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 released the God of This City Loop in Aug of ‘09 and I still get a lot of questions about how this mixes live. The easiest way to explain it is to just let you listen to us play it live. This is a live mix of my band (Our Rising Sound) playing God of This City this past Sunday at Life Connection Church. It’s far from perfect(my vocals stink and need to fix drum micing), but hopefully it will help those interested in the loop hear how we pull it off live.

For those who’ve used the loop themselves if you have recordings of how you’ve used it, I’d love to hear them. Comment away.

Credits:

(@twitter)

Kyle Campos (@kcampos) – vocals, guitar, loop
Kendra Rohl (@krohl) – vocals
Josh Dailey (@joshdailey)- bass
Jon Utter (@jonutter) – drums
Life Connection Church (@LifeConnection) - singing their guts out

 

 Our Rising Sound - God of This City (Live) [6:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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)

As I prepared for this past Sunday’s worship set I had a very heavy heart. The stories and images coming out of Haiti are truly heart breaking and challenging at many levels. This past week Dennis Miller was asking for Christians to call into his radio show and explain how God allows this to happen. I listened every day as people would call in and espouse 1 of 2 theories.

1. God had nothing to do with this, this was Satan. or…
2. This is direct punishment for Haitians sin.

It was frustrating and painful to hear people either run away from God’s sovereignty and appoint the power to call creation into action to Satan, or to run from grace and appoint judgment onto Haiti that all nations deserve and are under. It pains me to hear Christians disavowing the sovereign rule and reign of God over all creation, but it also pains me to hear Christians claiming they know why this happened. What a disgusting measure of pride in both circumstances. If you haven’t read Albert Mohler’s post on “Does God Hate Haiti?” I implore you to go read it.

So all of this is happening in my mind as I pray about what my responsibility is as a worship leader in light of what’s happening. It was a very similar feeling I felt after 9/11 and I remember the feeling that the church had no songs to sing after 9/11 because we tend to overlook worshipping in lament. Though the Psalms are full of worship in lament, our churches are usually void of them.

I felt it important for our church to not run from the gospel and hide in either of the extremes I mentioned above. That in light of what’s happening in Haiti we should respond corporately in a few ways:

1. We should grieve and mourn with those in Haiti

Romans 12:15 spells it out clearly, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” Starting out the service with big smiles and happy clappy, dance in the aisles music seemed ill-fitting at best when viewed in the shadow of 50,000 dead with another 100,000 yet to be found. Paul says we should rejoice in our suffering, but doesn’t say we should rejoice in other’s suffering. In fact he says quite the opposite in 1 Corinthians 12:26 when discussing church unity:

“If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.” (ESV)

Before and during our worship set we had a lot of prayer, acknowledging the heartache and suffering. And we mourned with those in Haiti dealing with this devastation first hand.

2. Worship the all sovereign God

The church has to recognize God’s sovereignty in all things. That God’s ways are not our ways, his thoughts are not our thoughts and he has plans and purposes that we don’t see. I don’t see the number of earthquakes God has held back, the hurricanes he’s calmed or the tsunamis he’s diverted. Matt Chandler said,

“The entire universe is built around communicating to you that you’re tiny and you’re fragile and you control nothing.”

We are tiny and God is great, all powerful, all sovereign and all good. This earthquake as well as all creation should point us to God and illuminate his divine attributes (sovereignty being one of them). Romans 1:20:

“For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”

Our worship set was filled with these songs, every song had this at its core. Our God Reigns, The Solid Rock, Whole World In His Hands.

3. Worship the merciful, loving, good God

God loves Haiti, he loves the people of Haiti and his heart is grieved. At the cross we see God’s perfect justice meet his perfect mercy, grace and love. We live in the aftermath of that collision on the cross and our hearts should be eternally grateful. Ephesians 2:4-7

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved– and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

We opened with God of This City, a song I think does an amazing job of communicating God’s sovereign rule, but that things aren’t yet as they should be. That God is still at work.

4. Serve the broken and minister to the lost

If all you have is great context and point of view without your heart being impacted and propelled towards acts of kindness and mercy, then there’s a disconnect with the gospel. My heart is warmed by the tremendous outpouring from the Christian community towards Haiti. There are so many different avenues of service and help happening right now and they all are orchestrated under the mercy, grace and sovereignty of God.

I think it it incredibly important for our worship to not hide from any of these things in this time. Our view of the gospel in our worship needs to be enriched not diluted. We can’t hide from this and we shouldn’t try and cloak God or any of his divine attributes to make it more palatable to the world. I beg my fellow worship leaders to point their churches, their community to the gospel in this season. In devastation and loss their is great opportunity for God to be magnified, for the lost to be pointed to Christ and for the church to be mobilized to show Christ’s love.

One of the songs we did which I really felt God appointed for us in this time is a song by Tim Hughes called “Whole World In His Hands.” I’ll finish with the lyrics to that song.

Verse 1
When all around is fading
And nothing seems to last
When each day is filled with sorrow
Still I know with all my heart

Chorus
He’s got the whole world in His hands
He’s got the whole world in His hands
I fear no evil for You are with me
Strong to deliver, mighty to save
He’s got the whole world in His hands

Verse 2
When I walk through fire
I will not be burned
When the waves come crashing round me
Still I know with all my heart

Each year I like to look back and do some analytic reports on the songs we sung. Here are some of the interesting stats for my church’s song selection for 2009.

5 Most Played Songs

1. (13) Gloria 34 – Taylor Sorensen (loop available)
2. (11) With Everything – Hillsong (loop available)
3. 2 way tie with 10 plays each
   1. The World Can’t Take It Away – Ryan Delmore
   2. True Love – Phil Wickham (loop available)
4. 6 way tie with 9 plays each
   1. Dress Us Up – John Mark McMillan
   2. God of This City – Bluetree (loop available)
   3. Hosanna – Hillsong United (loop available)
   4. Jesus’ Name – Ryan Delmore
   5. Lead Me to the Cross – Hillsong United (loop available)
   6. Skeleton Bones – John Mark McMillan (loop not yet available)
5. 6 way tie with 7 plays each
   1. Come Thou Fount – Robert Robinson
   2. Everlasting God – New Life (loop available)
   3. My Soul Sings – Delirious (loop available)
   4. Rain Down – Delirious (loop not yet available)
   5. We Cry Out – Kim Walker (loop available)
   6. You Love Me Forever – Merchant Band (loop not yet available)

New Songs Introduced in 2009

• The World Can’t Take It Away – Ryan Delmore
• True Love – Phil Wickham (loop available)
• God of This City – Bluetree (loop available)
• Jesus’ Name – Ryan Delmore
• Skeleton Bones – John Mark McMillan (loop not yet available)
• Messiah – Phil Wickham
• Death In His Grave – John Mark McMillan (loop available)
• Live or No Longer Live – Kyle Campos
• Destructor – Red Letter
• Burning Ones – Jesus Culture (loop available)
• Lamb of God – Sarah Reeves
• Found – Hillsong United

Largest Drop in Play Count from 2008 to 2009

* denotes song retired (0 plays in 2009)

1. 3 way tie with 6 less plays
   1. * Salvation Is Here – Hillsong United
   2. Everything – Tim Hughes (loop available)
   3. I Am A Temple – John Mark McMillan
2. 6 way tie with 5 less plays
   1. * Coming Back – Desperation Band
   2. * How Great Is Our God – Chris Tomlin
   3. * Joy of the Lord – Twila Paris
   4. * Rescue – New Life
      
   5. Solid Rock – Delirious (loop available)
   6. Rain Down – Delirious (loop not yet available)

What did you play most in 2009?

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.