Faced with the reality of having no drummer this past service we were forced to come up with some creative arrangements and new feels for songs. It was actually really fun, albeit a lot of work, to do. We ended up going with 2 different feels inside the set, 2 of the songs we played with loops, a more electronic feel, and the other 2 we played a more acoustic vibe with me pulling a Mumford and playing kick drum along with my acoustic guitar.

I wasn’t sure how it would go having never actually done that before. But since drums were my first instrument, really my most natural feel instrument, my hands and feet are pretty well trained to be independent of each other so it was a lot easier than I thought. I really dug the vibe that configuration gave and again, every time we’ve changed things up configuration wise it’s pushed our creativity and I think given the church fresh ears to hear songs they know well. Acoustic arrangements I think naturally invite great corporate engagement, you want to sing a long instead of just listen and watch.

Finding new ways to play familiar songs is really important to me and I think of huge value when you have predominantly 1 band leading worship each Sunday. It’s very easy to get in a rut and play the same way, the same instruments, same arrangements every time and I think that’s not only exhausting for the band but also for the church.

This was one of my all time favorite services at Life Connection Church, not because of the music, but because of the way the body was engaged throughout the entire service, the preaching (props to Josh Dailey), the communion, the prayer time and fellowship were all just incredible. Love my church. Here was our set…

1. God of This City – Bluetree (loop available)
2. Before the Throne of God Above – Charitie Smith (King’s Keleidoscope version linked)
   
3. The Great God – Kyle Campos
4. One Righteous Man – Red Letter (loop available)

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I’ve never seen a group of volunteers work so hard and selflessly for an Easter service in my life. The folks in my band are just nuts talented but I promise you this, I admire most their devotion to Jesus and His church. There were so many components to this service, and so many humble servants of Christ ready to take it on, it’s such a reflection of God’s grace in people’s lives, I love seeing it.

Saturday night I was watching Prince Caspian with our kids and thinking a lot about service the next day, all the things that had to come together and that tension/nervousness that comes along with it. It came to the part in the movie where Aslan finally appears and my little 5yr old daughter said,

“OK God, it’s time for you to do your thing.”

That was simple yet profound for me, and I prayed the same thing that night and the morning of Easter. We are here because of what God has done, and we celebrate because he’s alive and keeps doing his thing.

As the week(s) go on I’ll be releasing more video/pics/music from our service. We have a lot of mixing and video editing work to do in addition to our normal 9-5 jobs, so we’ll try and get it done as soon as we can. I(and LCC) owe a huge thank you to Josh Dailey, this guy worked his tail off and did an incredible job.If you were in service you saw the fruits of a lot of that work, but you’ll also see it here on the site in some videos he’s working on. If you weren’t in service…I’m so sorry, I sincerely apologize to you. You missed incredible preaching, testimonies and baptisms, some of those video testimonies had me in tears on stage. Hope to release a few of those soon too.

Here was our service flow…

1. The Door – All the Bright Lights (featuring Lee Green)
2. Creation -> Fall (sermonette)
3. Nothing But the Blood – Robert Lowry (Download live recording) (Watch Video)
4. Redemption (sermonette)
5. Death In His Grave – John Mark McMillan (loop available)
6. Take the World But Give Me Jesus – Francis J. Crosby (during live baptisms)
7. Evidence of a Rise Savior (sermonette)
8. Before the Throne of God Above – Charitie Bancroft

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What an incredible day of response and engagement. It’s been a good while since we’ve had this level of passionate engagement across the entire church during worship. I was incredible blessed to be part of it and have a great view of the church worshipping Jesus in unity. We closed with Hillson’g “With Everything” which we haven’t done for a long while, but it went perfectly with our pastor’s message and man…did people respond. It was incredible.

I don’t have much else to say, but….wow…God is good and moving powerfully.

1. At the Foot of the Cross – Joe Day
2. Poison Tree – Ghost Ship
3. I Want to Know You – Brian Doerksen & Cindy Rethmeir (loop available)
4. Come Thou Fount – Robert Robinson
5. With Everything – Hillsong United (loop available)

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We started our new series on 1 John this week and I had direction from my pastor that we needed to sing about wanting to “know God.” That is of course a big topic and I think all our songs fall under that umbrella, but I needed a song that used that phrase. I thought it was kind of funny because a song I’ve been thinking a lot about lately and in fact I even made reference to it in a recent post, is I Want to Know You by Brian Doerksen & Cindy Rethmeier. It’s one of my favorite Vineyard songs, but I hadn’t sung it or even thought about it in well over a decade.

I’ve had a back of the mind idea for some time to do radically different arrangements of classic Vineyard songs, but just never had the time to start working on it. It seemed like more than a coincidence that this song had been on my heart and my pastor asking for a song that said those exact words. So I went to work on figuring out how to rearrange this tune. The hardest part about rearranging classic 90s worship songs is, well they just sound so dang 90s’ish. The instrumentation is easy to change but I knew I had to make some melody changes to drain the 90s out of it. I don’t know how many of you even know this song so it probably doesn’t make much sense getting into arrangement details, but there’s a repeating line that just says Jesus that really epitomised 90s melodies, complete with the female echo.

Anyway, it was a late night of loop work but I came out of it with an arrangement I was quite happy and excited about. I think my family members were the only ones in the church who’d even heard the original, but I think my band managed to play it in a way the fit the rest of our sound and allowed people a chance to sing it without thinking, “this is a weird little throwback tune.” It really is a great song, I’m going to do some more work on the loop this week and probably release it next week.

1. At the Foot of the Cross – Joe Day
2. Burning Ones – Jesus Culture (loop available)
3. The Solid Rock – Edward Mote (loop available)
4. Death In His Grave – John Mark McMillan (loop available)
5. I Want to Know You – Brian Doerksen & Cindy Rethmeier (loop not yet available)
   

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At the end of practice my confidence in our set was not high at all, but I had confidence that God could and would get accomplished what He wanted. Times like this are great for context, and I actually am really thankful for them. God reminds me of his greatness in my weakness, it’s tough to remember that when we are playing great, sad but true. My pride is constantly telling me I have much to boast in outside of Christ and I have to keep killing that. I am thankful for these times when God takes a shovel to that pride and digs it out. My desperate prayer is that it would be replaced with deeper humility.

We ended up playing the set really well, God moved, the church worshipped in unity and God was glorified. Amen.

1. Led to the Slaughter – Red Letter
2. How Great Thou Art – Carl Boberg (Ascend the Hill arr.)
3. The Great God – Kyle Campos
4. Nothing But the Blood – Robert Lowry
5. Love of God – Ryan Delmore

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One of the keys for me in rearranging hymns is to slow the tempo of the melody. The lyrics in so many hymns are so rich and powerful, but the original arrangements just fly through them so fast it’s hard to even consider what you’re singing before you have to move on to the next wordy line. The pace of the re-arrangement to Take the World But Give Me Jesus really allows the congregation to meditate on each verse which just so happen to be incredible verses. Our congregation picked up the melody real fast and the song went over really well. Powerful, powerful song.

By the way, I’m nearly certain that Ascend the Hill‘s band name is a metaphor for the lead singer’s vocal range. Ridiculous.

1. Burning Ones – Jesus Culture (loop available)
2. Poison Tree – Ghost Ship
3. Take the World But Give Me Jesus – Francis J. Crosby (Ascend the Hill arrang.)
4. Found – Hillsong United

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Got a call from my pastor and he said, “I’m talking about thankfulness, I want to do a longer time of response so get some tunes that talk about thankfulness.” Seemed like a simple enough task, I was sure there were a ton of songs we sing about thankfulness. So I start going through our set list…hmm…no songs with thankfulness in the title. Good thing spotlight is able to search through file contents, I run a search through the worship folder to find songs with thankfulness in the lyrics. Nothing.

I’m shocked. Here we are, my pastor about to preach about how we as Christians should be the most thankful people in all seasons of life, I have have no songs to sing about it. Ouch! Point made. Now I know there are a good amount of songs in the CCLI archive that fit this criteria, but they also violate my other criteria…namely…they are in the CCLI archive(joking…kind of). What I found through my planning center theme search were just songs that didn’t fit us stylistically very well and/or didn’t have time to learn.

While I think all of the songs we sing in our church are, or at least should be, sung from a heart of thankfulness and response to God’s grace, we don’t have any that come right out and say it. And that is a shame, a big shame. A hole in what I’d call our collective music theology (what we believe about God as a whole in the songs we sing). So #1 on my list is fill this gap with either an original or a great song that I haven’t found yet.

What songs that actually use the lyric “thankful” am I missing? Give me some (good) suggestions.

1. Poison Tree – Ghost Ship
2. At the Foot of the Cross – Joe Day
   
3. How Great Thou Art - Carl Boberg (Ascend the Hill arrangement)
4. Nothing But the Blood – Robert Lowry (Page CXVI arrangement)
5. We Will Run – Gungor
6. Jesus Paid It All – Elvina Hall (Chad Gardner arr.) (loop available)

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This set marks the 3rd time we’ve done an original of mine called The Great God. It’s part of a songwriting/record project I’m doing of putting music around some of the Puritan prayers that have impacted our congregation greatly. For the past few months we’ve been doing these creative instrumentals around readings of these prayers to open our service. Pretty much every prayer is brutiful (beautiful + brutal), but some impact the body in a special way. The Great God was one of the first prayers to do that, so naturally it’s where I chose to start.

Typically we do new songs 3 times and usually it’s 3 times in a row. That does a few things, it gives the body time to learn it and it also gives me a good idea whether or not it’s going to catch on and if it’s impacting the body. Now that we’ve accomplished that with this song, I’m not entirely sure how we’ll proceed with it. I think in parts the song catches well, specifically in the tag where we repeat

I(we) ask great things, I(we) ask great things, I(we) ask great things of a great great God

I’m wondering if it may just take longer for the rest of the song due to the complexity of lyric. It’s similar to hymn structure, quite wordy.

Not sure what will happen with the song from here, maybe I’ll rework the arrangement a bit or maybe it ends up being a song that doesn’t fit terribly well in corporate worship and I’m fine with that. I’m actually quite happy with the song in general (arrangement could use work), which is rare for me in critiquing my own songs. Kinda ironic, one of the few songs I’ve written lately that I’m happy with and that’s the one that doesn’t work, the rest work great That’s music for ya. Thankfully I feel no pressure to make it work, it is what it is.

1. Poison Tree – Ghost Ship
2. How Great Thou Art - Carl Boberg (Ascend the Hill arrangement)
3. The Great God – Kyle Campos
4. Love of God – Ryan Delmore
5. In Christ Alone – Getty/Townend (link to Page CXVI arrangement) (loop available)

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During my time at Burn Bright I heard Chris Lizotte play Ryan Delmore’s beautiful song “Love of God” in a way that just came alive for me. I had heard the song plenty of times before and really liked it, but something about it during the conference just resonated in my spirit so deeply. I knew we had to do it at LCC and arrange it simply. The words are clear, simple gospel truth that literally forever changed the world and touches every aspect of our lives.

You are Messiah, the Savior of all
You came down from heaven to show us Your love
Bruised and rejected, You died on the cross
You came with the Father’s heart that none would be lost
That none would be lost

Oh how great is the love of God

As we played this I could see in the congregation how the Spirit was ministering to each person uniquely through this unity of praise and worship to Jesus. I know in my own mind I was thinking of a close family member of mine who I was told literally minutes before stepping on stage had received some very troubling medical news. My heart was heavy but rejoicing in that my family member is so deeply loved by the Father, upheld and sustained by this immeasurably great love for which I am forever grateful and in awe of.

1. Gloria 34 – Taylor Sorensen (loop available)
2. How Great Thou Art – Carl Boberg (Ascend the Hill arrangement)
3. Nothing But the Blood – Robert Lowry (Page CXVI arrangement)
4. Love of God – Ryan Delmore
5. We Will Run – Gungor

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As I was planning this set I had all the songs but 1 and nothing was really fitting there. In times like these I usually just pray, rest and listen to some worship to see if anything jumps at my ears. Side note: iTunes “Recently Added” smart list are great for this to show you the newest songs. Anyway, Poison Tree came on and it grabbed my spirit and I knew instantly that was the song. I had been planning on introducing it, just hadn’t scheduled the time yet or practiced it with the band. But it was clear to me it was time to do it, so I quickly learned it and sent a note out to the team to get ready for it. (Side note 2: Thank you Mars Hill for publishing a chord chart, wish I would have seen it before I made my own )

The entire set went over really well and the spirit was moving powerfully in the congregation and band, but Poison Tree resonated in people’s hearts deeply. I had a lot of comments and questions about the song afterwards and that’s always a good thing. Our Care Connection team started a counseling series for abuse victims and I heard the song meant something very special for that group, I’m so thankful the spirit moves, heals, convicts and encourages such a diverse people perfectly.

Here’s a great video of the recording of Poison Tree.

1. Yet I Sin – Puritan Prayer
2. Skeleton Bones – John Mark McMillan (loop not yet available)
3. Poison Tree – Ghost Ship
4. Prayer For Faith – Joe Day
5. Jesus Paid It All – Elvina Hall (Chad Gardner arr.) (loop available)

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I’ve been listening to Mumford & Sons “Sigh No More” record with equal parts enjoyment and intrigue. Before I knew really anything about the band I could tell the writing was wrestling with a lot of good spiritual issues. After I saw them live here in Phoenix and saw the response in the crowd I was blown away by how the songs were reaching people. Then I discovered that Marcus Mumford has strong Vineyard ties, son of the Vineyard UK regional directors and is friends with some local Vineyard friends. All that to say, I love their music and pray for that band in a different way now.

One of their songs “Awake My Soul” really caught me as something that, in pieces, could work really well in a worship set. I’ve been playing around with it and came up with a few minor, but important, lyric changes and introduced it as a tag this past week. The congregation responded well and I thought it served the aim of the set and what God had been stirring in us. I’m not sure if we’ll do it again, but it’s a possibility. The lyric we sang was very simple:

Awake my soul
Awake my soul
Awake my soul
For we were made to love our maker

The bluegrass feel went quite well sandwiching our first song by Ryan Delmore. We teased the tag at the beginning of Ryan’s song and then reintroduced it at the end. Here are the details of the set:

1. The Gift of Gifts – Opening Puritan Prayer
2. The World Can’t Take It Away – Ryan Delmore
3. God of this City – Bluetree (loop available)
4. My Soul Sings – Delirious (loop available)
5. Nothing But the Blood – Robert Lowry (Page CXVI arrangement linked)
6. Our God Reigns – Delirious (loop available)

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I’ve been so blessed the past 6 weeks or so with our new instrumental/puritan prayer reading openings to service. I’ve been blessed on multiple levels. First, I’ve loved see more people involved in Sunday service. We’ve opened this prayer reading up to the body and man we’ve had some incredible readings. Secondly, the content is just crushing. We’ve been reading through “The Valley of Vision – A collection of Puritan prayers & devotions” and the prayers are a brutal combination of truth, wisdom, passion, pain, joy…I mean they are just incredible!

Third, the tone we’ve been able to set from the get go with the music in support of the reading has been really beyond my expectations and become something I look forward to the entire week. Every week we work on a new original instrumental arrangement and I’ve been blown away by what we’ve come up with and I can’t wait to turn these core riffs into full songs. Creatively I feel like we’ve hit a real groove and it feels amazing to be part of. If you’ve played in many bands you’ll know that it’s really special when you find that creative groove that seems to come easy, that’s rare.

Here are the songs that made up our set…

1. Opening Prayer – “The All Good“
2. You Love Me Forever – Merchant Band
3. We Will Run – Gungor
4. Nothing But the Blood – Robert Lowry (Page CXVI arrangement linked)
5. How Deep the Father’s Love For Us – Stuart Townend (Chad Gardner arrangement linked)
6. None But Jesus – Hillsong
7. How Great Is Our God – Chris Tomlin (After Sermon)

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Currently I’m in day 2 of my week long vacation and as I look back 2 days ago, from way out west on the beach of Santa Barbara, I see God’s goodness, grace and power in the desert of Phoenix more clearly. The closer I am it seems to what God’s doing in my family, friends, church, city, the harder it is to see God’s grace and progression of his will. Whether that be the persistent work of the Holy Spirit in people’s lives as they are made more into the image of Christ, or the unifying work of the Spirit in our church body, or the provision, or the healing, etc, etc…

When I’m in the middle of it I find it hard to step aside and just be thankful for what God is doing, instead I’m usually focused on the work that lies ahead to move forward. Some combination of the two is where I’d like to be and not so dang fixated on the work, but able to rest in the goodness and just enjoy the benefits of being in Christ.

What does this have to do with Sunday’s set? Well as I reflected Sunday night on the set my mind of course goes straight to where we need to improve, the songs I need to finish writing, the equipment we need, the recording time, yada yada yada. Now I’m just thankful for what God did Sunday, his goodness in allowing us to be part of what He’s doing in Phoenix through LCC, and the tremendously gifted musicians he’s brought to LCC. As I’m on vacation, our other worship band “Green House” will be leading worship this upcoming Sunday and I know they’ll do an incredible job. Churches much larger than ours would kill to have the musicians we have. None of them are paid(including me), they come and serve because they are on mission with us and I’m just humbled and thankful for our church body, it’s leaders and servants. Here’s what we played.

1. Puritan Prayer – “God the Source of All Good”
2. Prayer for Faith – Joe Day
3. God of This City – Bluetree (loop available)
4. We Will Run – Gungor
5. Nothing But the Blood – Page CXVI
6. Death In His Grave – John Mark McMillan (loop available)

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The charismatic worship formula is pretty well defined and though we don’t follow it in many ways, we do follow it in at least one way…fast songs first. And truthfully this is always the hardest portion of the set list for me for a few reasons, but one major reason being, there just aren’t very many good up tempo worship songs. Most are either super churchy and cheesy or sound like a Kids Incorporated tune. So I have a very limited rotation on the up tempo songs and often it feels like I’m force fitting them into the set.

This week I just had enough of it and said I’m not force fitting anything. Instead I opened with a couple mid tempo songs, though both are high intensity (Burning Ones especially). I thought the transition from our opening instrumental/prayer into Where We Belong was the smoothest opening we’ve ever done. I thought the response was fantastic and God was praised and magnified from the get go. I’m not saying we will never play an up tempo song to open again, but I am saying I won’t force fit them again, so you’ll probably be hearing less of them.

LCC I’d love to hear your thoughts on how you felt it went. Comment publicly with your encouragement and file all complaints with my secretary and she’ll forward them to me.

1. Puritan prayer
2. Where We Belong – Hillsong (loop available)
3. Burning Ones – Jesus Culture (loop available)
4. My Soul Sings – Delirious (loop available)
5. The Solid Rock – Edward Mote (loop available)
6. Jesus Paid It All – Elvina Hall (loop available)

p.s. I don’t have a secretary

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Wow, what an adventure it was right up until start time. One of those weeks where you just have to laugh at how many curve balls were being thrown our way. God brought us through though and service went on as God had planned and it was a tremendous blessing to be part of.

This week’s set was one of the stranger sets I’ve put together. God was working a strange mix of songs in my heart through this week but at the center of it all was Nothing But the Blood (hymn not Redman). I had it earmarked for our series through Galatians but for whatever reasons the timing never felt right until now. We played a version similar to Page CXVI’s incredible arrangement with some instrumental changes. All through the week the chorus had just been wrecking me:

How precious is the flow
That makes me white as snow
No other fount I know
Nothing but the blood of Jesus

The line “No other fount I know” was highlighted in my spirit and caused me to reflect on my life in what other hopes I’ve had that have faded and died. And I was faced with the loving reality, that I know no other savior, no other hope for the cleansing of my soul. My heart was filled with so much gratitude and thankfulness as I remembered my record of sins, knowing that Jesus did not.

1. Opening puritan prayer / instrumental
2. Dress Us Up – John Mark McMillan
3. I Am A Temple – John Mark McMillan
4. We Will Run – Gungor
5. Nothing But the Blood – Robert Lowry / Page CXVI arrangement
6. Fire Fall Down – Hillsong United

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It’s been a long time since I’ve done a set list post. I thought they were getting a bit monotonous and dry, so I needed a break. I’ve been hearing from folks(inside our church) that they really want to know more about the songs we play so I’m gonna get back to posting the set lists here.

This Sunday was such a beautiful display of God’s goodness and providence. God brought together things that made it seem like we had a lot of things planned well ahead that we didn’t. Pastor Aaron taught on regeneration and gospel freedom as part of our series on Galatians and it just wrecked the place. I was talking with a few people after service and it’s so wonderful to hear a common work being done in the church’s heart. I love when the body is moving together. This series has matured us in the gospel as a body so much and I’m so thankful for it.

I planned to debut a new song by Gungor called “We Will Run” that’s been on deck for quite some time now. I wasn’t aware of the specific of the message but it became clear that this was indeed God’s timing for this song. It became an anthem for the day that supported so well what the Spirit was doing through the preaching. The lyrics to that song were just so spot on.

Create in me a clean heart, For I have turned away from You
Save us from our ways, Oh God, oh God, For we have turned our face from You
Lord have mercy

We will run to you, we will run to you
Turning from our sin we return to you
Father heal your world, make all things new, make all things new

Your Love and mercy build us, shape us
Break and then re-create us now
Lord have mercy

Oh, bring us back to You

We’ve also been opening our sets/services differently. Instead of the normal opening prayer and go into song 1, we’ve been opening up instrumentally and then having a puritan prayer read in concert with the instrumental. It’s not just a dry read over instrumentation but we try and build the tension and crescendo in concert with the prayer. We got the idea from a recent A29 pastors meeting and it’s been awesome! Here’s the full set list.

1. How I Live – Kyle Campos
2. The World Can’t Take it Away – Ryan Delmore
3. We Will Run – Gungor
4. Gloria 34 – Taylor Sorensen (loop available)
5. How He Loves – John Mark McMillan

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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.

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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.

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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.

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• Sunday Set List: “All God’s Children, we will sing…” (0)
• Sunday Set List: “God is enough” (2)
• Sunday Set List: “Years of prayer…answered” (2)

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)

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

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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.

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• Sunday Set List: “Black hole of Phoenix” (0)

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.

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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.

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Our church is located in what is commonly referred to as the “Black Hole” of Phoenix. Less money is spent in the commercial area around our church than any other area in Phoenix. We have a lot of lower class and working poor around us that need to be reached. We announced to the church that we would be taking part in www.help-portrait.com and invited all to join us.

Our church is blessed with a lot of creative people, artists, photographers, musicians, etc… So on Dec 12th we’ll turn our sanctuary into a studio and bring in the surrounding homeless, poor and needy folks and take their pictures. We’ll share the gospel, we’ll get to know our neighbors better and hope to be a blessing to them. I’m excited to be part of it, should be awesome. If you haven’t heard of the idea then see the video below. (Set list below video)

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. The Solid Rock – Edward Mote (loop available)
5. Who You Are – Desperation Band

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

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This past Sunday we were baptizing people on stage during worship. I truly love and cherish these times. So awesome to see people proclaim their devotion to Jesus publicly. The testimonies given were powerful and a real encouragement to the body, they certainly were for me. And then something happened, I’m simply calling it, “the incident.”

On our last baptism we had a bit of a miscue and the person got dunked facing the reverse direction and instead of the water splash going over the intended side, a mini tidal wave came and washed over my pedal board. 3 thoughts rushed through my head:

1. I wonder how bad this is going to hurt when I get electrocuted?
2. Please Jesus spare my pedals, I don’t have the $ to replace.
3. What am I singing and playing right now?

Apparently from the tweets that went out shortly after, I had a terrified look on my face, so I didn’t play it off well. I stumbled through the song we were playing trying to get my head together and just hope no fires started. One of our elders Mark thought quickly and tossed up a towel over the pedal board and started to dry as we sang. He’s an electrician so has no fear of getting shocked.

As far as I know the pedals are fine, few more tests. But it was a great Sunday and I’m so thankful for the work Jesus has done in those people’s lives.

1. You Love Me Forever – Merchant Band (loop not yet available)
2. Jesus’ Name – Ryan Delmore
3. Gloria 34 – Taylor Sorensen (loop available)
4. The Solid Rock – Edward Mote (loop available)
5. True Love – Phil Wickham (loop available)

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

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I have a very specific strategy for 9volt battery rotation that insures my in ear monitor pack never dies in the middle of a set, while not wasting batteries. I have a practice battery pile and then a live set battery that is only used for 3 live sets, then rotated into the practice battery bunch. Well on this particular Sunday I got distracted and forgot to take out my practice battery and replace with the set battery.

Our opening song has a loop and about 30 seconds into it my monitor pack dies. I then start weighing the pros and cons in my mind for trying to soldier on through the song or stop it now before it gets too late or try and awkwardly replace the battery without messing up the song. I ended up deciding it was better to just stop the song.

So I gave an abrupt, “ok stop stop stop” and explained the situation in a light hearted way and everyone had a good chuckle as I replaced the battery. I explained that now that the Holy Spirit had left we’d have to pray again and ask him to return. It was actually nice to have a good laugh with the body, sometimes with so much focus on preparation things get a little too tense and uptight. So that was nice.

After the set I led the church in a time of prayer for our Pastors and presented them with our humble gift for Pastor’s Appreciation month, but then right after all the elders were surprised to hear the body pulled together and got all of us a gift as well. It was such an unexpected and cool blessing, so thankful for everyone at LCC. It’s not often things happen in the church I’m not aware of so it was cool to be totally surprised, well done LCC.

1. Skeleton Bones – John Mark McMillan (loop not yet available)
2. Lead Me To the Cross – Hillsong United (loop available)
3. Live or No Longer Live – Kyle Campos
4. How He Loves – John Mark McMillan
5. Who You Are – Desperation Band

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

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I’ve been reading Bob Kauflin‘s book, “Worship Matters“, and just devouring it. If you are a worship leader and have not read this book, get it, it’s a must read. It challenges me on so many levels and does a great job of pointing to Jesus in all things. This past week I read the chapter on Holy Spirit empowered worship. I was really convicted of my reliance upon my preparation and whatever amount of skill I possess as the main “empowerment” of Sunday worship and at a heart level I had to repent of not having a sense of desperation for the Holy Spirit every week. Though I might have professed differently, I think my mind needed correction.

One thing Bob said that had me absolutely wrecked was

“If the Spirit stopped empowering your worship would anyone notice? Would you?”

I take very seriously what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 13:5 for us to “examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith.” So I had to think long and hard about this and really examine my heart, my actions, my thought process. This led to some really powerful and fruitful prayer time and I’m so thankful for it. Our practice, preparation and ability are important things, but are not most important, they aren’t the power in our worship. I need to make sure I have a desperate reliance upon the Holy Spirit always and certainly on Sundays. This may seem obvious and that’s really the problem. Because it’s so obvious and professed so often I started assuming that presence instead of praying desperately for it in my heart, and relying on it in practice.

This week my regular drummer was out of town and Jorge Gutierrez stepped in and played incredibly well. I’m blessed to have such talented people around me. Thanks Jorge!

1. The World Can’t Take It Away – Ryan Delmore
2. Dress Us Up – John Mark McMillan
3. The Solid Rock – Edward Mote (loop not yet available)
4. Death In His Grave – John Mark McMillan (loop available)
5. Hosanna – Hillsong United (loop available)

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

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I started the worship service with a Psalm that’s been on my heart and lips for the past week or so.

Psalm 69:29-32: “But I am afflicted and in pain; let your salvation, O God, set me on high! I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving. This will please the Lord more than an ox or bull with horns and hoofs. When the humble see it they will be glad; you who seek God, let your hearts revive.”

Checking the condition of our hearts is so important and even more so asking the Holy Spirit to revive it and set it straight. I love that this is a man(David) afflicted and in pain singing a song of thanksgiving to God. That was both encouraging and challenging to read. The worship filter of circumstance is so conveniently dangerous and pathetic, I think it’s important we combat it at every opportunity.

The body responded in worship amazingly well, the past 2 months or so have been such a blessing to be a part of. God has really been pouring out his grace upon us as a body and it’s not something I take for granted. I’m excited for what lies ahead and I feel a great sense of urgency about it.

We did a new arrangement of The Solid Rock hymn this week. I did a loop based off of the amazing E-pop arrangement. I thought it went over really well. I’ll try and get that loop posted this week, there’s a few minor adjustments I’m going to make. By the way, the original title for The Solid Rock hymn was “The Immutable Basis of a Sinner’s Hope“… awesome and amen.

1. Rain Down – Delirious (loop not yet available)
2. God of This City – Bluetree (loop available)
3. Broken Me Loose – Kyle Campos
4. The Solid Rock – Edward Mote (loop not yet available)
5. With Everything – Hillsong (loop available)

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

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My band has been enjoying a few months of really problem free playing. We’ve been playing well which is great, but we’ve also had no major and very few minor mishaps. The streak was broken 2 weeks ago when I showed up to find my in ear monitors were gone. Then this last Sunday my drummer’s snare broke a few moments before the set started. The string that holds the snare strainer to the bottom of the snare snapped. Unfortunately with no spare snare in the house it was a mad dash to jimmy rig something up.

I stalled as long as I could, then we prayed and just agreed as a congregation that we’d worship God with everything we had with no instruments if that’s what it took. So I was prepared, at least mentally, at the end of that prayer to just go acoustic and scrap the set. In fact I was almost looking forward to it, but my man Jon Utter has some crazy McGyver skills and got it together just in time.

It really inspired me though to get an all acoustic set thrown in the rotation here soon. I think it would really be beneficial from multiple angles. First it would be refreshing from a creativity stand point, make sure our ears aren’t tired of the same stuff. Second it would be a great demonstration of something we preach that we believe and that’s it doesn’t matter what style of music we play, God get’s glory and worship through it all. Third, it’s a great challenge to the body having them coming to expect one thing and get another, great opportunity for us to grow. So stay tuned…it will happen.

1. Jesus’ Name – Ryan Delmore
2. How I Live – Kyle Campos (loop available)
3. Come Thou Fount – Robert Robinson
   
4. Death In His Grave – John Mark McMillan (loop available)
5. True Love – Phil Wickham (loop available)

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

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