The charismatic worship formula is pretty well defined and though we don’t follow it in many ways, we do follow it in at least one way…fast songs first. And truthfully this is always the hardest portion of the set list for me for a few reasons, but one major reason being, there just aren’t very many good up tempo worship songs. Most are either super churchy and cheesy or sound like a Kids Incorporated tune. So I have a very limited rotation on the up tempo songs and often it feels like I’m force fitting them into the set.

This week I just had enough of it and said I’m not force fitting anything. Instead I opened with a couple mid tempo songs, though both are high intensity (Burning Ones especially). I thought the transition from our opening instrumental/prayer into Where We Belong was the smoothest opening we’ve ever done. I thought the response was fantastic and God was praised and magnified from the get go. I’m not saying we will never play an up tempo song to open again, but I am saying I won’t force fit them again, so you’ll probably be hearing less of them.

LCC I’d love to hear your thoughts on how you felt it went. Comment publicly with your encouragement and file all complaints with my secretary and she’ll forward them to me.

1. Puritan prayer
2. Where We Belong – Hillsong (loop available)
3. Burning Ones – Jesus Culture (loop available)
4. My Soul Sings – Delirious (loop available)
5. The Solid Rock – Edward Mote (loop available)
6. Jesus Paid It All – Elvina Hall (loop available)

p.s. I don’t have a secretary

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.

Some of my favorite Sundays are those right after Encounter. This Sunday was no exception. We had twenty something people go through our Encounter, which is a single day packed with the gospel, centered around Christ and his work on the cross. The folks that went ran the spectrum of life, from those raised in the church but never knowing Jesus, to drug addicts off the street, to ex-cons, to people in ministry needing reminding of who they are serving and worshipping, you name it, we had it.

As we started worship if was evident of the work the Holy Spirit had done in these people’s lives. There was passionate worship of Jesus in every corner of the room. The unity in worship was just incredible and something I think our church has been growing in consistently over the past few months. Such a blessing to be part of and see. After our 4th song we had those who attended the Encounter come up and give a few testimonies.

Stories of drug addicts not just being set free, but made alive in Christ. Burned out leaders having the joy of their salvation restored, the lost coming to know Jesus. Those stories never get old and God never ceases to amaze me and what he’s able to do. We finished the worship set with “With Everything” and the church really erupted with praise. It was one of the more intense moments of worship I can remember. I’m so thankful for what Jesus is doing in our church and I pray that we’d continue to grow in the gospel and impact our community.

1. Jesus’ Name – Ryan Delmore
2. Burning Ones – Jesus Culture (loop available)
3. True Love – Phil Wickham (loop available)
4. None But Jesus – Hillsong (loop not yet available)
5. With Everything – Hillsong (loop available)

This post is part of The Worship Community’s Set List Sundays.

In our Sunday morning prayer, thankfulness was emphasized in a big way. Everyone went around and we just thanked God for everything he’s done in our lives. It was encouraging to hear, to be part of and to let our worship of Jesus being with a thankful heart. Too many times I come complaining, and if recent events in Haiti, or the battles with cancer in the church have shown me anything, it’s that I have nothing to complain about. And even if my trials were magnified, I still should rejoice and be thankful, thank you to Matt Chandler for continuing to be an incredible example of that.

I thought our worship set followed in that vein, especially “Live or No Longer Live” which declares, “rejoicing in all things we sing.” I thought the body was united in worship and entered in from the get go. I was really encouraged and though God was at work throughout the entire service. Band played great, seemed like a long time since we’ve all played together. My man Ish has lead a few weeks, my drummer was sick for a few weeks, I think my vocalist Kendra was out of town for a week. But we’re all back together now, one happy band family.

1. You Love Me Forever – Merchant Band (loop not yet available)
2. Skeleton Bones – John Mark McMillan (loop not yet available)
3. Live or No Longer Live – Kyle Campos (original)
   
4. Death In His Grave – John Mark McMillan (loop available)
5. Burning Ones – Jesus Culture (loop available)

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.

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.

If you read this blog with any regularity 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

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)

 Burning Ones by Jesus Culture (loop) [7:03m]: Download

Earlier I posted a video of a new song from Jesus Culture called “Burning Ones.” I really dug the vibe of the song and thought the melody was really cool. This past week I started evaluating it to see if we’d do it in service and step 1 of evaluation was writing down the lyrics. Verse 1 was kind of innocuous.

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.