This blog examines, reviews and discusses how worship is being lived out in culture and in the church. We tackle everything from songwriting techniques in corporate worship, to interviewing worship leaders and pastors, to reviewing the last big rock concert.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Skeleton Bones – John Mark McMillan (loop not yet available)
I’ve been reading Bob Kauflin’s book, “Worship Matters“, and just devouring it. If you are a worship leader and have not read this book, get it, it’s a must read. It challenges me on so many levels and does a great job of pointing to Jesus in all things. This past week I read the chapter on Holy Spirit empowered worship. I was really convicted of my reliance upon my preparation and whatever amount of skill I possess as the main “empowerment” of Sunday worship and at a heart level I had to repent of not having a sense of desperation for the Holy Spirit every week. Though I might have professed differently, I think my mind needed correction.
One thing Bob said that had me absolutely wrecked was
“If the Spirit stopped empowering your worship would anyone notice? Would you?”
I take very seriously what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 13:5 for us to “examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith.” So I had to think long and hard about this and really examine my heart, my actions, my thought process. This led to some really powerful and fruitful prayer time and I’m so thankful for it. Our practice, preparation and ability are important things, but are not most important, they aren’t the power in our worship. I need to make sure I have a desperate reliance upon the Holy Spirit always and certainly on Sundays. This may seem obvious and that’s really the problem. Because it’s so obvious and professed so often I started assuming that presence instead of praying desperately for it in my heart, and relying on it in practice.
This week my regular drummer was out of town and Jorge Gutierrez stepped in and played incredibly well. I’m blessed to have such talented people around me. Thanks Jorge!
My band has been enjoying a few months of really problem free playing. We’ve been playing well which is great, but we’ve also had no major and very few minor mishaps. The streak was broken 2 weeks ago when I showed up to find my in ear monitors were gone. Then this last Sunday my drummer’s snare broke a few moments before the set started. The string that holds the snare strainer to the bottom of the snare snapped. Unfortunately with no spare snare in the house it was a mad dash to jimmy rig something up.
I stalled as long as I could, then we prayed and just agreed as a congregation that we’d worship God with everything we had with no instruments if that’s what it took. So I was prepared, at least mentally, at the end of that prayer to just go acoustic and scrap the set. In fact I was almost looking forward to it, but my man Jon Utter has some crazy McGyver skills and got it together just in time.
It really inspired me though to get an all acoustic set thrown in the rotation here soon. I think it would really be beneficial from multiple angles. First it would be refreshing from a creativity stand point, make sure our ears aren’t tired of the same stuff. Second it would be a great demonstration of something we preach that we believe and that’s it doesn’t matter what style of music we play, God get’s glory and worship through it all. Third, it’s a great challenge to the body having them coming to expect one thing and get another, great opportunity for us to grow. So stay tuned…it will happen.
I’ve written previously at how brilliant this song is and how more churches should be doing this song. The bridge for this song is one of the most powerful portions of song I’ve sung, very difficult to get through composed.
He has cheated hell and seated
Us above the fall
In desperate place He paid our wages
One time once and for all
That bridge was the main reason I wanted to do a loop for this. I felt like that part could and should get huge. So the loop is really simple for most of it, just has an organ, some claps, little kick, shaker, cello, but then ramps up on the tag. I spent quite a while getting the proper back and forth shaker action instead of just the single forward action that pretty much all shaker samples use. I know it’s probably not all that impressive to anyone but I was really happy with the end result for the shaker.
You’ll notice my changes in the bridge section and you may also noticed I slowed it down. I like giving the verses a little more room so people don’t get lost in the lyrics.
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.
Our church is coming off 3 weeks of really a shift in mindset, heart and attitude in worship. God is moving in the body in many ways and it’s all being worked together for His glory. Our gospel communities are really taking hold, people are gathering around the gospel in diverse ways, diverse places with diverse groups and the relationships growing out of that are incredible. We’re in the middle of a brutal series called “Open Heart Surgery” that is attacking our idols and you can audibly and visibly see the impact of the truth spoken during the sermon. We have a lot of new people coming in, we have our membership in place, we’re in the middle of a financial shakeup(that’s good) and through it all the worship has been amazing!
This week we did John Mark McMillan’s “Death In His Grave” for our communion song. We did this song on Easter this year but hadn’t done it since. It is one of my favorite worship songs full stop, no qualifier needed. I could barely make it through the song and the congregation really grabbed hold of it. If you haven’t heard it, make sure to get it, the beautiful truth sung is just incredible. God is good, what a week.
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