More Than Music: A Conversation on Worship, Humility, and the Move of God at Coker

Coker’s Paul Trejo and Michael Thornton were recently interviewed on the Storm the Gates Podcast, the official podcast of the Mid Texas Conference of the Global Methodist Church. What started as a conversation about leading worship became something deeper — a window into how God is moving at Coker, and into the kind of humility that shapes the people who lead us into His presence.

Worship That Doesn’t Stay on Sunday

One of the threads woven through the whole conversation was the conviction that worship is far more than a set of songs. For Paul and Michael, leading worship means stewarding the presence of God — and that’s a weight they carry seriously.

Michael put it plainly: anyone who stands in front of people regularly, if they’re healthy, feels the responsibility of it. For him, that responsibility turns inward first. He examines his own life, his own beliefs, because he remembers what it was like to be a student watching someone else lead. He wants to be transparent and consistent, echoing something he heard recently — that if what you hear on Sunday doesn’t change your Monday, it isn’t worth much.

Worship, as they described it, is prayer, response, listening for God, testimony, and the teaching of the Word. It’s communal. More often than not, students end up praying for one another — not just an altar call, but the church genuinely entering into prayer together.

The Humility of Handling Holy Things

The hosts noticed something the two men have in common with many worship leaders they admire: humility. Paul reflected on why that might be. When you lead worship, he said, the songs were written by other people, set to melodies by other people — so much of it is already arranged. And the deepest, most substantive work? That belongs entirely to God.

He doesn’t claim a “successful Sunday” as his own victory, because in the most important sense, none of it rests on him. All glory belongs to Christ. That isn’t false modesty — it’s the honest posture of someone who has paid attention long enough to know where the real power comes from.

Michael added: he often feels closest to the Lord in worship when he is most aware of his own weakness and need. Humility, as he sees it, is simply a proper appreciation for who you are — not too high, not too low. When he comes before God honestly, he realizes again how much he constantly needs Him. From that place, it becomes very hard to look down on anyone else.

Raising Up the Next Generation

Both fellas have a heart for students. Michael has begun discipling young people interested in leading worship on Wednesday nights — and they quickly discover it isn’t only about singing. He opens a Bible and asks, “What is worship to you?” The formation comes first.

They were honest about how unpredictable this work is. God seems to refuse a one-size-fits-all formula. Right now their youth worship team is almost entirely vocalists, which means rethinking everything and meeting students where their gifts actually are. But what draws students in, Paul said, is the genuine experience of encountering the Lord. When they come of age and want to lead, they’re really saying: I want to create this for myself and others.

His encouragement to anyone wanting to grow a worship ministry was simple and confident — be faithful with what you’ve been given, and pray. He’s watched God provide the right people again and again. “I’ll die on that hill,” he said. God will send people.

God on the Move at Coker

When the conversation turned to how the Holy Spirit is at work at Coker, the answer came in stories.

The growth is real. Michael shared that the 9:30 AM service has gone from around 30 people on a good day, post-pandemic, to averaging around 150. Coker Español, the Spanish-speaking worshiping congregation, has grown a great deal as well. Much of that is the fruit of people who have prayed for renewal for years and are finally seeing it.

The Mercado family helps lead Coker Español, bringing a depth of gifting, theology, and prayer life — including a greater openness to the supernatural elements of the faith. That openness has opened up new conversations. Coker hosted the Unseen Conference, welcoming voices like Pete Bellini to share on deliverance, and they hope to host it again. People are being set free.

One of Michael’s most marked moments came while leading the bilingual Español service. He doesn’t speak much Spanish — he can sing it, he joked, even when he doesn’t fully understand it. One Sunday, as the team backed off the mics during an English chorus, he realized the whole congregation was singing it in English, passionately. It still moves him to talk about. For a moment, he said, he felt like he was tasting new creation — people of different languages drawn together, a little closer to what eternity will look like.

Making Room for the Unexpected

Paul told one story that captured the whole spirit of the place. Coker’s contemporary service has a tight turnaround — at 10:30 AM, the team has to flip the entire sanctuary for the traditional service. But one Sunday during the response time, a family came forward. What looked like a simple moment of prayer turned into a baptism: several of them were professing faith and being baptized that very morning. The baptismal font was rushed to the front. The service ran long.

“God forbid we have baptisms,” Paul laughed. But the point landed: Coker is ready to reclaim what it means to make room, this was evidence of that, this was that in action. Be expectant. And when the Holy Spirit moves, don’t be so locked to the clock that you miss it.

A Word of Prayer

The episode closed the way Storm the Gates loves to close — praying over its guests. Paul asked for prayer over Coker’s new worship space, that it would be more than a shiny new building but a true tool for the kingdom, and that the congregation would become a people who genuinely expect God to move. Michael asked for the strength to boast in his weakness, for his marriage and family, and for the Lord to speak to the youth of the church.

It’s a fitting picture of two leaders who know the secret hiding in plain sight: the music matters, the planning matters, the gifts matter — but in the end, all of it points away from them and toward the One who is actually doing the work.