The Lighten Up Gear Blog

Have you ever looked down at your shirt after leading worship on Sunday morning and noticed those tell-tale sweat marks under your arms? Don't worry, you're not alone! As a matter of fact, those sweat marks are a badge of honor, a symbol of the passion and intensity...

Our music team at church has been getting together for the past year with a purpose of writing new worship songs for the church. I think if you polled the team, most of us would say we'd love to write and record an album sometime in the future. Over the past few...

Okay, let's get one thing straight. I know most of these songs weren't released in 2022, but they are songs that are resonating with me here in March. A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I snuck (Disclaimer: My wife is on staff with our church) into an annual college...

Having been a worship leader for the past 15 years, we've covered a lot of different types of songs written by lots of artists. Artists come and go, but some Christian worship bands and artists have persevered for many years. As a result, the music ministries I've...

About the only time I'm alone in my thoughts is when I'm either mowing the yard or riding my bicycle. One of those activities really fills me up and the other is a necessity (can you guess which is which?). Last summer while I was mowing the lawn, I stumbled across a...

Over the past 7 years of Lighten Up Gear's existence, hands down our men's and women's Yahweh (YHWH) Lion t-shirt design has been the most popular. It's a simple design using the abbreviation of Yahweh as YHWH with a lion print embedded within the letters. If you're...

Disclaimer: Not all of these songs were released in 2020. Can we still be friends? Awesome. Worship music is one of the best ways for me to connect with Jesus. It's been something that has been near and dear to me as a volunteer worship leader over the past 15 years....

The other day, my mom suggested that I create a line of Christian face masks. While I appreciate the free advice, I shut down the idea in my head immediately because I felt like I missed my window of opportunity to create something meaningful customers would want to...

The other day I ran across this post on Instagram by @pastorhumor who posts funny Christian memes and pastor humor. https://www.instagram.com/p/CFhhgF8lS2r/ "Oh man," I thought to myself. "I had no idea he was running. He'd win in a landslide." Or would He? Being my...

There are times that I want to delete all of my social media accounts and go offline, and other times God abundantly blesses me through those channels. Today is one of those days because I got the opportunity to connect with “Moosh Da Street Preacher” and listen to...

When the pandemic became serious back in March, I felt like a caged animal stuck in my house. It's so much more fulfilling to meet with people in person so working from home full-time was a difficult transition for me. When the weather started to warm up a bit, I...

I'll admit this may blow up on me and backfire. But you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, right? A long time ago, I used to run a website that featured artist interviews and album reviews. I'm old (school) so it was before digital music, blogging and Wordpress....

Ever since I wrote about Bible versions in our last blog post, "My Church Changes Bible Translations Every Year," I couldn't stop thinking about Lebron James, Not because we're in the middle of the NBA finals, but because Lebron's Twitter account is @KingJames. Did...

I'm going to make a bold proclamation. I believe my church is in cahoots with Zondervan Publishing.* (Reads the room, hears the gasps, and sees the puzzled expressions from the audience) When I was baptized at the age of 11, the pastor of our church gave me a New...

One of our most popular blog posts over the years has been about Christian hats (snapbacks, dad hats, trucker hats and bucket hats). I'm guessing it's why you're probably reading this blog post. Since it's been quite some time since I posted about Christian hats, I...

From COVID-19 and racial inequality to land hurricanes hitting my state, this has been quite a year. Just when I think it can't get any harder or weirder it just does. Admittedly this past week has been hard as we sent our two oldest twin sons off to college. It's not...

If you know me, then you know that I absolutely love soccer. Over the past few years, I have become an obsessed fan of Minnesota United with my sons. While we live 233 miles away from Allianz Field in Saint Paul, MN, over the years we would catch about a half dozen...