Currently I’m in day 2 of my week long vacation and as I look back 2 days ago, from way out west on the beach of Santa Barbara, I see God’s goodness, grace and power in the desert of Phoenix more clearly. The closer I am it seems to what God’s doing in my family, friends, church, city, the harder it is to see God’s grace and progression of his will. Whether that be the persistent work of the Holy Spirit in people’s lives as they are made more into the image of Christ, or the unifying work of the Spirit in our church body, or the provision, or the healing, etc, etc…

When I’m in the middle of it I find it hard to step aside and just be thankful for what God is doing, instead I’m usually focused on the work that lies ahead to move forward. Some combination of the two is where I’d like to be and not so dang fixated on the work, but able to rest in the goodness and just enjoy the benefits of being in Christ.

What does this have to do with Sunday’s set? Well as I reflected Sunday night on the set my mind of course goes straight to where we need to improve, the songs I need to finish writing, the equipment we need, the recording time, yada yada yada. Now I’m just thankful for what God did Sunday, his goodness in allowing us to be part of what He’s doing in Phoenix through LCC, and the tremendously gifted musicians he’s brought to LCC. As I’m on vacation, our other worship band “Green House” will be leading worship this upcoming Sunday and I know they’ll do an incredible job. Churches much larger than ours would kill to have the musicians we have. None of them are paid(including me), they come and serve because they are on mission with us and I’m just humbled and thankful for our church body, it’s leaders and servants. Here’s what we played.

1. Puritan Prayer – “God the Source of All Good”
2. Prayer for Faith – Joe Day
3. God of This City – Bluetree (loop available)
4. We Will Run – Gungor
5. Nothing But the Blood – Page CXVI
6. Death In His Grave – John Mark McMillan (loop available)

Wow, what an adventure it was right up until start time. One of those weeks where you just have to laugh at how many curve balls were being thrown our way. God brought us through though and service went on as God had planned and it was a tremendous blessing to be part of.

This week’s set was one of the stranger sets I’ve put together. God was working a strange mix of songs in my heart through this week but at the center of it all was Nothing But the Blood (hymn not Redman). I had it earmarked for our series through Galatians but for whatever reasons the timing never felt right until now. We played a version similar to Page CXVI’s incredible arrangement with some instrumental changes. All through the week the chorus had just been wrecking me:

How precious is the flow
That makes me white as snow
No other fount I know
Nothing but the blood of Jesus

The line “No other fount I know” was highlighted in my spirit and caused me to reflect on my life in what other hopes I’ve had that have faded and died. And I was faced with the loving reality, that I know no other savior, no other hope for the cleansing of my soul. My heart was filled with so much gratitude and thankfulness as I remembered my record of sins, knowing that Jesus did not.

1. Opening puritan prayer / instrumental
2. Dress Us Up – John Mark McMillan
3. I Am A Temple – John Mark McMillan
4. We Will Run – Gungor
5. Nothing But the Blood – Robert Lowry / Page CXVI arrangement
6. Fire Fall Down – Hillsong United

UPDATE: Re-published today for the re-release

I’ve been listening to The Medicine for a couple weeks solid. I don’t like doing first impression reviews because most of the time my favorite songs end up being those that took a while to grow on me. My ears start hearing things on the 10th listen that I didn’t hear the 9 times previous. So what did I hear?

The album starts off with Reckoning Day and I’m blown away by John Mark’s vocals. His voice sounds better than I’ve ever heard it, not only in presence but tonally I think his voice is just spot on. You can also hear exactly what John Mark was talking about in the natural reverb recording techniques they were experimenting with. The warmth of the verb is a tone carried throughout the album and really ties each song together and I think creates a great atmosphere for the heart of the album which is a story resurrection.

John Mark tells the story of Christ’ resurrection with intense language and vivid imagery, fitting for the story that’s told. This is demonstrated in songs like Skeleton Bones,

Skeleton bones stand at the sound of eternity on the lips of the found
Graves stones roll to the rhythm of the sound of you
Skeleton bones stand at the sound of eternity on the lips of the found
Yeah so separate those doors and let the sun of resurrection in

One of the greatest songs on the album, and one I can’t wait to do on Easter, is Death In His Grave. The imagery and phrasing used in that song is so incredibly moving, the chorus says:

On Friday a thief, on Sunday a King, laid down in grief
But awoke with the keys, of hell on that day
The first born of the slain
The Man Jesus Christ laid death in his grave

The resurrection theme not only deals with the historic moment but also addresses our own personal death to sin and resurrection in Christ as shown in songs like Carbon Ribs, Dress Us Up, Out of the Ground and Ten Thousand. In our previous interview I asked John Mark if there were any he could see being used in corporate worship, and I think there are quite a few here that will be used. Dress Us Up is one that jumps out as something an entire congregation could get behind and sing without trouble. The song proclaims the power of God’s love over death.

Dress us up in the blood of a son
Who opened up His veins so that we would overcome
Hell and the grave and the power of his love
After 3 dark days he showed us how it’s done
and he still does

I don’t think there can be any question this is John Mark’s finest work. This is certainly a step forward musically, lyrically and in his songwriting. The songwriting still has the exposed emotions John Mark is known for but this record comes across as a more matured presentation, not quite as raw as before. It’s truly a storyteller album and the story is captivating and beautiful. Go buy this album now!

originally posted 10/7/08

It’s been a long time since I’ve done a set list post. I thought they were getting a bit monotonous and dry, so I needed a break. I’ve been hearing from folks(inside our church) that they really want to know more about the songs we play so I’m gonna get back to posting the set lists here.

This Sunday was such a beautiful display of God’s goodness and providence. God brought together things that made it seem like we had a lot of things planned well ahead that we didn’t. Pastor Aaron taught on regeneration and gospel freedom as part of our series on Galatians and it just wrecked the place. I was talking with a few people after service and it’s so wonderful to hear a common work being done in the church’s heart. I love when the body is moving together. This series has matured us in the gospel as a body so much and I’m so thankful for it.

I planned to debut a new song by Gungor called “We Will Run” that’s been on deck for quite some time now. I wasn’t aware of the specific of the message but it became clear that this was indeed God’s timing for this song. It became an anthem for the day that supported so well what the Spirit was doing through the preaching. The lyrics to that song were just so spot on.

Create in me a clean heart, For I have turned away from You
Save us from our ways, Oh God, oh God, For we have turned our face from You
Lord have mercy

We will run to you, we will run to you
Turning from our sin we return to you
Father heal your world, make all things new, make all things new

Your Love and mercy build us, shape us
Break and then re-create us now
Lord have mercy

Oh, bring us back to You

We’ve also been opening our sets/services differently. Instead of the normal opening prayer and go into song 1, we’ve been opening up instrumentally and then having a puritan prayer read in concert with the instrumental. It’s not just a dry read over instrumentation but we try and build the tension and crescendo in concert with the prayer. We got the idea from a recent A29 pastors meeting and it’s been awesome! Here’s the full set list.

1. How I Live – Kyle Campos
2. The World Can’t Take it Away – Ryan Delmore
3. We Will Run – Gungor
4. Gloria 34 – Taylor Sorensen (loop available)
5. How He Loves – John Mark McMillan

Recently I had the good pleasure of interviewing James Duke (guitar player for John Mark McMillan) as well as review his new release from his new project called “All the Bright Lights.” That record is largely instrumental and is a collection of incredible guitar tones and textures. So when I saw a blog post from James discussing how he gets his tones, it got my attention.

James gives a lot of great advice in his post and I encourage you to read the entire post, but he opens up the post with some great general advice to guitar players.

“I have gotten a lot of emails lately asking for advice about how to get good guitar sounds. A lot of times I get asked something like “I have all the same stuff as you but i’m not getting the same sound for some reason”. I try to tell them , nicely, that they can buy everything I have, but it’s not going to make them sound like me. If that was the case I would have all of The Edge’s gear.  And all of Jimmy Page’s gear. and I would have bought the same microphone as Bono…

I can play through anything and still sound like me.  I can play through a line 6 spyder amp and still sound like me.  I don’t enjoy that, mainly because a modeling amp just doesn’t respond the way a nice tube amp does. But I can make it work.”

John Mark McMillan has just released his first single, Skeleton Bones, off his forthcoming album re-release(+ some new tunes) of The Medicine. Also packaged for free with the single is a video of a live performance of How He Loves. The new arrangement to How He Loves is really incredible, never sounded better. The song has been covered by a lot of people but they pale in comparison to John Mark’s now new original version.

As of this moment Skeleton Bones is within a few downloads of being #1 on iTunes Christian/Gospel charts, so let’s get him to #1 already!

The people are growing restless, dare I say angry that John Mark’s stuff has been taken down from Amazon and iTunes. Please everyone lay down your pitchforks, I just spoke with John Mark and here’s the deal.

• singles will be released in March and May
• Album + bonus tracks available July 6th

He’s on a new label (Integrity) and on tour now so go catch a show and buy one his vinyls. And while you’re at it, buy one for me and send it to me…pretty please. Keep up to date with his blog, website and twitter. And of course stay tuned here for all your JMM breaking news.