Josh is a Renegade worship leader who has been serving at HMR chapel for several months. Here is a little bit of his story and the growth in that community.
About two months before I became the praise and worship leader at HMR
Chapel, I had the opportunity to fill in one Sunday for Robbie. That Sunday I
was joined by one other singer and I learned that the chapel didn’t have a
permanent worship leader. I was told by heavy hearts that they had a new
person leading just about every other week. Due to my visits to military
chapels throughout the years, I honestly wasn’t surprised. I can’t speak for
anyone else, but in all the chapels I have ever visited, the worship seemed to
be the most neglected aspect of the service. From Korea to England to
Hawaii, I saw the same thing at the majority of the chapels I visited and it
was overwhelming. Before I began leading worship and I was just attending
church, I noticed the praise and worship set up the rest of service and, for
me, it could easily make or break my experience there. So while stationed in
England I started to hear the calling to lead praise and worship for military
chapels. I found that having a dedicated praise and worship team was really
hard to manage at times because the members of the team were military. If
we weren’t losing someone to deployment, they were traveling, on leave,
military training, appointments…. You get the picture… and unfortunately the
congregations fall victim to subpar worship or, in some cases, none at all. So
to hear that HMR had di-erent leaders every week and virtually no team at
times really made an impact on me. This congregation, though small, was so
energetic and wanted to worship. I was new to them, but they sang their
hearts out and I could really tell how much they were serious about worship.
After that service I had a bunch of the people from the congregation come up
and thank me and tell me how great it was to have me. I felt so welcomed
and like I was a part of their family.
HMR Congregation at a recent beach service and baptism
It’s been a little more than four months now and the praise team has grown
to ten members and the congregation has doubled in size. I know that it’s
not just the praise and worship team that is bringing the growth, but we have
received so many compliments and words of encouragement. We have had
many families say that they are making this chapel their home away from
home. They say that they are getting the closest experience to their home
church that they have gotten since joining the service… Just knowing how
much of an impact our praise and worship team is making on these military
families is overwhelming. This needs to spread to all the chapels throughout
the military.