My favorite bearded bass player was out of town this past Sunday and that’s the one instrument we are actually one deep on. I don’t typically invite in outside musician’s for worship services. Not that there’s anything wrong with doing that, I’d just rather serve with who we have in the body and not try and play cover up games. Additionally I thought it might actually be really cool and a good change of pace arrangement wise.

As most of you know I compose and play with loops in my band but usually bass parts are not in there. So I had the option to track bass parts and in fact I did do that for 2 songs, Burning Ones and All God’s Children. So instrumentally it was just me, my drummer and the loop and I think it went pretty well. Although the mix in my ears is never a good indicator of what it sounded like in the congregation, which keeps me awake at night actually.

We actually opened with an acoustic arrangement of Ryan Delmore’s Jesus’ Name. I love that song and it can be played so many ways, fantastic song. We also did Phil Wickham’s Messiah just with electric and drums. And for our fourth song we did None But Jesus with keys, electric and drums and I thought that sounded really cool. Our piano player is killer on keys so he carried us on that one. All in all I thought it went reasonably well. Huge thanks to the band Jon, Kendra and Ish…you guys killed it. Can’t wait to have the bearded wonder back slappin da baaaaassssss.

As our final song we introduced All God’s Children by Delirious. This is actually part of our Gospel Community Worship Project and we had 1 gospel community singing along to it in the loop. We’ll be adding more group vocals to it in the following weeks. Excited about this.

Also huge props to Rick Carrera for preaching to the heart this past Sunday. You filled in well for Pastor Aaron and it was awesome seeing you in your gifting brotha. Well done.

1. Jesus’ Name – Ryan Delmore
2. Burning Ones – Jesus Culture (loop available)
3. Messiah – Phil Wickham
4. None But Jesus – Hillsong (loop not yet available)
5. All God’s Children – Delirious (loop available)

This post is part of The Worship Community’s Set List Sundays.

I have a stack of songs to introduce to LCC, some have been in the stack for a very long time. The stack consists of new originals, new covers, old songs to re-arrange, hymns…you name it. The pace at which those songs get introduced is slower than I’d like and I usually attribute that to lack of time. But slowly my thick head is understanding God’s providence over the songs we sing and when we sing them.

I’ve had Joe Day’s “Prayer For Faith” in this stack for a long time. This week it was finally introduced, it felt much too late for my liking, but after worshipping with LCC, I could see the timing was God’s and just right. I love it when a line of the song you never expected to hit hard just wrecks the place. My expectations were all wrong for the song and I’m so thankful they were, because God accomplished what he wanted.

2 lines in particular penetrated our hearts as a congregation and we had to go back and reflect and sing them again.

And your love endures

Like you said it would

That promise and thankful praise for God’s faithfulness in his love really ministered to me and to the congregation as a whole. I’m thankful that God’s love has endured in our church through so many difficult periods, corporately and individually. The spirit in the church was appropriate…humble, joyful adoration of our Savior, who’s loved us through every last circumstance, trial, failure, victory and prayer. Thanks you Jesus.

1. The World Can’t Take It Away – Ryan Delmore
2. God of This City – Bluetree (loop available)
3. My Soul Sings – Delirious (loop available)
4. Prayer For Faith – Joe Day
5. Where You Go I’ll Go – Brian and Jenn Johnson (loop available)

This post is part of The Worship Community’s Set List Sundays.

Some of my favorite Sundays are those right after Encounter. This Sunday was no exception. We had twenty something people go through our Encounter, which is a single day packed with the gospel, centered around Christ and his work on the cross. The folks that went ran the spectrum of life, from those raised in the church but never knowing Jesus, to drug addicts off the street, to ex-cons, to people in ministry needing reminding of who they are serving and worshipping, you name it, we had it.

As we started worship if was evident of the work the Holy Spirit had done in these people’s lives. There was passionate worship of Jesus in every corner of the room. The unity in worship was just incredible and something I think our church has been growing in consistently over the past few months. Such a blessing to be part of and see. After our 4th song we had those who attended the Encounter come up and give a few testimonies.

Stories of drug addicts not just being set free, but made alive in Christ. Burned out leaders having the joy of their salvation restored, the lost coming to know Jesus. Those stories never get old and God never ceases to amaze me and what he’s able to do. We finished the worship set with “With Everything” and the church really erupted with praise. It was one of the more intense moments of worship I can remember. I’m so thankful for what Jesus is doing in our church and I pray that we’d continue to grow in the gospel and impact our community.

1. Jesus’ Name – Ryan Delmore
2. Burning Ones – Jesus Culture (loop available)
3. True Love – Phil Wickham (loop available)
4. None But Jesus – Hillsong (loop not yet available)
5. With Everything – Hillsong (loop available)

This post is part of The Worship Community’s Set List Sundays.

In our Sunday morning prayer, thankfulness was emphasized in a big way. Everyone went around and we just thanked God for everything he’s done in our lives. It was encouraging to hear, to be part of and to let our worship of Jesus being with a thankful heart. Too many times I come complaining, and if recent events in Haiti, or the battles with cancer in the church have shown me anything, it’s that I have nothing to complain about. And even if my trials were magnified, I still should rejoice and be thankful, thank you to Matt Chandler for continuing to be an incredible example of that.

I thought our worship set followed in that vein, especially “Live or No Longer Live” which declares, “rejoicing in all things we sing.” I thought the body was united in worship and entered in from the get go. I was really encouraged and though God was at work throughout the entire service. Band played great, seemed like a long time since we’ve all played together. My man Ish has lead a few weeks, my drummer was sick for a few weeks, I think my vocalist Kendra was out of town for a week. But we’re all back together now, one happy band family.

1. You Love Me Forever – Merchant Band (loop not yet available)
2. Skeleton Bones – John Mark McMillan (loop not yet available)
3. Live or No Longer Live – Kyle Campos (original)
   
4. Death In His Grave – John Mark McMillan (loop available)
5. Burning Ones – Jesus Culture (loop available)

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.

This past Sunday was just an honor to be part of, the entire weekend actually. Saturday we took part in Help Portrait and it was incredible. It was awesome to see local families from right around our church neighborhood come in get their makeover, family pics, have fun and feel good. It was such a blessing to be able to serve our local, and I mean local, community in that way. We purposely targeted just a small neighborhood right across from us and have some plans to serve that same community next week. Incredibly convicting to hear that some of the families didn’t even know we were there. We are going to change that this coming year.

On Sunday our newly formed choir/vocal ensemble/soul sangers did an incredible performance of Kirk Franklin’s “Now Behold the Lamb“. The amount of soul on display was probably a surprise to all who are used to our white boy, dark, indie rock vibe. Now the secret is out, we have some folks who can saaaang! I for one am stoked the secret is out and can’t wait to get them up their more often.

We also did our arrangement of “What Child Is This“, my favorite Christmas song by a country mile. To me it’s one of the few Christmas songs that actually flows in a normal worship set. Most of the others you have a sort of mental adjustment to, like ok now we’re singing a Christmas song. I thought the congregation really entered into it as a worship song and it was just really powerful.

1. Jesus’ Name – Ryan Delmore
2. God of This City – Bluetree (loop available)
3. What Child is This
4. Everlasting God – New Life (loop available)
5. With Everything – Hillsong (loop available)

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

Last week was one of those uneven worship sets where you just feel like it never really flowed well. This week went much better musically and overall flow wise. Corporate engagement was great too as I could tell most everyone was really focused on Jesus and not what was happening on stage. The band was more comfortable this week as well and I thought we played pretty well.

We played Burning Ones again but this time I read out of Luke 24 prior to the song to give some context as to why we are singing that phrase, “we are your burning ones.” Luke tells the story of Jesus’ appearance post-resurrection to the disciples on the road in chapter 24. They didn’t recognize him at first, but Luke says Jesus talked to the disciples out of the scriptures. Verse 30 picks up with the disciples eating dinner with the yet to be recognized risen Messiah:

Luke 24:30-32

When he was at the table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?

I love that Holy Spirit working in their hearts was part of the remembrance and identification of Jesus they discussed with each other. It wasn’t, “did you get a look at that beard of his? I remember that beard!”, but it was the work, word and power of God in their hearts that identified the Messiah.

I pray that the Holy Spirit would operate in those depths in our hearts. That we’d forever be sensitive and aware of the work, word and power of Jesus in and around us. That our hearts would burn with us, as the disciples said, for the gospel.

1. I Am A Temple – John Mark McMillan
2. Hosanna – Hillsong United (loop available)
3. True Love – Phil Wickham (loop available)
4. Majesty – Delirious
5. Burning Ones – Jesus Culture (loop available)

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

This Sunday we introduced the newest member of Our Rising Sound, Caleb Dailey. Caleb will be doing guitar work and hopefully become a utility guy. It was nice to have a second guitar player to take some of the responsibility off me. I’m very accustom to playing in 3 piece bands as the only guitarist and it’s shaped my playing style to a great extent. But I’m excited to have Caleb playing with us.

We also introduced a new song by Jesus Culture called “Burning Ones.” You may be asking yourself, didn’t Kyle write a post about how theologically unsound some of the lyrics from this song are? The answer is, why yes I did write a post about that, I also wrote a post about how much I dug the song as a whole and in order to fix the lyric problem I changed them. Simple yet effective solution.

Your love is our reward, that’s why we ask for more of You

became

You set our hearts desires, that all our lives bring glory to You

I thought we played it better in practice than we did live, I certainly sang it better in practice. We might do this 1 more week but then Christmas will be upon us so it probably won’t be heard again until next year. I’m late as usual on Christmas planning. Time to cram.

1. We Cry Out – Kim Walker (loop available)
2. Dress Us Up – John Mark McMillan
3. Come Thou Fount – Robert Robinson
4. Gloria 34 – Taylor Sorensen (loop available)
5. Burning Ones – Jesus Culture (loop available)

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