This week we started our Summer Sex Talk series, so not much opportunity for worship songs supporting the message. Although Pastor Aaron does tell a true story of a worship leader at his college who did Your Body Is a Wonderland by John Mayer in a worship set. I wish I was joking, talk about Jesus is my boyfriend worship songs, that just takes it to an entirely new level of wrongness.

Our band was a man down, well woman down, as Kendra Rohl, vocalist extraordinaire was out of town. We managed to keep the ship sailing and did mostly simple arrangements. In fact we did Found by Hillsong United for the first time, I’ve always dug the song but just never introduced it for various reasons. I think overall musically the set was ok and corporate involvement/participation I thought was just ok as well. I’m taking a week off coming up and I think I have some praying to do on where and how to lead this thing next.

I think our church body needs to be challenged on some things and I need to grow in some things as well. I desperately want to see this body grow in maturity in all areas but specifically here as it relates to our expression of worship through music and fellowship with Christ. So I’m looking forward to taking some time to focus on this, get convicted, get revelation and get some direction up in lovely Portland OR.

1. Solid Rock – Delirious (loop available)
2. The World Can’t Take It Away – Ryan Delmore
3. Ready Now – Desperation Band (loop available)
4. I Will Trust You – Chris Lizotte
5. Found – Hillsong United

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

I returned this week from our family vacation in California. Stayed for a few days with my brother’s family in my hometown of Santa Barbara CA, then took the family to Disneyland for my son’s birthday. It was awesome and everything I had hoped it would be. Theeeennnnn we got back and let’s just say, the real world set in quickly. One of the roughest weeks I’ve had in a long time. Psalm 73:25-26 ministered to my spirit well:

Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

It’s always a challenge to prepare worship for Sunday and not bring in all your issues into the set. You end up picking songs that minister to your situation instead of picking songs that minister to the body and glorify Jesus. I’ve spoken before how being an elder in the church has really helped in leading worship because you’re more aware of the pulse of the congregation and if there are corporate issues. This greatly informs my selection of songs, knowing what our body has to worship through and repent of. That being said, here’s what we sung:

1. Jesus’ Name – Ryan Delmore
2. Gloria 34 – Taylor Sorensen (loop available)
3. I Will Trust You – Chris Lizotte
4. Our God Reigns – Delirious (loop available)
5. Reprise (Be Lifted High) – Hillsong United

The set flowed really well I thought. I thought we may be a little out of sync since I missed last week and we hadn’t played for a couple weeks, but the band played really well. I really enjoyed our remix of the “Be Lifted High” reprise, might have to do a little loop to that.

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

This past weekend we had Ryan Delmore out to lead worship for our Anthropology Men’s Conference. Ryan did an incredible job and was a huge blessing for our men. Ryan also stayed and led worship for our Sunday service and our entire congregation was so blessed and honored to have him. Everyone entered in right away, sang their guts out even to songs they didn’t know. It was a privilege for my band to play with Ryan and we had a blast hanging out with him for a few days.

If you haven’t yet heard Ryan’s music, then you can read my review of his record “The Spirit, the Water and the Blood“ and it has links to purchase. We did a video wrap up with Ryan but unfortunately it looks like it didn’t save to my HD for some reason, project is there but video file is not. It could be that I over-wrote it when my drummer Jon Utter and Ryan did their little tip of the hat to James Brown.

Jon goes Brownalishess with Delmore from Our Rising Sound on Vimeo.

I think you enjoyed this video more than the wrap up anyway. Again HUGE thanks to Ryan Delmore, he’s an amazing friend, worship leader and man of God, awesome to be able to connect with him. I mixed a little worship sampler from the set, a minute or 2 from each song, entire set condensed to 10 minutes. So you can listen to that below. Here was the set:

1. Glory to the King – Chris Lizotte
2. The World Can’t Take it Away – Ryan Delmore
3. Jesus Name – Ryan Delmore
4. Open the Eyes of My Heart – Paul Baloche
5. I Wanna See Like Isaiah Saw – Ryan Delmore
6. You Are So Good to Me – Waterdeep

 

 Ryan Delmore & ORS Worship Set Sampler [10:15m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Credits:

Ryan Delmore: Lead vocals, acoustic, harmonica
Kyle Campos: Electric guitar, vocals
Jonathan Utter: Drums
Joshua Dailey: Bass
Kendra Rohl: Vocals

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

I came into Sunday with a pretty intense cold. I couldn’t stop sneezing, my head felt like it would explode at any moment. So I tried to arrange a set that wouldn’t stretch me too much vocally, only problem is it seems almost every good song does stretch me vocally. The last 2 songs of the set, I Will Trust You and Gloria 34, got pretty intense and emotional for me.

As a worship leader there’s a certain balance here when you are worshiping but also tasked with guiding the rest of the congregation. I want to be authentic and I focus on worshiping God with all I have and being a good example of that. But when emotions start to get the best of me sometimes it feels like a distraction for others and I don’t want it to be. The following line got me in I Will Trust You:

I will sing in times of trouble and I will trust you God

For reasons some of you may know that really hit home for me and I couldn’t get the words out. Then when singing Gloria 34 the same thing happened on a larger scale on this section:

Now see this poor man cried
And the King heard him
And he rescued Him
From his worst troubles

I worry that it left the congregation a little confused. They certainly didn’t know what to sing really and I’m sure most looked to see what was happening and why I wasn’t singing. If it helped them focus on praising Jesus then great, but I’m not so sure it did.

1. Solid Rock – Delirious (loop available)
2. Dress Us Up – John Mark McMillan
3. Lead Me to the Cross – Hillsong United (loop available)
4. I Will Trust You – Chris Lizotte
5. Gloria 34 – Taylor Sorensen (loop available)

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

I am pleased to report that Chris Lizotte’s new album, Signal Hill Revival, is now available! I recommend, no I urge, I implore you to go download this album. If you missed it earlier I interviewed Chris and he talked about the making of this album in depth. Chris is an amazing songwriter and his brand of blues-gospel with a splash of rock is really refreshing and so needed in what can be a monotonous contemporary Christian music scene. If you need further convincing then checkout the video of one of the singles,”Brighter Day”, on You Tube. Look for my review of this album soon.

As Chris mentioned in our interview with him there would be some video released with his upcoming album and this is a sneak peak of what’s to come. The release date has been set to November 18th which is awesome cause Chris was afraid it would slip past that. Enjoy.

When I recently interviewed Chris Lizotte I asked him about his most positive memorable worship experience, but what wasn’t on the video was I also asked him about his worst or most embarrassing worship experience. Chris couldn’t think of any but bad memories were flooding my mind like church goers to Olive Garden after service. I mean I had so many to choose from it was really quite sad. But one stands out as hands down the absolute worst, most awkward, worship experience I’ve ever been a part of. Thankfully I wasn’t leading it, I just happened to be there.

In December of 2002 my wife and I along with some of our friends went to The Call/The One Thing Conference in Kansas City. Mike Pilavachi was scheduled to speak, I’d never heard him at the time but heard great things(which were all true) and I was really excited to hear Kevin Prosch lead worship. This was Kevin’s return to ministry after his much publicized sexual sin and divorce from his wife. One of the most painful, disappointing, frustrating periods I can remember as Kevin was someone I looked up to as a man of God. You’re probably thinking Kevin’s set was the experience I’m referring to, but you’d be wrong, his was amazing.

Waterdeep was scheduled to open the conference. I had heard a few tunes that I liked from them, didn’t matter though I was just excited to be among thousands of other people eager to praise Jesus. As the time was drawing near for the conference to kick off people were getting more and more impatient. Finally Waterdeep came out, everyone is ready to sing, jump, lift hands, people were pumped!

I don’t recognize the first song, in fact nobody does, it’s not really a worship song. Nobody is singing and everyone is just kind of looking around like, “this is weird“. We all just kind of hum along, still hopeful for some great worship. Song #2 comes along with the same kind of soft, meandering melody that is talking about their college days. What the heck is happening??? Now people are annoyed, I’m annoyed, this is a worship conference for heaven’s sake, probably a good idea to actually play some. Song #3 comes and they introduce it by saying something like, “this is a song we wrote about not having any money and some old car…” The crowd is visibly upset, I’m upset, this feels like a joke, like we’re getting punked. All of a sudden people in the front rows start yelling at the band, “PLAY WORSHIP!!!“. Lead singer of Waterdeep yells back in the mic, “THIS IS WORSHIP!!!” Oh nooo.

Now I have retarded tingles all over and I want to hide, I can’t look anyone in the face. There is a worship mutiny taking place, people are booing, there’s a full out revolt in the conference. I’ve never in my life experienced anything like this. And in the 6 years after this, I’ve never again experienced this or even heard of anything like this. I think finally after this exchange they played one song people knew and words were up so we got to sing a little acoustic worship song. God bless Waterdeep, they are good people and a good band and I’m sure if they haven’t blacked out this moment from their memory they’d agree it was not a good moment.

This was by far the most uncomfortable worship experience ever. I’d love to hear some of your stories. Feel free to change name and dates to protect the innocent. I didn’t change any but my story was 6 years ago and the statute of limitations is up. If your story involves me though, please change my name

I’d like to thank Chris Lizotte for taking time out of his day to talk with me. Chris’ music as he was starting out in the Vineyard gave this young man hope that there could actually be cool Christian music. Years later he’s still doing his thing, making great music and pastoring leaders to further the kingdom. I admire the humility, love and kindness Chris walks in and exudes. Thanks again Chris.

Folks remember to stay tuned and subscribe to the feed to keep up to date on the availability of Chris new album, Signal Hill Revival.

Part 1

Chris talks about how he met Jesus and how he ended up getting plugged into the church leading worship. Chris also discusses the leaders and pastors that were instrumental in shaping and discipling him as a young believer. Chris has a new album coming out in November called “Signal Hill Revival” and in part 2 we discuss the progress and what to expect from the album.

Part 2

We discuss the making of Chris’ upcoming album “Signal Hill Revival”. Chris talks about what’s behind the songs, some special guest appearances and his hope that his kids will appreciate the work.

Part 3

Chris talks about his role as worship pastor, what he finds most challenging about being a worship pastor and describes his most memorable worship experience with Kevin Prosch. Chris also bravely faces the ORS question of “What’s Next?”