Julianna Morlet

Leading worship is more than a weekend gig when you let your church know you are real. Being a Christian is more than a weekend gig when you let the world know you are real.

When Jesus left this earth, He sent “one who is greater” so that we, His Church, could be empowered to do as He did. He started something so we could finish it. You are the verb, the action upon Jesus’ word, to somebody in your life. (Click it to tweet it!) You are the hands that bring healing as you tend to their wounds. You mouth the words that bring life into someone’s desperate circumstance.

*This setlist was formed by the worship team of Rancho Community Church but we don't own it. Copy away :)

I was faking forgiveness as best I could. I tried to control situations and circumstances as "preventative" measures for this man of God I'd married. And while I liked to think it was all for him, it was actually because I was terrified of losing my fairytale. My Christian fairytale.

I wasn't afraid of you because I thought you were a monster, though most would say otherwise. And it wasn’t because I thought you were dangerous or lethal, though some might argue you were. I was afraid of you because of what you weren’t. You weren’t who you said you were. You weren’t the safe place you were supposed to be. I was afraid because your failure damaged that sacred place in me.

And then my mind did something I'm finding a little too familiar these days. It skipped passed the good parts to the bad parts. As beautiful as this world is, it will crush her someday. Or at least try to.

They had something to say, something to offer one another amidst their own brokeness. Even if it came out in bite sized pieces. A sisterhood.

While I get ready for bed, there are girls being forced to service men and that makes me sick. Sick enough to run on her behalf. Sick enough to run for her life. She deserves better. She deserves the dignity of knowing love. True and genuine love.

Over the past decade, many coffee shop dialogues, reactionary blogs and podium messages on "the church" have come from the youth of my generation. Now adults, and today's church, we've written, spoken, and cried out from a deep, deep well of resentment.

"God helped us!" Have you cried those words before?

There's something better than perfection: authenticity. I need it, my daughter needs it, my husband needs it, my community needs it.

You know who you are. You're sitting a couple rows back so no one really, really notices you singing your heart out. I see you.

No one can blame Miley Cyrus for wanting to become more than the Disney Channel girl. We all need to grow up at some point. But what the world witnessed tonight was a juvenile and sorry attempt to do so. We didn't see a little girl growing up. We saw a wildly inappropriate exhibit of sexuality distorted and warped.

This weekend is a very special one for most of your congregation. But there may be a small (yet larger than you think) group of women who will sit in your pews and chairs, in silent pain.

You've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times, pregnancy and motherhood is different for every woman. I think that's true, until it's not