Well, thanks for joining me on my very first podcast. This is called Lifestyle of Worship. And this episode is really just an introduction to what we're going to be doing on this podcast. So thanks for checking in. My name is Jerry Heinold, and currently I'm the student worship director at Grace Fellowship Church in Katy, Texas, where we have an amazing student worship ministry. The whole church from adults down to children has just a heart and passion for worship, and you can see it throughout all the ministries. and it's just amazing to get to be involved in a church and a ministry that values, God and worshiping him, not just in music, but everyday life. so that's kind of the heart behind this podcast is to talk about what is a lifestyle of worship. What does it look like? Is worship just about music and songs? Or is it something greater than that? Is it something that really should permeate our entire lives? And what does that look like? Does it look like perfection? I know the church has gotten a bad rap over being, you know, all about rules and doing this and not doing that. And so does a lifestyle of worship. Is it really just about doing right, looking good on the outside, or is it really about a relationship with Christ? And so that's kind of what we're gonna dig into. We're gonna have interviews with lots of people from students, adults, people that are in the industry, people that are just around here in our ministry. And other people that we meet along the way, if you've ever got somebody that you think, Oh man, they need to be interviewed on this podcast, shoot me an email. Let me know. I'd love to reach out to them and interview them as well. I want to tell you a little bit in this introductory podcast, just to tell you a little bit about who I am, what I've been doing, how I got here. my passion is around the lifestyle of worship. I have been at Grace Fellowship here in this ministry, since 2011 and I actually came to Grace Fellowship in 2005 and, was a volunteer. I worked with the student worship band and was just volunteering for like seven years before actually they decided to hire me, and bring me on to help. Kind of oversee and manage this, this whole ministry. And I'll tell you more about that in a little bit. But my passion for worship actually started way back in high school. I had a couple best friends and I who, we were leaders in our youth group and we just had a love for music. Obviously worship was way different back then. basically a worship song was a sentence, a verse, and then a chorus. And you just repeated the two over and over again. and so obviously worship has come a long way, but back then we just were in love with Jesus, and we loved music. And so we started leading worship together and put together a band. Actually, our name was kind of corny now that I think about it. It was called 3 4 1, the numbers 3, 4, 1. We basically just wanted to worship and lead other students in worship and would go and just sing for churches, sing for any youth groups that would, would let us. And then when we went to college, we were so ingrained in ministry, just like the idea that ministry should happen, that when we went to college, actually I went to with one of my best friends and we're like, okay, what are we going to do for ministry once we get to college? And so. We said, let's put a band together. So literally we found people that played instruments since we didn't. And we, we started leading worship. Our name of that band was also very corny, hearts on fire. again, we kick ourselves that we didn't pick a better name, but we would go literally everywhere. Again, anybody who would let us play for them. We didn't even charge money We're just like we just wanted to leave worship. And so we got to really Go and learn a ton about what worship looked like We struggled obviously in our own lives. And so we learned a lot about hey ministry is not perfect And so it kind of developed a A honest look at what is the Christian life look like and what is living a lifestyle worship. What does that look like? And some weeks I did it well and some weeks. I didn't do it Well, and the cool thing about our group was we kept each other accountable We would literally we knew everything about each other A lot of us lived together in an apartment and we did life together and so on our good days and our bad days we were right there with one another and I honestly think that that's why I'm probably still, alive today and a believer in Christ and walking with Jesus is because of those friends that really didn't allow me to just go through the motions. And so then as I got older and got married and I started being a youth pastor and worship leader at different smaller churches. And what ultimately brought me here to Grace in 2005 was just my, my clear calling that I should be, you know, continuing to lead worship and got involved in this amazing ministry. I wish I could tell you all the whole journey of all the little details because it's just amazing to see how God's hand was involved in all the different, pieces of getting me to where I am today. it's, it's an amazing journey. And maybe over the course of this podcast, you'll get to hear little stories and things like that. But I wanted to really just tell you about this ministry that we're, that I'm in right now, that I've been in since 2005, is a ministry that again, grace fellowship. has a heart for worship. this church values lifting up the name of Jesus. And so this student ministry, started from just some students that said, Hey, we want to, we want to help lead worship. back then the, the worship leader of the church was leading worship for the student ministry. And some students approached him and said, Hey, can we help out? And he was like, absolutely. and that started student involvement in worship. And then sooner or later, students, created a whole band. It was only students leading worship. And then more students came and they started another, a second band. And then more students came, and then they started, we started the third band, and then more students came. Literally, now we have four student worship bands, from seventh grade all the way up to twelfth grade, that they are the ones that lead worship for all of our student services. We have three student services every Sunday, and a different student band leads worship for all of those, on an ongoing basis. And it's amazing to see them grow, to see what God does in their life, challenging them. Teach them about his heart for them, about who they are and how they can bless him and glorify him with the gifts that he's given them, how they can, can bring excellence into those areas. These, these bands become small groups where they encourage one another and they grow together and it is. It's an absolute honor to get to walk alongside these students. We have adults that jump in and basically mentor these bands. Most of them are way more talented than I ever dreamed of being. And so we're all really growing together. I'm just excited to get to bring you a podcast that really just explores what that looks like, in a real honest way without making it sound like it's, you know, all just roses. But I want to, we want to talk about what are the challenges of, of doing that and what does it look like in people's lives? And so I'm excited to get to interview a lot of people, and let you kind of see through. what it looks like from the Instagram stories. Instead let's reveal what's really behind Living Lifestyle at Worship. So thanks for jumping in with me and let's go together on this journey.