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.

Related posts

• Sunday Set List: “We’re changed” (1)
• Sunday Set List: “God is enough” (2)
• Sunday Set List: “Uniting with church family” (2)

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

Related posts

• Our Rising Sound live worship: “True Love” (3)
• Images of worship at Life Connection Church (5)
• Song release: “How I Live” by Kyle Campos (Live) (11)

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.

Related posts

• Sunday Set List: “Years of prayer…answered” (1)
• Sunday Set List: “With shallow faith, God remains everlasting” (2)
• Sunday Set List: “Take a breath, but wake up” (5)

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.

Related posts

• 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” (1)

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)

Related posts

• Sunday Set List: “Prayer above preparation” (1)
• Sunday Set List: “Oh the sound of snapping strings” (2)
• Sunday Set List: “Jesus is Alive!” (4)

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

Related posts

• Sunday Set List: “Uniting with church family” (2)
• Sunday Set List: “Everyone is turkified” (3)
• Sunday Set List – Merchant Band makes an appearance (12)

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?

Related posts

• Top 5 Kevin Prosch worship songs (1)
• Awakening Love (1)
• Worship Team Self Evaluation (5)

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.

Related posts

• Sunday Set List: “With shallow faith, God remains everlasting” (2)
• Sunday Set List: “Community and Members” (1)
• 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.

Related posts

• Sunday Set List: “All God’s Children, we will sing…” (0)
• Sunday Set List: “Your love endures” (3)
• Sunday Set List: “With shallow faith, God remains everlasting” (2)

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.

Related posts

• Sunday Set List: “Acoustic break down” (1)
• Sunday Set List: “Vacations and Weariness is upon us” (4)
• Sunday Set List: “Take a breath, but wake up” (5)

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

Now onto the loop. This loop uses a bass sequence on the verses second the second chorus. It allows room for a live bass player to play underneath without muddying up the mix, but you can decide how you’d approach that or you can catch my bass player on twitter and ask him his thoughts. The arrangement follows the Jesus Culture arrangement as far as order of song sections.

You can stream the loop below but you are not able to download the loop. In order to download the loop files you need to send payment through PayPal. The price for this loop is $4.99. Once payment is received I’ll contact you and give you download instructions. The following is what’s delivered upon receipt of payment:

• Loop (high quality stereo mp3 and aif)
• Vocal Cue track (aif)
• Master Reason 4 file (rns)
• Arrangement Details (rtf, shows exactly what parts come in at what time)

As always though please comment and rate the loop to let me know what you think. I had a lot of fun making this loop and I’m pleased that the original customer is very happy with it.

Song: Burning Ones by Jesus Culture, Album “Consumed”
Key: G
Bpm: 152 (4/4)

Note: the free podcast file is lower quality mp3 (128kbps)

Related posts

• Loop available: “True Love” by Phil Wickham (10)
• Loop available: “Everlasting God” by New Life Worship (2)
• Loop available: “With Everything” by Hillsong (7)

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.

Related posts

• Sunday Set List: “Your love endures” (3)
• Sunday Set List: “With shallow faith, God remains everlasting” (2)
• Sunday Set List: “Time to be challenged and grow” (1)

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.

Related posts

• Sunday Set List: “Baptize the one” (3)
• Sunday Set List: “Years of prayer…answered” (1)
• Sunday Set List: “Whom have I in heaven but you?” (5)

Most of the time I try and respond to that urgency in my spirit, there are a lot of songs I have in the queue to loop so I have to prioritize in some way. So this arrangement is a version off of the E-pop arrangement. Same hook in the piano melody but used some different instrumentation, rhythm and added a more heavy instrumental section.

Remember to vote on the loop below, this really helps me get a sense of what folks find useful. Also it is used to calculate top loops widget in sidebar for people to quickly see the better loops.

Song: The Solid Rock by Edward Mote (E-pop arrangement), Album “Rain City Hymnal Vol. 1”
Key: Bm
Bpm: 72 (3/4)
Click-In: 2 bar

Section: Time (bar)

• Verse 1: 0:47 (20)
• Verse 2: 1:27 (36)
• Chorus 1: 1:47 (44) *Note: a beat drops in chorus (each chorus drops a beat)*
• Verse 3: 2:20 (57) *beat 2 is now beat 1*
• Chorus 2: 2:40 (65)
• Verse 4: 3:14 (78) *beat 3 is now beat 1*
• Chorus 3: 3:34 (86)
• Instrumental: 3:47 (92) *back on beat 1*
• Chorus 4: 4:07 (100)
• Outro: 4:20 (105) *beat 2 is now beat 1*

If you download this loop or you’ve benefited in any way or are appreciative of the service, I’d ask that you please consider donating whatever you feel the loop is worth. The amount (including $0) I leave up to you.

Download: aif / mp3 / mid / rns (Reason 4) / vocal cue

Related posts

• Loop available: “Gloria 34″ by Taylor Sorensen (4)
• Continuous Worship conference at Mars Hill Church (3)
• Loop available: So Near – Vineyard UK (5)

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.

Related posts

• Sunday Set List: “Jesus is Alive!” (4)
• Sunday Set List: “God is Strong” (0)
• Sunday Set List: “Baptisms and Jesus vs Cardinals rematch” (3)

5. Inauthentic

There are 2 primary ways our worship can be inauthentic, one way is how our worship presents or describes our object of worship, Jesus. Another way our worship can be inauthentic is in our engagement and life with Jesus in worship. Bad art will take some vague idea and attempt to represent it in the cheapest way possible to achieve an intended emotional response from viewers. Neither the artists engagement or representation of the object of art is authentic it’s just utilitarian. I’m going to use 2 definitions of authentic to illustrate this idea.

Authentic Jesus

• def. authentic: conforming to fact and therefor worthy of belief

If our worship is not conformed to truth, the person and work of Jesus, then what we are singing is not worthy of belief and shouldn’t be sung. Our worship can lead us and others astray from the gospel by either being generously vague or acutely false. And honestly there are great examples of both in popular CCM worship. John Owen wonderfully said,

“We must not allow ourselves to be satisfied with vague ideas of the love of Christ which present nothing of his glory to our minds.”

And I love how Bob Kauflin puts it,

“If most of our songs could be sung by Buddhists, Muslims, or Hindus, it’s time to change our repertoire.” -Worship Matters

We have to be careful about crafting songs that are vague and presenting an inauthentic view of the very specific and clear demarcation of Christ and anything other than Christ. Our job as worship leaders is to point people to Christ, not an “elevated idea” or even an idea about Christ, but Christ himself. If you’ve read any previous posts in this series or any other posts on this blog really, you’ll know how I value creativity. I think there are many ways to creatively point people to Christ and imagery, poetry and the arts in general can be used in a way that present clearly, the authentic Jesus. So I’m not saying art = vague, both simplicity and creativity have the same potential to miss the mark, use them both with wisdom.

Not much needs to be said about acute false statements, descriptions, ideas of Christ in worship. They exist unfortunately, and they always will until Christ returns. This is typically what separates worship pastors and music leaders, entertainers and shepherds. A pastor seeks to lead the congregation to Jesus and remove every obstacle in that journey including bad lyrics, but a entertainer seeks bring something of themselves to the people in the context of church, but not Christ. Don’t be an entertainer.

Authentic Worshippers

• def. authentic: genuine; undisputed credibility; with authority

In other words, believe and live what you sing and sing what you believe and live. Paul urged the Colossian church to “walk(live) in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work…” How careful we should be singing something we don’t believe or have no evidence or fruit of believing in our lives. Our religion is so transparent at times that we get used to operating in it without even seeing it.

Our worship should be saturated with humility and repentance when we start singing things we know we struggle to believe or live out. This is why I seldom make it out of a worship set without crying. Glorifying God for who he is in worship forces me to see the separation in sin, the short comings in my life, and moves my heart and affections more towards Christ. Being an authentic worshipper doesn’t mean having it all together it just means we are continually asking Christ to knit and hold us together in him. It means that not one word escapes our lips where the cost hasn’t been counted because we’ll have to give an account for every word, every word that we sung but didn’t mean.

I pray that all of us as worshippers would be authentic, that our hearts would be genuine in our praise, confession and words of adoration.

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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.

Related posts

• Sunday Set List: “Pre-service prayer, the great indicator” (4)
• Sunday Set List: “Jesus is Alive!” (4)
• Sunday Set List: “In desperate places, he paid our wages” (2)

But what does concern me is that the only place we are gathering to sing songs of praise to Jesus is in the corporate Sunday morning gathering. I don’t want people to think that’s the only place where that kind of thing happens. Certainly worship is much more than song and we live our lives in scattered worship 7 days a week, but I’d like to see purposeful worship through song be part of that.

I’ll cut to the chase, here’s the idea. I’m going to visit each gospel community group when they meet in some one’s home and I’m going to bring some recording equipment with me. I’ll lead the group in a few songs and get a good recording of the vocals. I’ll lead the same songs in each group so I have a bunch of tracks from each community group singing the same songs(in the same time–using click).

I’ll take these tracks and mix them into the loops we use on Sunday morning so while we are worshipping as a unified body we hear and join with the praises sung in our scattered lives and scattered communities across the valley. I don’t want this to be an audio stunt of any kind, but an example of our Sunday morning worship continuing through our lives and our gatherings outside of the church. I’m excited to give it a try and see how it works.

How have you cultivated worship through song in small groups? Is it spontaneous or planned every week? How well does it work?

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4. Unoriginality

This is a delicate topic because in some ways our worship is intentionally unoriginal. We are singing the praises of an unchanging, everlasting God, who gave us the greatest revelation man will ever know 2000 years ago in the cross and chose to make his word known through scripture that should never be added to or subtracted from. So at some level we certainly shouldn’t be looking for anything new there, that content remains the same. But the methods of delivery continue to change and that must be purposefully and missionally original.

Let me define the phrase “purposefully and missionally original” as it relates to worship.

Someone who’s inspired and informed by the gospel through the Holy Spirit to reach a specific people with the message of Jesus in an effective way through music and the arts.

The art in my hotel room was copied all over the country or all over the world, no thought was given to the different contexts it might be displayed in and if there might be a more effective art piece in different areas. The thought being if it worked in Beverly Hills it must work in Omaha, or Denver, or Miami, or Puerto Rico. Seems silly right? The culture, the idols worshipped, language used in those areas is so different.

But how silly are we in the church when we say the same thing? If it works in Australia at Hillsong, it must work in Phoenix, or in Santa Barbara. We attempt to carbon copy the missional expression without doing any of the evaluation or prayer to see if that expression would be effective in our mission field.

Being purposefully and missionally original requires worship leaders to find how best to use music and the arts for the people in their mission field through prayer, study and practice, for the glory of Jesus Christ. All being attractionally unoriginal requires is a CCLI license and a few hours of band practice to cover the latest CCM hit.

I’m not saying that Hillsong or Tomlin won’t work in multiple churches, locations and cultures, I’m just saying don’t blindly assume they will. And then perhaps you can find an arrangement that better suits your church rather than just ripping the cd.

Let’s be purposefully and missionally original.

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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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Here inside your presence I’m taken by the wonder of You
Here inside your glory we give our lives wholly to You

Moved on to the pre-chorus which was a simple “Holy, Holy are You” which was good and all. But then I hit Verse 2…

Your love it burns inside our hearts are satisfied by You
Your love is our reward it’s why we ask for more of You

What?!?! God’s love is our reward? Let’s look at the definition of reward to make sure we are on the same page here:

reward: “a recompense for worthy acts or retribution for wrongdoing” or “fair return for good or bad behavior”

It seems entirely ridiculous to me we’d have to dive into this much for us not to see the foolishness in this line. This isn’t extra-biblical this is entirely contra-biblical. It violates the core of the gospel. I don’t like to rant, but folks this line is simply not truth, and I’m shocked and saddened that it would be sung. Here’s what the gospel says about our reward for our actions:

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

So our just reward for our actions and fair return for our behavior is death, not God’s love. But the glory of the gospel is the cross, “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more”. We received grace instead of what we deserved, death. Here’s how God’s love really works:

Romans 5:6-10 “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person–though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die–8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”

We did not and cannot earn God’s love, repeat, we did not and cannot earn God’s love. 1 John 4:19 “We love because he first loved us.” We can keep plowing through scripture, there is no shortage because it’s the entire narrative of the gospel.

I don’t know Chris Quilala, I don’t know Kim Walker, but I believe they are Christians brothers and sisters who love Jesus and I don’t mean to bash them. In fact I bet you if I asked them, “do you think you earned God’s love or did he love you first, while you were a sinner?” That they’d answer, “no, I didn’t earn it.” Which is why I’m so puzzled that they’d sing just the opposite.

I’ve tried to think of any context that line works in and I can’t, I just can’t. Working in the second half of the line only confuses me more, “that’s why we ask for more of You.” I haven’t a clue what this line means. If anyone has an explanation by all means step in here in the comments and let me in on it, I truly feel like I’m missing something.

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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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He has cheated hell and seated
Us above the fall
In desperate place He paid our wages
One time once and for all

That bridge was the main reason I wanted to do a loop for this. I felt like that part could and should get huge. So the loop is really simple for most of it, just has an organ, some claps, little kick, shaker, cello, but then ramps up on the tag. I spent quite a while getting the proper back and forth shaker action instead of just the single forward action that pretty much all shaker samples use. I know it’s probably not all that impressive to anyone but I was really happy with the end result for the shaker.

You’ll notice my changes in the bridge section and you may also noticed I slowed it down. I like giving the verses a little more room so people don’t get lost in the lyrics.

Song: Death In His Grave by John Mark McMillan, Album “The Medicine”
Key: D
Bpm: 105 (3/4)
Click-In: Fade in with organ

Section: Time (bar)

• Verse 1: 0:27 (17)
• Chorus 1: 0:54 (33)
• Interlude “Ohs”: 1:20 (48)
• Verse 2: 1:41 (60)
• Chorus 2: 2:08 (76)
• Interlude: 2:34 (91)
• Chorus 3: 3:08 (111)
• Interlude: 3:34 (126)
• Bridge: 4:01 (142)
• Solo: 4:56 (174)
• Bridge: 5:24 (190)
• Outro (interlude): 6:18 (222)

If you download this loop or you’ve benefited in any way or are appreciative of the service, I’d ask that you please consider donating whatever you feel the loop is worth. The amount (including $0) I leave up to you.

Download: aif / mp3 / mid / rns (Reason 4) / vocal cue

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3. Safe

The ugly art on my hotel room wall was meant to be as inoffensive, innocuous and unspectacular as possible. It’s vanilla, bland, no rough edges and probably shown to a panel of people making sure they see nothing that could possibly be misconstrued as inappropriate or offense. Hmm this is reminding me of about 90% of the Christian music I’ve heard, despite us writing for and singing about Jesus, the most offensive and divisive person in all of human history.

Music

Many would argue that our worship music should be safe, that the music should be as broadly appealing as possible. I understand the argument and even agree with the intention, but I don’t believe having a band play bland music accomplishes the desired goal. Safe, bland, plastic worship music may not offend your congregation but it certainly won’t captivate them either. I much more appreciate strong reaction to music either positive or negative, as opposed to apathy.

If we’re reaching diverse people in our community you can imagine how much diversity you have in music taste in your congregation. I’ve found trying to have a single band appeal to all those tastes is a lesson in futility. In my church context we hope to present multiple bands that each excel in their music style and don’t play safe. In that collection of bands hopefully we show that Jesus is glorified in through many different styles.

But whatever the style, if the fear of man (congregation’s response) is the motivation in your music rather than the gospel and the passion gifted to you by God, and safety and refuge are found in human approval rather than Jesus, well that’s an incredibly dangerous position to be in.

Lyrics

A quite similar situation is found in our worship lyrics. It’s almost like we want our congregations to be able to zone out and sing without even thinking about what they are singing. Why else would we have such a narrow context in worship and use so much stale language to communicate the glory of Jesus? When I listen to a lot of Christian music it sounds like the words were written during their lunch break at work. I don’t often get a sense of toil, struggle and meditation in worship songs on what should be sung and how best to deliver it lyrically. You can’t read the Psalms and not hear the struggle and toil in those words and stories.

One huge reason for this is the sense that many songwriters have that as long as it’s from the heart it’s good. Spill our guts and God is glorified. Can we engage our minds in the process? Can we worship with all our heart and all our mind? You can’t read the Psalms and not see David’s mind spinning around the majesty of God, the metaphors that bring it to light, the examples found on earth, the implications of it on our lives. God is so rich and when we take the safe, well traveled path lyrically I think we’ve disengaged from the wonder of God in either our hearts or minds, and sometimes both.

Example

Your congregation is really struggling to deal with the recent diagnosis of cancer among members of your congregation and leadership and your pastor asks you to write a song about it. The safe thing is to sing about the goodness of God in heaven, God is the great physician and will heal, that we should cast fear aside and worship in joy. All true, but is there even a greater truth to be sung here?

The dangerous thing to do would be to sing of the goodness of God in cancer, sing of God as our healer and whether we are healed in the flesh or if we die that he’s healed our spirit and Jesus has reconciled us to the Father and that we fear nothing but God himself and worship in joy, but also through our pain, disappointment, sickness, success, failure, through all of it because we are obsessed with his glory.

Conclusion

Worship leaders, remember you serve the church and it’s not about you, it’s about Jesus. Serving them doesn’t mean gaining their approval though. Serve them by glorifying Jesus by singing about all of who God is. Do the music God has gifted you to play, given you the authority to play and given you a passion to play. Push yourself creatively in your music and lyrics to find new ways to tell the story of the gospel and majesty of Christ. Some people may hate your music, does that bother you more than compromising the conviction in your spirit? Some people may love your music, does that give you more joy that the smile of the face of God? Stop fearing man more than God. Stop seeking the applause of man more than the delight of Christ.

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Our church is coming off 3 weeks of really a shift in mindset, heart and attitude in worship. God is moving in the body in many ways and it’s all being worked together for His glory. Our gospel communities are really taking hold, people are gathering around the gospel in diverse ways, diverse places with diverse groups and the relationships growing out of that are incredible. We’re in the middle of a brutal series called “Open Heart Surgery” that is attacking our idols and you can audibly and visibly see the impact of the truth spoken during the sermon. We have a lot of new people coming in, we have our membership in place, we’re in the middle of a financial shakeup(that’s good) and through it all the worship has been amazing!

This week we did John Mark McMillan’s “Death In His Grave” for our communion song. We did this song on Easter this year but hadn’t done it since. It is one of my favorite worship songs full stop, no qualifier needed. I could barely make it through the song and the congregation really grabbed hold of it. If you haven’t heard it, make sure to get it, the beautiful truth sung is just incredible. God is good, what a week.

1. The World Can’t Take It Away – Ryan Delmore
2. Dress Us Up – John Mark McMillan
3. My Soul Sings – Delirious (loop available)
4. Death In His Grave – John Mark McMillan
5. Hosanna – Hillsong United (loop available)

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

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2. Cheap

The value of the art hanging in the hotel is a direct product of what went into making it. What did it cost the creator of this art in time, effort and material? That value determined how much it sold for and to whom it was sold. What if each art piece was commissioned and an artist labored over each piece, meditated on what was required for the room, what would fit the context it would be displayed, what the audience needed to be presented with and how best to capture the beauty that was his inspiration? Well those art pieces would be much more valuable.

Worship leaders very often cheapen the gospel through our cheapened worship music and this happens due to a few reasons:

• We don’t invest prayer and labor in our songs as on overflow of inspiration for the glory of Jesus and edification of the body, but instead seek the fastest route to receive our earthly payment.

For some the earthly payment might be an immediate emotional response. If you’ve been in church any length of time it’s not hard to perceive what people respond to in worship at an emotional level. There’s nothing wrong with an emotional response because it should be there, but it’s cheap if that’s the depth of the response and engagement, purely emotional. This kind of worship is very much like the seed sown on rocky ground(Matthew 13:20-21), it’s received immediately with joy but has no root in our spirits and when met with trial, fades away. I find this to be the evil, ripened, low hanging fruit in front of most worship leaders, especially those who serve in a charismatic environment.

Our earthly payment could also be industry success and respect amongst our peers, creative goals accomplished, the praise of our audiences, the list goes on.

• We write music out of emotional desire and spiritual angst but never get around to presenting the gospel and the treasure…Jesus.

Our songs end up consisting entirely of supplication or even demands on what we want and what we feel. There’s not a problem with supplication and emotional expression as long as we don’t stop there, that should be prologue to the truth. We’ve presented the conflict but not the eternal truth in response and if we do that what’s the point? We’re just whining at the throne instead of worshiping and pointing people to Jesus.

If our worship songs do more to make the congregation empathize with humanity instead of see the splendor and majesty of Jesus than we’ve wasted our time and cheapened our worship.

• We present a limited view of the character of God to suit the mood we wish to create and maintain in the church and worship service.

If our idol is joy, then we write and sing songs all about the joy found in Christ. But never sing about the cost paid for our freedom, the wicked deceit in our hearts and sin we must repent of. There’s bright lights, plenty of dancing and shouting, but never bowing, weeping and mourning.

Conversely we could idolize earthly dignity and cultural relevance and never sing for joy in the midst of trial and tribulation. Those in depression could walk in and engage in worship feeling comfortable in our somber presentation of the cross but never get confronted with the joy and victory in the resurrection.

In order for us not to cheapen our presentation of the gospel we can’t ignore aspects of God’s character just because it makes us or our congregation’s uncomfortable. If we do we’ve carved our own image of God and just in case you haven’t read the left hand side of scripture, it never ends up good for those that do that.

I pray that we labor over our worship songs for the glory of Jesus, that we’d present the gospel and our treasure Jesus in every song we sing, and that we wouldn’t carve our own image of God to worship but worship Him for all that He is.

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A few weeks ago we rolled out our new home group/community group/gospel community structure and I’m shocked at how much grace God has shown. Our groups are really taking off, people are engaging in community and I really think it’s building a sense of true love and commitment to one another in the body.

This week we announced our first batch of covenant members of LCC which marks another new chapter for us. I’m so excited about rolling out membership and seeing people commit to God and one another in a way that’s so counter-cultural, so against our ingrained, rugged individualism. I’m pumped about what’s ahead and if the last few weeks are any indication God is going to blow away my expectations.

1. Jesus’ Name – Ryan Delmore
2. God of This City – Bluetree (loop available)
3. Lead Me to The Cross – Hillsong United (loop available)
4. Gloria 34 – Taylor Sorensen (loop available)
5. With Everything – Hillsong (loop available)

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

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The song is based primarily out of Philippians 1, which was challenging to work out of. The text is supremely rich, just not the most melodic phrases to work with, so it was a challenge but I wanted to use it. This recording is from the 2nd time we ever played it live. There’s plenty left to do with the song arrangement wise, so this is pretty raw but I like to get a picture of where the song is heading first naturally before working on tighter arrangement details, loops and such. I really question my judgment releasing songs publicly that are so early in the process, but getting critique at this point is always helpful.

Credits:

Kyle Campos (vocals, guitar)
Kendra Rohl (vocals)
Josh Dailey (Bass)
Jon Utter (Drums)

Lyrics:

Verse:
The passions of our youth, faded into sin
We laid waste to our call, and shame took us in
But you reached out in the night, left ninety nine behind
A dead man you found, filthy and bound
You loosened the binds, and life now I find

Lead me to live, lead me to live (x2)

Chorus:
Adonai, You gave me life
Now lead me in all that I do
Adonai, in this heart of mine
Shape me in the image of you

Chorus-Out 1:
Rejoicing in all things we sing
Christ be honored now
If we live or no longer live

Chorus-Out 2:
To live is for Christ, die is gain
We are not ashamed
If we live or no longer live

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“So heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss and my heart turns violently inside of my chest”

David Crowder changed the lyric after consulting with John Mark (which was a really cool thing to do by the way) to this:

“So heaven meets earth like an unforseen kiss and my heart…”

I personally appreciate the original line in its correct context. The people that have issues with it typically take it out of context and that’s too bad. I’ve had numerous exchanges on this blog explaining the context of this lyric and why I do not change it when I sing it.

It’s unfortunate John Mark needed to come out and clarify but I think it was an incredibly humble and mature thing for him to do and he did it very well. You should go read for yourself what John Mark has to say about the “sloppy wet kiss” but here it is simply and succinctly:

The idea behind the lyric is that the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of earth converge in a way that is both beautiful and awkwardly messy. Think about the birth of a child, or even the death of Jesus himself. These miracles are both incredibly beautiful and incredibly sloppy (“gory” may be more realistic, but “Heaven meets earth like a gory mess” didn’t seem to have the same ring).

I think it’s a brilliant line that attempts to illustrate the love in God’s sovereignty though many times we fail to see his love in tragedy, it’s there. I love John Mark’s heart for Jesus, I love that he makes us uncomfortable with his lyrics, his songs are a gift to the kingdom but more importantly HE is a gift to the Kingdom.

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