010 by immersing four young ones into our baptismal. It was a joyous moment.

After church, I got dropped off by Ross and Ally at FACC just in time for Potbless. It was quite possibly the most abysmal choice I made that day. For some reason, As soon as I walked into FACC I had felt stressed out. Mostly it was because I had to find an emergency bassist and remind Jason that I needed lead sheets. But nonetheless, I was stressed, depressed, and somewhat angry while being there. I can't explain it, but I was just fine coming into FACC, but when I went out I was a wreck.

It could be a lot of reasons. For example, in that church I feel like I need to cater to everyone. I have to see everybody, and that could put a lot of stress on people and more importantly it could make you come off as fake. Like when I used to lead worship at FACC; I could easily tell who was honest with their compliments and who was just saying them just for the sake of making their "outreach" quota.

Another reason was like I said, I kept thinking about who would be my emergency bassist for that night's P&P Night. I almost lost Ian for that night as well. Jason was in his normal jerk mood. My plans for P&P Night just weren't coming together.

Another possible reason was I personally wasn't in the mood to go to FACC in the first place. I had just come off witnessing four baptisms at NW Church. I don't want that high to go away. I could have just gone home, but I just had to go to FACC. Why? Mostly it's because my mom was there and I originally told her I'd be coming to FACC later.

As I was leaving I was trying to call people to come up to P&P Night and Tita Ida was trying to get my attention and saying she loves the things I do on stage. I ended up getting hella pissed and trying to wave her off. But she kept touching me and trying to intrude while I was talking to people. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I really don't like people touching me (unless it's a hot girl, then by all means) and I'm bound to start some crap if you do. Plus it's disrespectful to keep talking to me while I'm on the phone. I'm a guy that can only focus on one person at a time. Tita Ida, I'm sorry for what I did last Sunday but sometimes you just do things that piss me off.

These past couple months I don't feel good coming to FACC, especially on Sunday mornings. I remember last December, 3 people got baptized at NW Church, and along with the fact that Jason decided to replace me for P&P Night, I decided not to go to Souled Out or to Sunday Morning Service because I wanted to maintain that high I got for seeing people baptized. I still can't explain it because if it was Jason, I would have felt it a long time ago. If it was hanging with Filipinos, I would have felt it a long time ago. If it was Tita Ida, I would have just simply stayed away from her as far as possible, which is what I tried to do my whole tenure at FACC.

So this is a message I'm giving to myself: "Stop..just stop." You said to yourself that when you moved to NW Church, you would have no affiliation with FACC no more. But look at you, now you're back in Souled Out which you swore never to return to. And don't make TRANSFORMED the excuse. That was months ago, and Souled Out is back in the same exact rut it was in when you left. There is nothing left for you to do at FACC, mostly cause the family will never allow you to do any more than what you have done. The only person that gave you a level of freedom was Brian and now he's gone. Get it through your head Billy, There is no need for you to go to FACC anymore. Focus your attention on NW Church and be done with FACC.

Like Brian, the 10th of January will officially be my last Souled Out. I'm not even sure I'll even go to it anyway.

Enjoy Yourself,
Kuya Billy