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.

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.

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.

2 weeks ago the Cardinals were playing the Eagles on Sunday and many chose to worship the Cardinals instead of Jesus. I was looking forward to this Sunday’s rematch to see who would come out on top. Jesus is a jealous God and didn’t take that loss well. Jesus came back strong, really on his A game and this time although many still worshiped the Cardinals, they still came out losers for a few reasons:

1. We baptized 9 people in service
2. Had crazy breakthrough in people’s lives in our prayer time
3. Ended our week long fast in celebration
4. Cardinals lost

I don’t think any argument can be made other than Jesus won and anyone who wasn’t in service this Sunday lost. This was our second attempt at doing baptisms during worship on stage and this time I think we ironed out some kinks. I was excited to finish setting up our FireStudio Project which allows us to record live each channel as a track and will really help our video of these baptisms. Looking forward to working on that. Here was our set:

1. You Love Me Forever – Merchant Band (loop not yet available)
2. Sing (Or the Rocks Will Get To) – Taylor Sorensen
3. Ready Now – Desperation Band (loop available)
4. All I Need Is You – Hillsong United
5. Broken Me Loose – Kyle Campos (original)

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

We had a lot of people still out on vacation as well as many visiting family members this week. But it seemed like most everyone was sleepwalking through the service. I’m hoping it was just general vacation weariness and we bounce back next week. To be honest I’m pretty tired as well. The congregation seemed to really enter into the ministry time after the sermon though, so maybe it just took them a while to warm up, our sanctuary is currently without a heater after all.

This set was the second time we did Taylor Sorensen’s “Sing (Or the Rocks Will Get To)” and it’s gone over pretty bad both weeks. If I would have sense any improvement this week I might have given it one more chance. As it stands I feel like dropping it, which bums me out because I really like the song and thought we had a cool arrangement of it.

1. We Cry Out – Brian Johnson/Kim Walker (loop available)
2. Sing (Or the Rocks Will Get To) – Taylor Sorensen
3. Ready Now – Desperation Band (loop available)
4. So Near – Vineyard UK (loop available)
5. Where You Go I’ll Go – Brian and Jenn Johnson (loop available)

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

Last week I mentioned MTV would be in our Sunday service filming a for a follow-up episode of Made. It was just a single camera man so there wasn’t a huge footprint, he did well to blend into the congregation and not be a distraction. So much so I had no idea he was filming me right behind me during worship and I did kind of a hop back jam move and almost crashed into him. There’s no more dangerous place to be than around me when I choose to dance.

We didn’t really do anything different in preparation this week besides having designated a “Producer” for the service, but that decision was already made before the MTV thing came around. Service was packed out and everyone seemed really engaged. I tweeted after worship service that the fact that service was packed out was encouraging in one sense and convicting in a few others. I think I’m going to withold my reaction to that fact until after next week. In any case I’m so thankful God showed grace and Mark our producer showed excellence and really the service could not have gone any better. I don’t think we’ve ever pulled off a service without 1 technical issue of some kind, but really I can’t think of much of anything we could have done better. So for that I’m extremely thankful and excited about the salvations that occured and the powerful move of the Spirit in that service. Thank you Jesus!

I’ll have video of it posted in the next few days. Onto the worship set…

1. We Cry Out – Brian and Jenn Johnson, Kim Walker arrangement (loop available)
2. Rain Down - Delirious (loop used, not yet published)
3. How I Live – Kyle Campos (original, loop used, not yet published)
4. My Jesus I Love Thee
5. Who You Are – Desperation Band (loop used, not yet published)

I’ve had some emails from people asking for certain loops that I’ve used but not yet published on the site. The reason that I haven’t published some is that I still am modifying them and I’m not yet satisfied with it as a finished product. If you are interested in getting an early release of them just email me and I’ll send it to you.

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

Last Sunday I was feeling the onset of a cold. As the week progressed my voice deteriorated, my throat was a mess and I was hoping that it would be better by this Sunday but it wasn’t to be. I asked my bass player, Josh, to step in and lead whatever songs he was comfortable singing and he stepped up and knocked it out of the park. Comforting to have someone with that talent level on the team. We weren’t without some surprises though, Josh snapped a bass string during the morning practice and had no strings with him, so had to find another bass quickly. But other than that, smooth sailing. It was Josh’s first time singing with a click an loops so he was nervous but I don’t think anyone could tell, pulled it off without a hitch.

1. Everlasting God – Chris Tomlin
   
2. Coming Back – Desperation Band
3. Ready Now – Desperation Band (listen/download loop)
4. Gloria – Taylor Sorensen, using Tim Smith Arrangement (listen/download to loop)
5. How He Loves - John Mark McMillan

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

I didn’t feel great about the set going into Sunday, kept making changes, it just didn’t feel connected. For all the spiritual people out there when I say it didn’t feel connected I mean, I didn’t have peace about it. Musically the set went over fine, there seemed to be a general laziness and depression in the church. Maybe it’s everyone’s finances, I don’t know, but we have to focus on this during our prayer before service. I also was nervous about a tough meeting I had after service, so that was weighing on me as well.

Anyhow this was the debut for John Mark’s new song Dress Us Up. It went over like a new song typically goes over, so we’ll give it a couple more weeks and see how people pick it up.

1. We Cry Out – Brian and Jenn Johnson, Kim Walker arrangement (loop not yet posted)
2. Dress Us Up – John Mark McMillan
3. How Great Is Our God – Chris Tomlin
4. Ready Now – Desperation Band (listen/download loop)
5. Prepare the Way – Charlie Hall

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