Andre Sushchik’s Blog

Its been about 5 years since i first lead praise and worship boy i have i learned a lot. And the cool thing is that i have so much more to learn.

The verse: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh accomplishes nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”

The problem: Too much flesh, not enough spirit

It amazes me sometimes how we as worshipers can be so carnal. We can be all about putting on a good show for everyone to see. The thought behind that is if we can act on stage like we are really into the worship, people will see that and automatically become engaged into the worship with us. If thats your mentality, get ready to become seriously disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, i’m a huge believer in using my entire body to praise and worship God with all my strength. There is probably not a sunday that goes by when after the worship the back of my shirt is wet from sweating so much. The bible in Romans 12:1 calls us to be a living sacrifice so we shouldn’t be like zombies when we worship. The problem is we seem to get it mixed up. We think if jump around, clap, put on a classic struggling worship face, maybe close our eyes a little, God will show up. Doesn’t work that way. It the very opposite. Our jumping and clapping and shouting is the result of God’s spirit working within us. Remember, it is the spirit that gives life to our flesh, not the other way around. We as worshipers need to always be filled with the spirit once we are, God will take care of the rest. When his spirit shows up, its hard to just stand there and not let Him take over us.

The solution: More of Him, less of me

• Wow wow wow.. where to begin?
• This trip to florida we took was by far the best
• Everybody needs time to just chill out… blow off steam.. relax.. even ministers
• Besides the tons of fun stuff we did, God still managed to reveal himself in a totally new way..
• We are in the process of receiving a totally crazy revelation from god that i believe will change us forever.
• I will never forget this trip.. i dont think anyone will
• The house we stayed at was insane cool.. Kudos to pastor Tanya. she’s got a good eye for a nice place to stay.
• One thing about it that sucked was yana and i had to sleep on this super small cot.
• that thing was harder than plywood with a blanket on top
• oh how i love my bed.. anyways..
• weather was perfect
• fresh breakfast every morning was nice too.. although i’m kinda sick of bacon for a while
• one bad thing.. i was looking forward to deep sea fishing but for some reason this time it blew up in my face.
• i was miserable. i puked like 7 times to the point where i was puking but nothing was coming out except spit.
• but i’m happy for the guys. they looked like they enjoyed it
• we’ll get em next time
• dinner cruise was sweet.. nothing like city lights over water at night..
• dancing is fun even if u don’t know how.
• I’m still tired after the trip
• gotta go relax some more

I got a hair cut yesterday… its nice

• Pretty nice day today..
• Woke up feelin good, hungry, sore from football saturday but the lord gives me strength:)
• Church was different today. Very young crowd when i looked out. Most of the people are teens.. We do have a very very young church, i realized
• Praise and worship was pretty good today. Eli has been progressing as a leader quite nicely. BUT…….We still had small mistakes, comunication issues we need to fix fast.
• We’ve been playing together for a while now and theres no reason to have some of that stuff.
• Currently working with a new singer.. Excited bout that:)
• Still looking for a drummer… come on are they that rare?
• P. Alex did a great job delivering a message that really hit home. People seemed too quiet though, like they werent expecting anything.
• gotta be honest that annoys me sometimes.
• Oh well, keep tearing it up Alex. Sometimes it may not seem like people get it but because of you, lives are impacted and God honors that.
• Pumped up about the money makeover series next sunday. Should be real practical and interesting and a total blessing from God
• Definately looking forward to the Florida trip… Bout time to get out of the city and get a tan
• Looking forward to catch a big fish.. and EAT IT UP!!
• I’m so redneck:)
• Ok, i better go now and throw up the olive garden i ate a bit ago..
• God is good every day, all the time, in every way!

• Well well well… its been a while… (theres my classic smirk)
• I got a mac and all of a sudden i’m pulling internet at my crib so i have no excuse not to blog
• Does anyone even read this stuff????
• Oh well… for some reason when i write here i feel like i’m having a conversation with myself.. kinda weird..
• No place like home on a sat. night with the wife… God is good:)
• Played some football today. Scored a few td’s. threw a few int’s. Needless to say we lost.
• U know what they say.. U win some, u lose some…
• Loosing sucks. I do not like to lose..
• Thank God for sunday… I need it..
• Peace

• I had a pretty cool weekend
• Friday night I found out that pizza and liberals don’t mix
• I finally got a chance to play some golf on saturday. I wanted to play a game but no one wanted to play with me so i hit the practice range.
• there was a strong head wind so most of my shots were about 20 yards shorter than usual
• my putting game was awesome though..
• i hit about a 30 foot put, Uphill, and to the right. thats like PGA right there.
• few minutes later i almost sunk a 40 footer but that was by accident cuz i was aiming elsewhere.
• took a nice walk with the love of my life later and the weather was beautiful
• Watched 7 pounds.. very good acting but what a depressing movie. i liked it anyway.
• Easter Sunday was cool.
• Worship started out a little shaky (ilia was nervous for some reason) but Audri ended on a good note as usual. Good experience for worship leaders to lead big services.
• that drunk dude who walked in during the message didn’t like me cuz i kept telling him to shut up. Why is god still testing us?
• P. Alex still broke through the distraction and finished really good.
• -oh and next time, just say the word and i’ll tear him up
• Went to moms for dinner. People seemed depressed on such a good day. I love my church
• Went to in-laws for more dinner..
• felt really tired by night… watched some golf
• played a game with some friends and went home and went to bed
• There u have it. Now stop stalking me!

• Strange weekend huh?
• Not as bad as i thought it would be so its all good. The snow should melt in 2 days
• I hate snow
• Its funny how all these freaks are slammin us about global warming and here in so. dak we are experiencing anything but that.
• Global what?
• Bad thing is the snow knocks us out of work for a bit God is still good to us
• Lights went out in apartment sat. night so we had to sleep over my parents. Lets just say i love MY bed. Its perfect for me..:)
• Waking up sunday morning at someones house and going home seemed kinda wierd to yana and I.
• I wasn’t to thrilled about the morning service being so long and taking up our time…
• That bugs me
• That really bugs me…
• Especially as a worship leader. I admit we have gotten a little better at setting up for the service but every time we start late, there is always something that screws up when we play.
• I dont know how it sounded out there but i had a horrible mix in my drums.
• All i could here is Ilias guitar rippin my ears and a little bit of Audri’s singing. No bass, barely anything else.
• That bugs me..
• Lord our own place would be nice not yet… not yet… patience…
• Nevertheless, Audri did a good job of fininshing worship at the end. God moves in the most unlikely situations.
• Message was good. A little longer than usual but i think people got the point.
• Cool video at the end
• Next sunday is our Easter Service. Cant wait it will be a good one
• I’m learning the guitar and so far so good. I’ve been only playing for a week and i already know “how great is our God”.. Watch out ilia
• Gotta practice, later gator

• I had what most consider a peaceful weekend
• Friday night Yana and i stopped by at my parents house cuz we havent visited them for a while… Had some tea
• Saw “bedtime stories” at cheap theater. There’s a good funny movie for the whole family.
• Saturday we did some women stuff, (shopping) cleaned a little. Watched some basketball that was on
• My bro got a new guitar so he gave me his old one to learn on. I already learned some chords so i’m on my way to being ilia:)
• My goal is to learn to play this year but the bad part is how busy my life can be with business, church, team, Yana… list goes on
• Worship on sunday was different cuz ilia was gone so we just did an acoustic set with two worship songs.
• I like doing those every now and then because u just worship and not worry so much about the music.
• We sang the new song we wrote for the first time and i think it was o.k..  I realized introducing a new song with just a guitar instead of a full band doesn’t really work in my opinion.
• I think it will sound better next time with a full band and everyone just being more comfortable with it.
• That said, some people still came up and said they really liked it.. oh well:)
• The message on hell was very disturbing… in a good way… especially the video
• 4 or so people got saved so thats what its all about.
• went to a b-day party and went home..
• probably one of those weekends i wil forget soon:)

• I’m still sore from the weekend. Its a good kind of sore though
• Funny thing is that it wasn’t the fact that i worked all week for the first time this year. It was a few hours of intense football.
• Thats right, my brotha from the same motha had his b-day party on Saturday at Tomar park.
• My good Lord, what a beautiful day it was. I got burned!!! No, not on the field silly, but on my face and arms. Ahh, the first burn of 09′
• Ate some good food. Even play a little golf.
• Football was sweet. We were down two scores the first game but came back and were on top.
• I caught a few touchdowns, threw for one and got an interception.
• I shut down brian when i covered him, he scored a few touchdowns in the first game but when i covered him, he said he’s not even gonna try:)
• I got in peoples minds and they got mad… but i backed it up with my game
• while i’m writing this, there is a school they’re showing on tv called Dupree.  hahhaaha
• Sunday we had a sweet baptism service. 3 people got baptized. Introduced 7 new members.
• I thought worship was pretty good. Ilia is going to cali this sunday so it will probably be an acoustic setup. The plan is to introduce our new song we wrote.
• I had some good sea food at olive garden.
• Took a nice nap while it was raining
• Relaxed the rest of the night
• Gotta go heal up my sore body.

• Probably wondering why it took me so long to write about last weekend?
• Its been a looooong week and i had a loooong weekend.
• Started cutting trees so no time to chill at my moms basement:)
• I love my Job. AAA all the way baby!!!
• Last friday my beautiful wife and I took a trip to minneapolis to just relax, shop, eat, shop, and did i say shop yet?
• It was nice to get out for a little and spend some dough when u can afford to.
• I even bought more clothes than Yana. I’m high maintenance:)
• Bought some pimp shoes and cool stuff for the waiting area at church.
• Coolest thing was there was a Red Lobster close to our hotel… I ate like a king and slept like a baby lets just say.
• Saturday we had some breakfast and made our way back home slowly.
• Saturday was my father in law’s b-day and his dad’s b-day so we took dad out for a nice dinner.
• Went and saw grandpa for the first time since before the wedding. (oops!) Smells like old people at his place. Duh!
• Church sunday was pretty cool.
• Apperently the worship sounded good so kudos to frank.
• Ilia did an awesome job leading the people even though the lights went out in the middle of the song.
• In the past, he would just stop, say something dumb and laugh it off, but he’s stepping up to the plate and getting to be a better leader.
• About a month ago God told me raise him up and have him lead and turns out that God is always right.
• Go get em marty!!
• That new song we wrote, we’ll probably start singing it very soon.
• Got invited to play at firehouse today. That should be fun
• I did the coolest thing monday. I Played Golf for the first time this year and i havent lost it! it was sooooo coooool. Cant wait to play again. My goal is to get even better this year and play some hard courses.
• I love the weather
• I love my wife
• I love my Savior
• I love my life
• sweet freestyle rhymes, thats how i roll man.
• Gotta run.