Welcome back to Worship Leader Wednesday after the Thanksgiving hiatus. This week I will be changing the interviews up a little bit, and splitting them in half on the recommendation of many of you readers. I hope this shorter format will better fit into your busy day as we continue to learn from and get to know one another.
José Skinner
Biographical Information
Spouse’s name: Susan
Years married: four
Children’s names: Mateo just turned one this November
Years leading worship: 10 years
Church name and location: Coram Deo in the the city that’s so close to hell you can see Sparks: Reno, NV. (Sparks in the sister city of Reno. It’s a small northern Nevada joke. Very small.)
Church website: www.cdreno.org
Denomination: EFCA
Years at current church: less than a year
Instruments you play: piano, acoustic guitar; I’m a passable rhythm guitarist on the electric in a pinch I can play drums or bass.
Blog: www.jackswords.com; www.AdvanceWorship.com
Is your role full time, bi-vocational, or volunteer? Full-time
What are you listening to right now?
Keane
Citizen Cope
Gavin DeGraw
Robbie Seay Band
And I’m just now getting into Deathcab too.
What are you reading right now?
Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges
For All God’s Worth by N.T. Wright
I just finished Reveal by Hawkins and Parkinson
and I always seem to be reading Ancient-Future Faith by Robert Webber and Getting Things Done by David Allen
What’s your musical heritage?
I grew up in the 80s and 90s with my mother singing “Fly Me to the Moon” in the kitchen. My father has a warm baritone that I’m inheriting as I get older. I’d make my sister sing song arrangements in the backseat of the car.
My musical landscape in my youth went from Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, The Tempations, The Drifters to Boyz II Men, MC Hammer, Color Me Badd (that’s so bad it needs two Ds) to Sting, Toad the Wet Sprocket, and the Dave Matthews Band. Throw in a little country for good measure, like the Dixie Chicks.
I play the piano the way I do because of my failed mission to be like Harry Connick, Jr. and Billy Joel. (I’ve always loved Billy Joel). I picked up the guitar after I became a Christ-follower because apparently that’s what young Christian men are supposed to play. It took three tries for the guitar to stick.
Describe your journey to becoming a worship leader.
The journey to leading worship was pretty simple. I would occasionally go to Sierra Bible Church in Reno whenever I could get my lazy 20 year old butt out of bed. A friend of mine, Jody I think, told the youth worship leader that I could play some piano and he asked me to help out. Soon he had me just lead the whole band though he’s the one who provided me with spiritual leadership.
The longer story is how I got into full-time worship ministry.
I was leading the youth band and the college band when we lost our worship pastor around 2000. I and two other gentleman rotated Sundays to fill in. We had vastly different styles. It was surprise every Sunday: traditional, Christian Contemporary, whatever.
Eventually, the multiple personalities of worship was wearing on the church and on me. So around the same time I was going to tell the Elders that I would lead worship as often as they’d let me, they asked me to lead worship all the time. I was hired part time as a Worship Intern to fill in until we got a Worship Pastor that I could actually intern under.
Every potential candidate coming in didn’t fit and they all said, “Why are you hiring from outside the church when you already have Jose?” The answer as I understood it then: I was young without any formal Bible training, which was very important to the church. (It’s emphasis of solid Biblical teaching is one of the reasons why I love her).
I was hired full-time in 2003 with the title “Worship Director” to reflect my experience and training. They encouraged me to take Bible classes which I began at The Meadows Bible Institute (soon to be a satellite school of Multnomah Bible College). I also received much instruction and training just sitting under the pastors, Greg Kuehn and Dave Smith.
I’m at a new church plant in Reno now called Coram Deo (before the face of God), where I lead worship and organize our twice a month outreach events.
What’s the “DNA” of your church?
Coram Deo is mainly white middle class folk concentrated around 20s and 30s, with a good percentage of young families. Thank God we do have believers in the family who are more mature and wiser.
The thrust of Coram Deo is ministry over mortgages. We would rather meet in a elementary school for the rest of our days spending God’s money on ministry than get hamstrung to a mortgage. We also take St. Francis exhortation to preach the gospel with actions first seriously. We go out twice a month serving the community in big (community blood drives) and small (totally free car wash) ways. We take our inspiration from Steven Sjogren of www.servantevangelism.com.
Describe for us your church’s worship “style”:
Musical
We have a band. I just started at Coram Deo in February of 2007, so we’re still finding our voice. I didn’t just want to go into the default worship style for the evangelical churches in the area, which is mainly an acoustic driven rock a la Paul Baloche (who’s amazing. Have you seen his Modern Worship Series DVDs?!) or Chris Tomlin (whom I love; we do some of his songs).
So I mainly lead from keys, trying for this earnest, longing, reaching sound. Along the lines of Keane, Deathcab. Jason Morant and Robbie Seay Band are examples of Christian artists who hit it. We’ve also experimented briefly with synths and loops to add another layer of depth. We don’t rock so much as grope in the dark for God.
Are we hitting what we’re aiming at? Not so much. But ask me again in six month and see how it’s evolved. We’re still learning to play with one another.
Non-Musical
We do responsive readings and Scripture readings which isn’t normal for the non-liturgical churches most of us have come from.
Also every six weeks or there’s no sermon, just worship (not that the sermon isn’t a form of worship, but that’s for another interview). It’s usually based around some sort of theme. This includes a couple of things on the Jewish calendar, specifically Passover and Sukkot, and soon more of the Christian calendar, starting with Advent this year. So we’ll have a seder, which is all Scripture and prayers, tasting and smelling. All used to help reflect on the Lamb of God.
We’ll often use stations that have Scripture or prayers and some sort of symbolic action or object to focus our worship. For example, we were reflecting on our mission to the city of Reno. On a street map, we traced with different colored markers a journey we’ve taken this past week (to the store or work, etc.). This was to remind us of how far our influence can extend into the city. We had a rainbow of color marking up Reno and Sparks. Afterwards, we had people write their prayers for the city on the map.
We still use songs during these times because they’re still very meaningful, but we hope to move people’s sense of what worship is forward. On the other hand, these new rituals are meant to be helpful and useful. If they aren’t, we give people freedom to not participate.
How has worship leading changed you?
I’m tempted to just list a bunch paradoxes. I’m more cynical and more trusting. More cynical of professional church ministry and more trusting of people and the God that’s works through them. I’m more humble and more self-righteous. That is, I’m more aware of my place and role in God’s hierarchy, but I also get prideful when I think I’m one of the only ones who really “get it” when it comes to worship.
Describe the make-up of your worship leading team:
We’re young church plant and for the first six or seven months I was here, we had three guys: acoustic or keys, electric or acoustic, and a bass. Just last month or so we found a percussion player who recently started playing a full kit. So now I’m mainly on keys.
Vocally we generally opt for one lead singer with one or two others singing back up, harmonies and counterpoints.
We project white lyrics on a black screen using Sunday Plus. We could do more graphically, but this is conscious choice to keep things clean and simple.
We’re starting a new team of Lectors (Readers) that will read the Bible text for the sermon.
Come back next Wednesday and learn more about José!
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