There’s a great wave of new, fresh, creative, beautiful arrangements of old hymns. These are the top 5 that I’ve found, please comment below if you have any others you’d like to nominate.

1. Jesus Paid It All – Chad Gardner (Mars Hill Good Friday Live)

I think I listened to this on repeat for a week straight. One of the most powerful arrangements I’ve ever heard of one of the most powerful worship songs ever written. Hard to beat that.

If any are interested in a loop for this arrangement I have one published.

2. Battle Hymn Of The Republic – Page CXVI (Hymns II)

Page CXVI has plenty of awesome arrangements but this is one of the more surprising ones. I didn’t expect to be blown away like I was with this arrangement. It’s hard to rock this one with it’s march shuffle rhythm, but they found a way. When the chorus opens up it’s a beautiful thing.

Other killer songs from their Volume I Hymns album: Nothing But the Blood, Joy

3. Come Thou Fount – Coram Deo Church (Doxology)

Vocals on this are just killer, the lead male vocal channeled his inner Rufus Wainright perfectly. Probably the simplest arrangement on this list, but all the great arrangements of this song I’ve heard are simple, it’s just the way this song was meant to be played I think.

4. I Sing the Mighty Power of God – Ex Nihilo (Rain City Hymnal)

So many great songs of this album, but this arrangement builds on each verse just so well and when it eventually goes for it towards the end, the pay off was well worth the build up. Also for you more adventurous types that dig some electronica, there’s a Sandman Theory Remix of this that’s awesome!

Other killer songs from this album: Doxology (The Northern Conspiracy), The Solid Rock (E-pop), Here Is Love (Ex Nihilo)

5. How Deep The Father’s Love For Us – Chad Gardner (Mars Hill Good Friday Live)

It’s only appropriate that this Mars Hill’s Good Friday Service sit as the bookends to this list. I said before I think that set is probably the best worship set I’ve heard start to finish. Just absolutely incredible.

So what songs did I miss that deserved a mention?

Over the past couple years my heart has really been moved towards re-arranging hymns, due in large part to the influence of Mars Hill’s worship leaders but also due to a conviction on singing theologically rich lyrics. One of my favorite hymns is “The Solid Rock” by Edward Mote. I’ve done a couple versions of this song and always enjoyed E-pop’s version of this song, but on one particular listen it moved from appreciation to an urgency to do it.

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.

 

 The Solid Rock (Loop) [5:13m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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

After a week of resting, prayer, dialogue and study in Portland I was ready to come back home here in Phoenix and worship with my LCC family. I had a great time, it was really everything I hoped it would be. Thanks to Ish Jimenez and the rest of the band for stepping in and leading wonderfully.

I was seeking some revelation on how to breakthrough the wall that I felt in our church body in regards to worship. The Lord led me to Colossians 1:15-18 and that really articulated and brought truth to the disconnect that I was feeling in our worship services.

He[Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities–all things were created through him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

I think I’ll expound on this in another blog post, but this bit of truth really rocked me and brought Christ into focus. Our church body values a lot of things, both corporately and individually. When we worship together, those sets of values are brought together and you see the disunity in it all. Amongst the body you see comfort raised high, you see family raised high, you see art raised high, you see many things raised high. But church, we must unite around the preeminence of Christ, that in all things he is valued most, placed highest and worshipped above all.

This is a big step for us to take next and there’s a lot of idols that need to be torn down. I’m excited to get through this because Christ will be glorified in it. Here’s what we chose to sing to Christ as praises to our King, that he might be preeminent in our worship.

1. Rain Down – Delirious (loop not yet available)
2. We Cry Out – Kim Walker (loop available)
3. Destructor – Red Letter (E-pop arrangement)
4. My Soul Sings – Delirious (loop available)
5. With Everything – Hillsong (loop available)

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

Reminder if you would look access to any of the loops that say “loop not yet available” just contact me. The only reason I haven’t made them publicly available is because I want to rework them but haven’t had time to, so I’d rather not make public stuff I’m not really satisfied with. But I’ll send along privately if requested.

This was my first Sunday after missing 2 on my vacation in Lake Tahoe. Had an absolutely incredible time, very restful and rejuvenating. This weekend was also our Encounter weekend. If you aren’t familiar with Encounters they are basically a weekend where people are taken through the reality of sin, need for repentance, forgiveness, breaking of generational sin, filling of the Holy Spirit…it’s a super intense weekend for all involved, attendees and leaders. God shows up in power and makes a mess of all of us each time.

This weekend was no exception, so there is always great anticipation for the Sunday that concludes an encounter weekend as drug addicts, prodigals, prostitutes testify to their new freedom in Christ. I’ll blog more about that later. Now for something much less powerful…the Sunday Set List. Those with an asterisk (*) had a loop.

1. Solid Rock – Delirious arrangement*
   
2. You Love Me Forever – Merchant Band*
3. So Near – Vineyard UK* (link to loop used)
   
4. How He Loves – John Mark McMillan
5. Come Thou Fount – (use an arrangement similar to E-pop piano arrangement)

This week’s set was changed almost right up until service time. Things just weren’t falling into place. I spent a solid 4 hours searching for a particular sound I had in my head for Where You Go I Go (Brian & Jenn Johnson) song I was programming a sequence for and I just couldn’t find the right one. I wasn’t happy hearing the loop without that sound so I abandoned that and that kind of threw a monkey wrench into the set. But it ended up going really well and the band handled the last minute changes perfectly.

Part of Fred McKinnons’ Set List Sundays

Come Thou Fount is one of the greatest songs of God’s grace I’ve come across. It’s lyrics are challenging, thought provoking, honest, desperate, vulnerable, humbling and encouraging. I’ve probably listened to the E-Pop version about 100 times the last few months. I literally cry every time, it is gut wrenchingly sweet and full of truth. I wanted to do a little series on here breaking it down line by line. And what God speaks to me, convicts me on in each line. It’s always evolving and right when I think I’ve received a good glimpse of God’s grace, He goes deeper, His grace expands, deepens and I see God for who He is and me for who I am in ever clearing sight. The first line is this:

“Come thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace”

God led me to this scripture in John 1:16, “From the fullness of His grace we have received one blessing after another”. Through grace I have received continued blessings. This line challenges me to put into proper perspective my life, past, present and future. That everything good, every blessing has it’s origin in grace. From the breath of life to the birth of my children, God has extended abundant grace the depths of which I can’t comprehend but pray for God to reveal.

That in response to grace that my heart would be tuned to sing thy grace. God has created in me a new heart that thirsts for him. Out of the overflow and outpouring of my heart, my mouth would sing thy grace, how could it not. I can testify now that is my deepest desire, that my life would be a song of God’s grace. By His grace my heart be tuned, molded, formed that the outpouring of my life would be a song of grace, love and hope.

I love that this line demonstrates everything empowered by God. We the believer accomplished nothing here. God in his goodness gives us every blessing, then in continued grace tune’s our hearts that we may reflect that very grace. Stay tuned(no pun intended) for line 2 tomorrow.

A small group of us recently went to the Continuous Worship conference at Mars Hill Church in Seattle. I’ve read much of Mark Driscoll, subscribed to his podcast and I love what he’s doing so I was really excited about this conference. I knew very little of their worship music theology or style. I think I had heard one or 2 tracks that I thought were very strange but couldn’t quite remember why I thought so. I would be reminded why shortly.

They opened up the conference with their style of worship and it was such an interesting dichotomy of current, cutting edge music set to hymnals. I found myself loving the music, and really they play exactly the style of music that I love to write and love to play, but being lost in the words. Despite being raised in the church, I didn’t know hyms because I was raised in the Vineyard and we didn’t sing hymns. So I didn’t know really any of the lyrics and the things about hymns is there are 5 verses and none of them repeat. So I found it very tough to sing although I really wanted to. From the looks of it a lot of people were in the same position as I. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with what they played at all, they are powerful songs, I just didn’t know them. I’ve never attended a regular Sunday morning service at Mars Hill but I’d imagine the congregation doesn’t have trouble since they’ve heard the songs numerous times. For us non-hymn knowing visitors it was a challenge.

Since then I’ve downloaded a ton of their songs from their music RSS feed and the songs have really grown on me. I admire their creativity, their maturity in arrangement and how much they value theologically sound worship music. My taste doesn’t line up exactly by any means, it’s hit and miss for me, but that’s not unique at all. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone that I like every tune from(not even Jeff Buckley). One of my favorites is the arrangement of Come Thou Fount by E-Pop. The leader of E-Pop, by the way, is in a band called Barcelona who’s recent album is amazing. Checkout Come Thou Fount below:

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E-Pop: Come Thou Fount