Our Rising Sound » church

Video: “Abortion & Redemption” spoken word by Burgundy Hubert feat. Our Rising Sound (Live)

Kyle — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 21:15:16 +0000

A brave, talented and redeemed woman in our church wrote an incredible spoken word testimony of her past abortion and God pursuit of her to come to know Jesus. My band played an instrumental behind her and well…here it is.

Credits

Guitars: Kyle Campos, Caleb Dailey
Bass: Josh Dailey
Drums: Jon Utter
Spoken Word: Burgundy Hubert
Mix: Micah Dailey

Video: What if God asked you to serve your poor community by living there?

Kyle — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 19:44:45 +0000

That’s exactly what happened at my church in Phoenix AZ. We planted in the poorest area of downtown Phoenix and just celebrated our 9 year anniversary this past weekend. Most pastors in this area think we’re crazy to be here, most churches run out of this neighborhood because it’s incredibly difficult to support a church here. We’ve seen many churches come and go, but here we are…9 years later.

God hasn’t just sustained us, but he’s sent us here to minister to this neighborhood and people. This year he gave us vision and a some in our church the heart to start what we call the Alhambra Project. 2 people in our church with the means to live a much more comfortable and safe(more on that below) lifestyle felt the call of God to live in this neighborhood to better serve the people.

I’ve not heard of many (any) that have or would even consider doing this. It’s incredibly humbling to be an elder over seeing this, but to be honest, we’re in uncharted waters and are expecting lots of storms and trusting in many more miracles. The first week after moving in, the house was robbed. No one said this would be easy. Please keep Life Connection Church, downtown Phoenix and our Alhambra Project leaders in prayer.

John Piper interviews Rick Warren on doctrine

Kyle — Sat, 28 May 2011 03:10:52 +0000

What an incredible blessing it was to watch this long and rich interview. Rick has taken a lot of shots about his doctrine from the reformed side, so it was so awesome of Piper to sit with him and let him share his heart on the gospel. Rick is a solid solid guy, something tells me reformed church bookstores will probably start stocking Purpose Driven Life after Piper gave it his stamp of approval. Here are some of the takeaway quotes for me:

“Christians often want to excuses God from things he doesn’t need excusing from” -Rick on the sovereignty of God

“I wish those who believed in the doctrines of grace were more gracious.” -Rick on his observation of the reformed culture

“I believe in the five solas” & “I believe in the doctrines of grace[Calvinism]” -Rick

Enjoy.

Why I’m dumb enough to keep serving in the church?

Kyle — Thu, 26 May 2011 16:50:09 +0000

Simply…1 Samuel 12:24

“Only fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you.”

Only fear the Lord

I have nothing else to fear, I don’t have to please audiences, friends, family members, ministry partners…may I only fear God and only seek his will and delight.

serve him faithfully

I won’t give up. When life is hard, when ministry is discouraging, when other people are unfaithful, when I’m attacked by the enemy or by friendly fire, I remember that His faithfulness is my shield and I’ve been empowered by the Holy Spirit to continue on. May I serve humbly and faithfully.

with all your heart

May I serve with passion! Nothing else should steal my heart away from serving Jesus faithfully and passionately. I have to guard my heart to make sure I’m not letting it be serenaded by another song, another story, sung by a different author. There’s part of me that gravitates towards the other story, but the deepest part of me has been captured by the gospel story and until that story reaches its conclusion, I’m at war.

For consider what great things he has done for you

My justification. Lord let me continually reflect on, meditate on what you did for me on the cross. You pursued me when I hated you, you changed my heart, you died in my place, you washed me clean, you breathed your Spirit in me and sent me on mission without leaving my side. You gave me a beautiful wife, 3 incredible children whom I’d have no hope of loving well were it not for the reflection of your love in me. You gave us a beautiful place to live, surrounded us with friends and family who love and support us. You sustained us at our lowest, through business failure, financial collapse, unemployment and health problems. You rejoiced with us at our highest, in our marriage, birth of our children, business success and miraculous healing. You have been faithful to protect, provide, encourage, love and care for us through all seasons.

May I never forget how you’ve done EVERYTHING for me and that I didn’t deserve ANY of it.

For these reasons and by your grace may I stay faithful to serve the church and people you’ve placed me in.

Amen.

How hymns helped a diverse inner city’s church unity in worship

Kyle — Sat, 21 May 2011 00:15:23 +0000

I serve as Worship Pastor of a small inner city, Reformed Charismatic A29 church in Phoenix AZ. We have a pretty diverse group of attenders and members in almost every way: age, church background, social class, ethnicity, theological dispositions, family makeup, etc… We are a diverse family of believers on mission together to reach one of the least churched cities in the nation and the poorest neighborhood in Phoenix.

I never tried to find a musical style that would please the majority of the church. I’ve always believed that to be a fruitless endeavor, it’s am moving target that you’ll never reach and even if you did I don’t think it’s a target placed by scripture. My heart has always been to play the music style I and the band was gifted to play, play the songs that glorify Jesus and stir our affections for Him, and do so with passion.

Through that journey I know the music has as times turned off many, I also know it’s attracted some (there’s that moving target). Some who’ve been turned off by the music have left the church, others have stuck and struggled to engage. It’s something that always weighs on me as a worship leader and something I take very seriously, and that is…to what extent am I a detriment to corporate unity and engagement in worship. I’ve always tended to be a bit polarizing in the music I played (at least in church) so though it’s not a feeling/thought I’m comfortable with, it’s a reality I’ve grown used to.

Then a few years ago we started introducing hymns arranged in new, hopefully interesting ways. This had a very unexpected effect on the worship in our church. Our young and un-churched crew has never heard these songs, had no idea they were really old and many times thought that my band had written them. But they loved the fact it was still in our indie-rock vibe and loved the lyrical weight to them. It started ministering to them in powerful ways.

Our older crowd loved hearing the hymns they grew up singing again, though it took them some adjustment getting used to the new arrangements. But it enabled them to enter into worship in a more familiar way than perhaps a new John Mark McMillan song would have allowed, or even some of our own.

Now as we play hymns and continue to introduce new arrangements of them, I see all different types of people singing with passion these songs that connect us not just to each other, but to hundreds of years of church history. I see a growth in unity in our worship I didn’t know I’d ever see. I see a depth in worship that is humbling and encouraging. I’m so thankful for these songs that have been sung by so many over hundreds of years, and now being sung by our community, our people to the same merciful God.

Poll: 15% of church staffers are staying just for the money

Kyle — Thu, 05 May 2011 16:00:27 +0000

I started a long running poll last year asking the following question.

Is your primary reason for staying at your church your pay?

222 church staffers(not a lot I know…I’m not Ed Stetzer) responded and to tell you the truth I was pretty surprised by the results, not because I have a hard time believing them to be true, but that so many were honest about it. Here are the results:

16% are certain that they are not serving where they are called, rather they are serving because of the money and another 8% aren’t sure. That’s nearly 25% of those that responded who couldn’t say that they were serving where they are because God called them there and not because of the money. Though I’m not shocked, it does sadden me.

Let me be clear that I don’t think there’s anything wrong with paid church staff, there’s strong biblical support for it. However I do see a big problem in the devaluing of God’s call, His mission and our submission to both.

There’s an inherent conflict of interest when ministry is a career and not a calling. In a career you strive to succeed, increase your reward, attain more influence and recognition and position yourself to reap the most benefit for yourself. But biblical ministry is about lowering ourselves, lifting up Christ, making him famous, sacrificially serving and giving for the glory of Christ and benefit of the church with an eternal reward awaiting us.

When ministry is a career and not a calling

…small churches are your stepping stone.

…amassing earthly reward and recognition is held in high esteem.

…you can clock in and out instead of living a gospel centered life.

…you are constantly looking for greater opportunity and path of least resistance (lowest risk/highest reward).

…you find yourself having more valuable networking connections than dear friends who hold you accountable.

…you surround yourself with acquaintances encouraging to chase your dreams(career ambitions) instead of friends and leaders calling you to submit your life to Christ at every turn.

…you find a generation of church leaders running to best market condition locations like Nashville, Dallas and other bible belt cities instead of greatest gospel need like Detroit, Phoenix, and other unchurched urban areas. (coincidence so many aren’t called to poor urban areas?)

…you’re a hired hand instead of a shepherd. When trouble comes or a more profitable opportunity arises you bail or as Jesus says “He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.” – John 10:13

I’m not saying all who are paid staff view their ministry as a career and not a calling. I’m merely showing the dangers of having that view and presenting a poll that clearly shows many have this view.

What are your thoughts on this, are you surprised by the poll results? Church staffers do you find your salary influencing your ministry more than you’d like?

Ted Haggard says the world understands restoration better than the church (Video)

Kyle — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 16:11:12 +0000

Take a look at this snippet from Ted talking about “restoration”. I’m gonna have to break this down in bites below.

Everybody knows everyone sins. The differentiation between the church and everyone else is that we should respond with restoration, healing, hope life to people’s sin condition.

Ehhhhh not quite. Everyone knows that everyone makes mistakes, yes. But far fewer people believe that we are sinners who willfully, passionately violate the word, will and call of our sovereign God. That distinction paves the way for a radically different perspective and definition of the word “restoration”.

What happened to me was, I saw Martha Stewart get restored, I saw Michael Vick get restored, I saw Tiger woods get restored, I saw David Letterman get restored by their organizations, none of which say they believe in forgiveness, love or restoration.

Now we start to see that when Ted says “restored” he just means “rehired“. None of the organizations Ted refers to views their employees actions as terrible sins that required repentance to God and a restoration back to Christ. They see mistakes that require a debt paid to society. The church should see sin that is a debt to God that can only be covered through Jesus’ death on the cross. HUGE difference.

I’m not even sure Ted’s points have technical merit. Pastor’s who cheat on their wives with assistants, get divorced, run out on any accountability and get rehired at another church are all over the place. Those stories are a dime a dozen. So if Ted is looking to the world as a model of restoration, I’d conclude the exact opposite, the church has learned a whole heck of a lot from the world in how we should restore. If the employee(pastor) is talented, it doesn’t matter if he’s repentant and humble, as long as it “benefits” the church they’ll get another gig.

Finally, the irony is not lost on me that the guy lecturing the church about restoration is the same guy that completely rejected the restoration plan he was on and rebelled against the leadership he had submitted to. But hey, might be just a coincidence.

OK I’m done. What do you think of Ted’s comments?

[HT POTSC]

IHOP (restaurant) sues IHOP (prayer movement) over trademark

Kyle — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 17:25:28 +0000

When I saw the headline “IHOP (the pancake-maker) sues IHOP (the prayer center) over trademark” , my thought was, what took them so long? I mean I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a more clear case of trademark infringement. Let’s look at the names:

International House of Pankcakes (IHOP)

International House of Prayer (IHOP)

Mike Bickle’s ministry has from it’s outset used the acronym IHOP and even borrowed the first 3 words of that acronym. The restaurant chain has been around for 37 years, the prayer ministry….just 10. The article states:

The lawsuit further accuses the church mission of adopting the name International House of Prayer knowing it would be abbreviated IHOP — the intent being to misappropriate fame and notoriety of the food chain.

I don’t think there’s any denying that. I was at the early meeting/conferences of IHOP (prayer) and that was clearly the intention. The domain name is ihop.org after all, with the pancake makers domain ihop.com. The article also states that “the suit was filed only after the church mission refused repeated requests to stop using the trademark.” Now I don’t want to jump to any conclusion as to what Mike Bickle and IHOP prayer movement was thinking, but my question is…were you thinking at all?

If I’m starting a business I would never consider using IHOP, as clearly the trademark is already claimed, nor would any business lawyer advise me to use that name either. I mean it’s so elementary it’s almost silly. But for some reason it seems the church ministry thought they were a special circumstance where trademark law didn’t apply. And that attitude drives me crazy!

My hope is IHOP the prayer ministry would humbly (though they appear they will fight) admit fault and stop using the name. What are your thoughts? Am I missing something?

Worship leaders, don’t chase your mountaintop experience

Kyle — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 17:35:00 +0000

I can’t tell you how much the below Driscoll clip resonated with me. I’ve seen up close the destruction that in sues from this idolatrous seeking of some great past experience, some great moment in the church where God moved in a powerful way. The church and it’s leaders become fixated on how to get it back and completely reject what God is doing presently. I’ve seen it close, been part of it, and it’s devastating to a church’s health.

Sometimes the church experiences a tremendous hurt, maybe a leader being removed or caught out in sin, and instead of faithfully walking through God’s restoration in the body, there’s a detachment and this constant day dreaming of what used to be. I’ve see that up close too, and it’s devastating. Worship leaders, make sure you aren’t chasing experiences, for the benefit of yourself and your body…don’t do it.

Prosperity Gospel’s new marketing campaign

Kyle — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:42:30 +0000

Creflo and Kenny makin the hard sell.

[via FAIL blog]

Sunday Wrap Up: “Preaching Colossians is hard work” (Video)

Kyle — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:31:15 +0000

This past Sunday I was actually preaching instead of leading worship. Our pastor was in Kuwait and I picked up preaching duties, teaching out of Colossians 3:18 , not an easy task. I was really blessed to be able to do that for Life Connection Church, really it was an honor and I pray that God’s will was accomplished. For the rest of the info you can just watch the video wrap up…

Sunday Wrap Up (01/10/10) from Our Rising Sound on Vimeo.

Christmas Day Bike Giveaway

Kyle — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 19:08:18 +0000

On Dec 12th our church we busy taking pictures of local families for Help Portrait. When I say local, I mean local local, as in families that live in the surrounding blocks. Our church has really felt convicted that we haven’t poured into the immediately surrounding community. The community we are in is a pretty rough one, a lot of broken families, drug abuse, prostitution. We’ve always felt like we were planted here for a purpose, but recently that purpose has become more concrete and we’ve started to act on it.

So the same day Help Portrait was in full swing a local company donated 15 kids bikes to us, a total surprise and huge blessing. My pastor and I started brainstorming ideas on what to do and we thought, “why not just walk through our neighborhood on Christmas day and hand these out to kids?” Wasn’t a typical church outreach plan, or typical for us either. We weren’t going to invite them to a service and make them wait to the end, or give them away to all the kids in our church. Though we love our kids too, we thought we’d demonstrate it to them differently.

We felt a greater blessing for our kids would be for them to come with us and help us give them away. So on Christmas Day a handful of families loaded the bikes into a truck and we took the caravan through the neighborhood. We met a lot of the families in the neighborhood and they greeted us with tearful thank you’s and the kids were overjoyed. About 10 minutes into it word had spread quickly and kids were running out to greet us.

It was truly one of the most amazing experiences I’ve been apart of, we were so blessed and thankful to be able to do it and share in the lives with the families around us. We really look forward to doing this every year, but also doing a lot more on a regular basis with these families. We are actively praying about where God would lead us and where and how he’d have us serve our local community. Thank you to everyone who took part in this, it truly was special.

View Photo Album

My church, Life Connection Church joins Acts 29 network

Kyle — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 20:08:43 +0000

This has been a big week for many reasons, all of which I’ll blog about. But one of the simpler ones to blog about is my church‘s entrance into full Acts 29 membership. The A29 blog just published an article introducing us to the network. I’m really excited to be joining the network, there are so many pastors, worship leaders and friends here that I respect.

As far as worship music goes, we do things differently than most A29 churches I know. That’s fine for us and I don’t expect any issues with that. A29 is a pretty diverse organization with a lot of different kinds of churches. We are a Reformed-Charismatic church, reformed in theology, non-cessationist, holy spirit believing, gift empowered body of believers that sing our guts out to loud, thumping, worship music. We are a creative bunch, that use lots of video, “concert” lighting, text messaging Q&A, twitter to organize our home groups, podcasting, vodcasting, live loops… We’re in downtown Phoenix, in a rough neighborhood that frequently has police helicopters circling our building during night meetings. My point is we aren’t your grandparent’s reformed church.

But then again…we are complementarian, we are firm believers of sola scriptura, we love Piper, Chandler, Driscoll, Keller and many of us are 4.5 point calvanists. (Not a typo, that’s 4 and a half) We practice church discipline, are introducing formal membership, preach the cross relentlessly and by that I mean the rugged cross, penal substitutionary atonement, propitiation and expiation.

We’re a crazy bunch of misfits for sure, but we have deep conviction about what we do and who we are in Christ. We’re excited to team up with the group of A29 churches here in Phoenix and share the gospel with the lost and hurting. I pray this opens new doors for our church and that we’re able to reach more people for Christ.

Worship leaders: Play songs your congregation doesn’t like

Kyle — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:22:50 +0000

I mean it…literally. I know playing songs your congregation doesn’t want to hear sounds like a horrible idea and flies in the face of many years of your contemporary worship training, but I don’t know when our job became more about pleasing man instead of Jesus. Now before you get all huffy, let me explain.

First, I don’t mean purposefully playing songs that your congregation doesn’t like stylistically. Although if people only worship Jesus when they hear a Chris Tomlin song then I’d say you have really big worship and idolatry issues to tackle and then maybe purposefully *not* playing Chris Tomlin is a good idea.

Secondly, I don’t think being a contrarian is a sign of leadership maturity. I’m not advocating simply doing the opposite of what other churches are doing, or constantly trying to throw off your congregation in worship simply because seeing them squirm makes you feel like you’re really doing God’s will.

Here’s what I am saying. As worshippers we are constantly battling idols taking the place of Jesus. Idols we’ve torn down will take new shape and present themselves as something new and more worthy and acceptable of worship. If anything takes our worship but Jesus it is idolatry, sin. Colossians 1:18 “And he[Jesus] is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn of the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.” Our congregations worship a lot of things over Christ and we have to expose idols in our worship, tear them down and place Jesus above them as our focus of worship.

Probably not too many of you have any problems with the above paragraph, but here’s where it gets messy…

For the families that worship their own comfort, rest and individualism by showing up 30 minutes late do you think they want to sing about how there is no rest outside of Christ, that even in our sleep we toil, or that they’ve forsaken the gathering because they worship their individuality and comfort? Show them by singing that we only enjoy peace and rest in Christ because of the bloody, violent, death of Christ on the cross and that now they’ve been saved to community, the body of Christ, to sacrifice, serve and worship together.

For the college kids that show up right on time because they love the music, but spent last night partying hard, indulging in their sinful passions, do you think they want to sing about how they are slaves to sin, deserving of death and that unless they get a new heart in Christ their posturing in worship, the jumping, the singing, the Hillsong “woa-oh” chants are worthless clatter. That they worship themselves and can’t atone for their sins by singing loudly. Show them by singing that Jesus is their propitiation, that they are dead in their sins, but that there is life in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. That if they truly encountered Christ they’ve be given a new heart, and that they’d no longer desire to live a life of sin.

For the religious church couple that just walked in dignified, that has no reason to get uncomfortable because they were “saved” at a youth camp at age 10 and baptized in the pool so their salvation is secure. Show them by singing the psalms that our hearts cry out, our soul thirsts for Jesus, that we fall at the feet of Jesus and cry “Hosanna”, and that if they don’t, don’t they know even the rocks, even the pews they comfortably sit in, would cry out for Jesus. That their dispassionate hearts show they worship their dignity, which all through scripture is shown to be folly.

Worship leaders, don’t make yourself a petty entertainer. Don’t seek to satisfy your congregation’s idols. Lead your congregation to worship the real Jesus, show them who Jesus is, what he has done and if they get that, they’ll see themselves for who they are, repent and become new creations in Christ. Sing the songs their flesh doesn’t want to hear, sing the songs that wreak havoc in their hearts. Our worship should be a dance of repentance, praise and honor. Worship leaders, seek to have Jesus preeminent in all things, all things.

What songs are you playing now that challenge the congregation and confront their idols? Do you even think about that when choosing songs?

Images of worship at Life Connection Church

Kyle — Fri, 22 May 2009 16:00:18 +0000

My dear friend Mark Rohl took some incredible shots last week of Our Rising Sound leading worship at Life Connection Church this past Sunday and I wanted to share them with you. You’d be wise to hire Mark for any of your photography needs, hit em up on Facebook or Twitter.

Sunday Set List: “Take a breath, but wake up”

Kyle — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:21:08 +0000

Coming off a big Easter and all the work that went into it, I basically took a week off from working on new arrangements and loops. Well, that’s almost true, we did do a new arrangement of Phil Wickham’s “Messiah” but we just put that together in practice before service. So for the most part the set was filled with familiar stuff which I think was necessary for the congregation after a Easter full of new songs and big productions.

I’m still bummed out about how late people are to the service. Literally there was a handful of people at the beginning and then it filled up by the time worship was over. It really doesn’t sit well with me and it’s not an attitude we ever want to settle for in our church. I know almost every church has the same problem, but I think God made me especially irritable to that kind of laziness. Or maybe it’s my sin issue, probably a combo of both. Here’s the source of my frustration and Life Connection people I hope you are reading this cause I love ya, but let’s get our act together.

Corporate worship in the body of Christ is extremely important, it’s something to be valued, cherished, sacrificed for and given to for the benefit of the entire body, not ourselves, and ultimately for the glory of Christ. What each one of us does, each of our attitudes of worship impacts the entire body. I’m not trying to elevate corporate worship to an idolatrous place and minimize an entire life of worship in spirit and truth, but I’m also trying to make sure we don’t minimize the importance of corporate worship. Folks, sacrifice and give to the body, if it pains you to make it to service on time, that’s good! Set the alarm earlier and give of yourself for the benefit of this body and for the glory of Christ. I said it last week I’ll say it again. This irreverent spirit is us bowing at the foot of comfort instead of the foot of the cross. Pray on it, let’s get humble, sacrifice and get there on time.

Rain Down – Delirious (loop not yet available)
Dress Us Up – John Mark McMillan
Gloria 34 - Taylor Sorensen (loop available)
Where You Go I’ll Go – Brian and Jenn Johnson (loop available)
Messiah – Phil Wickham

This post is part of Fred McKinnon’s Set List Sundays.

Encouraging story of True Love loop used in another church

Kyle — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 21:53:38 +0000

I released my True Love loop less than a week before Easter so I wasn’t sure if anyone else was going to have time to use it for their Easter service. Then I received this really encouraging and humbling email yesterday from Chris Johnson, worship pastor at East Coast Christian Center in FL, and he had this to say:

We also did “True Love” in our service this Easter and I modified your beat loop to fit what we were doing… We had a HUGE cross laying flat on the stage, kind of creating tension as people wondered what this enormous item was laying on our stage floor… we got to the song True Love, and just as the 2nd chorus dips down and starts into the celebratory bridge build of, “Jesus is alive, Jesus is alive….” the Cross was hoisted into the air by a winch in our ceiling of our auditorium – as the music climbed in intensity, so did the Cross and the lights and it was a relatively simple yet IMPACTING production element. People freaked out in celebration as we sang the closing choruses and we truly felt the sense of victory in Jesus’ resurrection. We couldn’t have done it without your beautiful drum loop. It’s probably one of your all time best.

It’s really an honor to think that my little loop assisted anyone else’s worship service on such a huge day. Thanks to everyone for your feedback on this loop and for the others that used the loop I hope it went well. When I started releasing these I was skeptical anyone else would even be interested much less consider using them, so this really encourages me.

If you did use the loop I’d love to hear how it went and if you modified the loop I’d love to hear what you did as well, any video or audio of your performance would be killer too. Here is what Chris did with it:

Download audio file (True%20Love%20Beat%20Loop%20Split%20Click.mp3)

Sunday Set List: “Jesus is Alive!”

Kyle — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 19:01:46 +0000

I can confidently say I’ve never had an Easter weekend like this one. Early Friday morning my wife went into labor which was a bit surprising since the doctor said he was pretty certain she wouldn’t until after Easter. So much for that. After 22 hours of labor Adia Grace Campos was born at 4:15am on Saturday. I’ll do another post on all the baby details, but she was born completely healthy and beautiful and my wife did awesome.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to make Easter service for obvious reasons, a wife recovering in the hospital and new baby just figuring out how life outside the womb works. We really had no plan B for our Easter service, we had drama, video, worship and mini-sermons intertwined, it was a complex “artsy” service. My incredible wife however was so supportive and encouraged, released, pushed me to go. So while I was happy and relieved for the church that service would go on as planned I was saddened to have to leave my wife and baby in the hospital. One of the harder “ministry” decisions I’ve had to make. My family being my first ministry I had to make sure they were well and taken care of. Without the blessing of my wife I wouldn’t have done it.

She did bless it though and service was incredible! We had our highest attendance ever at 250 which was awesome. All our preparation and practice paid off and God showed tremendous grace on us and service basically went flawless. There was a lot of room for error being a pretty complex service flow. We saw salvations, we saw and heard Jesus lifted and praised for the greatest miracle of all time, in fact it split time in half, that’s how big. Thank you to all the volunteers who worked so hard to pull this off, you guys are amazing.

Right after service I heard the great news my wife was released from the hospital so I sped over there to grab her and the baby and bring her back to the church BBQ for everyone to see. Leading worship, celebrating the resurrection of our Lord, with the hospital band on my wrist was one of the greatest moments and honors I’ve been part of in my life. Finding the significance of Adia’s birth in the significance of Jesus’ death and resurrection was powerful. Adia’s name means “gift of God“, her middle name is Grace. On this Easter day we celebrated God’s gift of grace to sinful humanity and I was gifted more grace with my new baby Adia. Here’s my attempt to show the service flow:

The World Can’t Take It Away – Ryan Delmore
Lead Me to the Cross – Hillsong United (loop available)
Lamb of God – Twila Paris/Sarah Reeves arr.
Mini-sermon / Communion
Death In His Grave w/video – John Mark McMillan (video not yet available)
Mini-sermon
3 Video testimonies (videos not yet available)
How I Live – Kyle Campos (loop available)
Offering
True Love w/drama – Phil Wickham (loop available)
Mini-sermon
Invitation

This post is part of Fred McKinnon’s Set List Sundays.

Sunday Set List: “In spite of the band”

Kyle — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:17:46 +0000

Yesterday was rough from a music point of view. If you’ve read my blog for any length of time you know I’m pretty critical of myself and the music. Well you didn’t need to be very critical to know there were some major problems. So much so that I really wasn’t looking forward to this post at all and was considering skipping it. In short we just had problems hearing the click and our time was all over the place which led to some meltdowns. There’s several things we need to fix to make sure this never happens again and it’s on top of my priority list for this week to fix. Need to turn down the suck asap.

So as we walked off stage I’m feeling really frustrated and wishing we could just have a do-over. I take my 10 minutes to drink some water, cool down a bit and try and get re-focused back on service. I walk back into the sanctuary and Pastor Aaron is preaching on Jesus, who Jesus is, who he is not and who we worship him as. Straight up gospel. One thing you have to understand is we have a lot of new Christians and then some churched folks and I’m not sure which one of those groups has heard less about Jesus or who has a more messed up Christology.

It rocked people to the core and as I walked up at the end to play Lamb of God for the alter call, I was humbled more so than I can remember. People are coming up to give their lives to Jesus and I realize how small I am and how unimportant my “gift” is to the kingdom. And it was GREAT! It was less of me more of you Jesus, played out in front of me. I was crying in the back of the stage because it was almost like I tried my best to screw things up and God showed so much grace that he moved powerfully despite my best efforts.

So worship leaders remember that when you’re thinking that one magic ministry song is really going to usher in the spirit. We don’t boss the spirit around by playing sweet music. Don’t get me wrong, let’s play good music, nobody wants to hear crap…but let’s not fool ourselves into thinking music mediates the presence of God, cause I just saw that it surely doesn’t.

The World Can’t Take It Away – Ryan Delmore
Skeleton Bones – John Mark McMillan (loop not yet available)
How I Live – Kyle Campos (loop available)
So Near – Vineyard UK (loop available)
With Everything – Hillsong (loop available)
Lamb of God – Twila Paris / closer to Sarah Reeves arrangement (end of service)

This post is part of Fred McKinnon’s Set List Sundays.

Father stabs son after he refused to take off hat in church

Kyle — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 01:21:39 +0000

When I first started leading worship in high school I led worship with a hat on backwards once. It was the nineties cut me some slack, plus I was an idiot. Anyway someone left the church because of that. Now reading that this guy stabbed his own son for just being in church with a hat on makes me feel soooo thankful that all that person did was leave. To add insult to injury, the dad stabbed him in the butt.

Top 5 things I dislike about being a worship leader

Kyle — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:27:51 +0000

I’d like to start by pointing you to my post on Top 5 things I love about being a worship leader. It truly is an incredible honor, responsibility and blessing to be a worship leader and something I am forever grateful for. It’s really difficult for me to come up with 5 things I dislike without immediately feeling like they pale in comparison to the incredible blessing it is. Even in the trials I hold firmly to James 1:2

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds

That being said I don’t pretend that there aren’t trials and that there aren’t difficult moments. Here are what I see as the top 5 negatives about being a worship leader:

1. You become #1 or #2 reason why people leave the church

You and the preaching pastor will be the alpha dogs as far as reasons people leave the church, in most cases. As much as I joke about this, it does bother me. I understand that there are plenty of churches, better churches than ours for some and that I have to be true to what God’s called and gifted me to do. But when I hear of people leaving because they can’t stand the music, as much as I try to roll with it, it does sting. Not from an artistic standpoint, that rolls of me quite easily. I know lots of people will dislike my music, that’s not what’s important. But I do have to pray a lot about have I failed as a leader to reach out, teach, relate with, minister to these people that are leaving.

On another level I’m glad I’m not immune to some disappointment and hurt when I hear of people leaving because of me. I don’t want to be some ministry zombie. It doesn’t change the truth, vision and mission I’m charged with, but I don’t want to ignore or neglect what I can do to become a better minister and worship leader.

2. Managing creative types can really stink

Artists, and I use that in the broad sense, are the most sensitive, emotional basket cases on the planet. Heaven forbid you tell them they need to practice more, or that they aren’t in tune, or their song isn’t very good. Who am I to judge them and their God given talent? How dare I quench the spirit! *sigh* I am sooooo blessed to have a team of mature Christian men and women who are all leaders in our church in many more ways than music. For me those days are behind me, although once we start building some more teams, there may be more of those days ahead. I’ve been in some pretty awful situations and lemme tell you, they are all too often the norm in the modern church.

There’s a lot to be said about how you organize and run a worship team and develop artistic talent and spiritual maturity. We’ve done polls on this blog about letting non-christians in on worship bands and such and I’ve learned a lot from my past failures on this topic. I could write a valuable e-book on all the ways not to put together a worship team.

3. As you excel in music, you get accused more of not “getting” the heart of worship

If I were to go up on stage with a junky acoustic, with an average band in support, sing in and out of key but do it with passion, nobody is going to accuse me of focusing on music and idolizing it. But if I practice, prepare, write and do all the things necessary to have a tight great band, get up on stage, sound great and do it with passion. There will be a lot of people that say I don’t really understand the heart of worship and that I emphasize musical excellence to a point of idolatry.

I just find it so ill-conceived that the measuring stick for some looks like, poor music quality = band has a heart after God, great music quality = worship leader wants to be Christian celebrity and doesn’t truly get worship. Let me be clear that I just want to be a good stuard and faithful to what God has placed in my hands. The conviction I feel from God on being lazy, inattentive and wreckless with the gifting and gift of this church body placed in my hands far outweighs your weak accusation, so you’ll have to excuse me while I ignore it.

4. Inability to have a single focus in worship

As a worship leader there’s a lot of responsibilities and trains of thought you have to manage in your head while you are leading a song. From song arrangements, to time management, to engagement of congregation, following where the Spirit is leading, taking cues from the sound booth, signaling your band, the list goes on. When you are the primary worship leader for a congregation and leading 99% of the time you can quickly miss being able to be in the congregation worshiping instead of in front leading worship.

Taking breaks is important and we’re working towards multiple bands at LCC.

5. Walking away feeling completely satisfied

This has less to do with being a worship leader and more about my personality. But I wish I could go through a Sunday, drive home and just feel like,

“Man what a great worship time, sounded great, God moved, the body was united and everything went well.”

Instead, no matter how good it goes I go home feeling like,

“I can’t believe how bad I butchered that one song. The mix sounded like crap today I know it. Lots of strange stares on that new song.”

I wrote a post about the mind of a worship leader the day after that explains a lot of my thought process.

It’s something I’m trying to get balance in, but I am super critical of myself and it’s not often I leave with a satisfied feeling and I’m never completely satisfied. But I do rest in that God will accomplish what he wants to accomplish through these weak hands, I have confidence that His faithfulness, not my talent, is my shield.

Anthropology Men’s Conference at Life Connection Church

Kyle — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 00:12:56 +0000

My home church, Life Connection Church in Phoenix, AZ, is hosting a men’s conference this March 6-7 called Anthropology. We have Ryan Delmore from Vineyard Music and 5 Cities Vineyard coming in to lead us in worship throughout the conference as well as Sunday morning service. And we have Dr. Richard Hanner , professor at CFNI, as our featured guest speaker.

Here is the official conference description.

Anthropology is a gathering of men who desire to walk in maturity, responsibility and authority in Christ. We will confront the tough issues men face, soul ties, sex, addiction, and pornography and encourage and speak God’s truth in fatherhood and restoration. We desire to see men young and old know who God has created them to be and not surrender responsibility, but to be mature men, passionate after Christ, free from sin, bold and mature in their faith, leading their families as Christ intended.

You can get the entire conference schedule here as well as registration info. We also have a Facebook event for Anthropology, so if you aren’t already a fan of the Life Connection Church facebook page, get on it. I hope those of you men in the Phoenix are will come check it out, it’s going to be a blast.

Top 5 things I love about being a worship leader

Kyle — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 18:32:56 +0000

Being a worship leader can be a very tough position. You’re in the spotlight and open to a lot of critique from a lot of different perspectives. I want to start on a positive note though a list the top 5 things I love about the position before I dive into the negatives.

1. I’m doing what God called and anointed me to do

I could really stop the list at this point because I don’t need any more reasons to keep doing this. My parents were worship leaders and then later pastors, my entire family was gifted musically and I grew up in an environment where music existed to give Jesus praise. I started writing songs and leading worship in 8th grade and knew it was what God had called me to do for His kingdom. There is no question in my mind I’m where I’m supposed to be.

2. Creatively serve and praise a creative God

It’s my desire to use every part of who I am to magnify and praise Jesus. Some people use their creativity as justification for their shallowness of worship. A painter will paint, a singer will sing, a writer will write, but often times the rest of their lives are excluded from their worship of Jesus and directed either at themselves or some other god.

Creativity to me is much more of a challenge of praise than crutch. I strain myself creatively to find how I can turn a strange synth sound into praise, incorporate a video into corporate worship, write words that express a timeless truth in a new way. This is hard work and it forces me to abide in Christ and let him work in me continuously. I love using creativity to worship Jesus because it exposes areas that were not yet praising Him.

3. Uniting worshippers

What an honor it is to lead the body of Christ in worship. It truly is the most humbling act of service I’ve ever been part of. There must be an attitude of reverence and humility when leading, because who am I to approach the almighty God with my wimpy voice, pathetic guitar and silly loops. In that weakness He is strong, he’s taken this shell of a man and made me whole, He’s stood me up and given me the words to sing and notes to play. What other response have I but to offer myself as a living sacrifice which is my spiritual worship. Being able to lead the body of Christ in this is an amazing gift.

4. Teach on an often misunderstood and abused art and life

Art in all it’s forms has been abused, misused, debated over, split over and fought over ever since Satan saught to steal God’s craftsmanship(us). The church has done little to bring any relief to this strife and has confused and distorted worship more than anyone. Everyone has such strong opinions on what worship should look and sound like in all these different contexts, people leave and join churches based on guitar tones and stage lighting.

So much in the church when it comes to art in our worship that makes my stomach turn. I’m blessed to be in a position when I can not just critique, but teach on worship as an outpouring(as Harold Best says).

5. Be in a position to truly lead by example

You are on stage singing in front of hundreds of people about your love and adoration of Christ. How great He is and all that He has done for you. Then you walk off the stage….now what? This is where you start leading worship. If you don’t do it off stage then your time on stage is an empty gig, a waste.

I’m thankful for that accountability and thankful to be a worship leader.

Sunday Set List: “Vacations and Weariness is upon us”

Kyle — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 05:28:58 +0000

We had a lot of people still out on vacation as well as many visiting family members this week. But it seemed like most everyone was sleepwalking through the service. I’m hoping it was just general vacation weariness and we bounce back next week. To be honest I’m pretty tired as well. The congregation seemed to really enter into the ministry time after the sermon though, so maybe it just took them a while to warm up, our sanctuary is currently without a heater after all.

This set was the second time we did Taylor Sorensen’s “Sing (Or the Rocks Will Get To)” and it’s gone over pretty bad both weeks. If I would have sense any improvement this week I might have given it one more chance. As it stands I feel like dropping it, which bums me out because I really like the song and thought we had a cool arrangement of it.

We Cry Out – Brian Johnson/Kim Walker (loop available)
Sing (Or the Rocks Will Get To) – Taylor Sorensen
Ready Now – Desperation Band (loop available)
So Near – Vineyard UK (loop available)
Where You Go I’ll Go – Brian and Jenn Johnson (loop available)

This post is part of Fred McKinnon’s Set List Sundays.

Sunday Set List – “Our Christmas Testimony”

Kyle — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 17:52:45 +0000

This week was a very special service for us. We looked at the lives involved in the birth of Christ and did some video interviews with people in our church who’s testimony can relate in some way to those lives in scripture. As each character was examined we’d do a worship song to introduce and Pastor Aaron would do about a 5 minute sermonette on that character. Woven into that arrangement was some incredible spoken word by a friend of the church, Brandon “the Rep”, a local christian rap artist. So the entire service wove around music, video testimonies, sermonette and spoken word.

We weren’t sure how it would go over but it went over amazing. I think we proved the format can work and we’ll probably expand on it for other special services. I’ll make sure and post the videos as soon as they are done being edited.

You Love Me Forever – Merchant Band (loop used, not yet available)
Sing (Or the Rocks Will Get To) – Taylor Sorensen
Everything – Tim Hughes (loop available)
What Child Is This (Joseph video)
Silent Night (Mary video)
Where We Belong – Hillsong (loop available) (shepherd’s video)
With Everything – Hillsong (loop available) (innkeeper video)
Our God Reigns (Reprise) – Delirious (loop available)

This post is part of Fred McKinnon’s Set List Sundays.

Sunday Set List: “Countdown to Christmas”

Kyle — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 23:26:49 +0000

This was the final week of no Christmas songs. Now I have to bite the bullet and pull off a few next week. I’ve been working on some new arrangements and hopefully we’ll be able to do Christmas tunes in a cool new way. I will say this though, there are no upbeat cool Christmas songs. Not a single one.

This week’s set went pretty good. The congregation really entered in so that was great. We reworked “Sweetly Broken” because I just couldn’t play it anymore the same way. I think we came up with some cool ideas and pulled it off, just not as smoothly as I would have liked. “With Everything” went really well this week, the church really caught on to this one fast which is great.

Rain Down – Delirious (loop used, not yet available)
Sweetly Broken – Jeremy Riddle
Gloria 34 – Taylor Sorensen (loop available)
With Everything – Hillsong (loop available)
None But Jesus – Hillsong United (loop used, not yet available)

This post is part of Fred McKinnon’s Set List Sundays.

Letter to pastors: Stop complaining about worship songs

Kyle — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 23:41:40 +0000

Recently Jonathan Dodson wrote an article at Resurgence talking about why many worship songs about God’s love are cheap. Jonathan’s main complaint is against “Jesus is my boyfriend” worship songs that in his eyes paint at the very least a narrow and more likely inaccurate view of why God loves us. His contention is we must understand the anger and justice of God to fully understand his love and that God is almighty God, not our boyfriend. I agree 100% with what Jonathan says, I don’t think we know God’s love unless we understand grace and to understand that we need to understand justice and how it meets on the cross.

I also agree with Bob Kauflin when he talked about the importance of theology to musicians and songwriters. There are plenty of bad worship songs theologically, there are plenty I won’t play that are good musically but not lyrically. I think most can agree on that point, maybe not the specific criteria since our theology will differ, but at least that there are bad worship songs that shouldn’t be played.

But here’s the trend and attitude that’s bothering me as a worship leader, elder and songwriter and let me put this in big bold letters and address pastors directly.

Dear pastors,

1 song can’t explain every aspect of God’s character

If given the task to write a 4-5 minute worship song of God’s love I’m not going to be able to explain the full story of original sin, God’s wrath, the incarnation, death on the cross and resurrection. It’s just not possible to hit the entire story of scripture in a song. So please stop evaluating each and every song with the entirety of scripture and God’s character as the measuring stick. If given the opportunity you could find theological omission in every song ever written. And if we followed your critique we wouldn’t have any songs to sing.

I don’t have 45 minutes to go through each hermeneutic method, to explore the greek and hebrew texts and talk about the historical and cultural context inside my song. I know you do every Sunday at your pulpit as you should, that’s what we need you for, to guide, teach and encourage us theologically. But I as a worship leader and songwriter operate under different restrictions, many shared but many not.

Totality of the worship song rotation should bring theological context

Each individual song will only illuminate a very narrow aspect of God’s character, it will direct our worship in a way that seems theologically narrow when viewed in isolation. Just as if I took a 4-5 minute segment of your sermon it may seem theologically narrow. I know you guys complain about You Tube videos taking you out of context, yet you frequently turn around and do the same to your worship leaders.

Let worship leaders build a rotation of worship songs that glorify and exalt Jesus in different ways, all for who He is that together gives the body a faithful representation of Christ and his church. If you think you need a song that talks about justice, don’t tear down the songs about mercy, just have your worship leader write or introduce a song about justice. The problem isn’t too many songs about mercy and grace, it’s too few about justice and propitiation. (there aren’t too many poetic ways to rhyme with propitiation, that may be why)

In conclusion, elders, pastors, theologians, work with your worship pastors, encourage them, pray for them, give them ideas on new songs that will fill in the theological gaps of your worship. Stop making fun of all the songs and let’s write more good ones. Being a critic is cheap, being a faithful artist is challenging and worship leaders need your support.

Sincerely,

Worship Leaders

Sunday Set List: “With Everything” debut

Kyle — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 21:37:53 +0000

Today’s set was a close call, a lot of uncertainty down to the wire but we God worked it all out and it went really well. I had been working on a loop for “With Everything” by Hillsong for a couple weeks and I had it completed to a point where I thought it was ready for Sunday morning. I’ve learned that no matter how good it sounds in headphones, monitors, car, whatever…I have to do the final Reason mix for the church PA. Too many times I’ve had a killer mix at home then played it at church and the EQ is totally different, the room is different of course so some instruments get lost and it’s just no good.

This time I did the final loop mix at the church and then bounced it and everything sounded much better. I was really pleased how well the band did with it for the first time. Really the entire set came off without a hitch except that my guitar caught on my in ears cord and I was getting strangled for an entire song. Almost died, but being the true professional I am I soldiered on and nobody could tell the difference. Oh and then I pulled a muscle trying to fix it with my left hand behind my back…man am I getting old.

Solid Rock – Delirious (loop available)
Joy of the Lord – Twila Paris (I know, me and Twila..funny eh? I do a much different version, great song though)
How I Live - Kyle Campos (loop used, not yet available)
Come Thou Fount
With Everything – Hillsong (loop available)

This post is part of Fred McKinnon’s Set List Sundays.

Poll: When a worship leader speaks a lot during worship you are…

Kyle — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:00:33 +0000

Let me layout the scene…

You walk into the sanctuary and the worship leader opens with a nice prayer and then the guitar player opens with a great riff and off we go into the first jam. But in the middle breakdown the worship leader starts preaching on making a joyful noise and encourages you to dance and shout. When the song is over he does a prayer segue into song 2, and then prays again during the breakdown.

Into song 3 the worship leader has a sermonette on the power of unity and how he wants everyone’s hands lifted, hey you in the back, get your hands up! In between the 10th and 11th repeat of the tag the worship leader reads 3 entire psalms cause God really laid it on his heart this morning. Now you’re repeating the tag 10 more times before a soft prayer is read on the intro to the ministry song.

Now there are tears as the worship leaders speaks over the congregation, prophecy pastor, prophecy! Worship leader goes off melody to speak all the verses so he can make it more intimate. So far it’s about 50/50 prayer and talk to actual singing. Jesus walks amongst the church and the worship leader doesn’t notice cause he’s flipping through scripture to find his closing prayer.

Aaaaaaaaaand scene!

So how does all that talking hit you in the congregation?

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Sunday Set List: “Everyone is turkified”

Kyle — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:47:31 +0000

Service this week seemed like there was a small carbon monoxide leak in the building. Not enough to injure or kill, just enough to cause people to look asleep while awake. Lots of folks were still on vacation or in a sleeping coma from over eating. We were disjointed as a band, no big mistakes or anything, but we had some monitoring issues that knocked us a bit and we never seemed to get into a groove.

Days like today I’m not sure what to think other than I don’t have a good feeling about how it went. The sermon was fantastic, so I’m excited about that. So I guess it was just worship that was rough. Here was the set, imagine it going well for me would ya?

Salvation Is Here – Hillsong United (loop used, not yet available)
Dress Up – John Mark McMillan
Everything – Tim Hughes (loop available)
So Near – Vineyard UK (loop available)
Where You Go I’ll Go – Brian and Jenn Johnson (loop available)

This post is part of Fred McKinnon’s Set List Sundays.

Our Rising Sound » church

Video: “Abortion & Redemption” spoken word by Burgundy Hubert feat. Our Rising Sound (Live)

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