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OK. Sorry to take a bit to get these two stories to you. A promise is a promise, though. I hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long. Before I begin let me just say that I am simply thinking out loud here. I mean, what else is a blog for, right? :) I’m aware [...]

FRIENDS! Happy New Year to you! I saw this post on Mike Breens blog today, and just had to repost it here because it’s just rad to see other worship leader writing about discipleship and the Kingdom story. This is a great post from a worship leader named David Walker. You can learn more about [...]

We wrapped up the Sentralized conference this weekend. What an amazing time. God is certainly doing amazing things. So many people left with their hearts burdened for the world. Such evidence that God was at work. His heart is burdened the same way. I had a chance to gather the worship leaders for a brief [...]

Interesting title, eh? It’s funny, one of the hallmark assumptions of missional thinking is that worship is the offering of our entire lives to Jesus. It’s true. I believe that. The thought is nothing new, and it was a helpful clarification as the modern worship movement swept through our churches with new songs, cd’s, the [...]

I woke up this morning in the midst of a dream – one of the most realistic and true dreams I can recall ever having. Waking from the dream, ironically enough, interrupted the sharing of dreams. I was in a room with stadium-style seating that was filled to the brim with Gathering Network leaders. One [...]

I have been so excited to give my first solo CD away this week. Not only has the response been overwhelming, but I’ve been reminded once again of the reason why this record was recorded. Seems like a very appropriate time to tell that story. Most of you that are keeping tabs on all that’s [...]

Communicating vision to our worship teams is really important. Here is a recent thought that I emailed to our team. We’ve been in a season of downgrading the importance of the Celebration Service in an effort to stem the “consumerism” default we always wrestle with. The point there is to not consume our way to [...]

So we’ve been remodeling the website and I am really excited about it. I want to acknowledge a few of the friends who have helped pull this off: Firstly, Sean Berger is a friend who has been working with me for years. He is a programer and web-designer who created the previous version of jonshirley.com. [...]

Lately I’ve been part of a lot of conversations centered around how to better follow Jesus. Great discussions, for sure. A theme of these conversations has been the recurring question: Who is God asking me to be? It’s not that the answers I’ve heard aren’t true—God calls us to be all sorts of things uniquely [...]