Where music, culture and worship meet.

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.

July 14 2009

John Wimber’s worship theology: simply Christ centered

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johnwimberI was literally born and raised in the Vineyard, my theology and love of Christ was largely formed by John Wimber, taught and applied through my dad. I didn’t know it as a boy but so much of who John was, believed and lived for was being instilled in my spirit. For the first 23 years of my life I was being discipled in the Vineyard as a son, then a worship leader’s son, then later a pastor’s son, then later as a worship leader myself.

And then my mom drops in my lap this book called “Thoughts on Worship” written by a collection of Vineyard worship leaders, edited by John Wimber with the first couple chapters written by John as well. After reading those first chapters written by John I’ve come to realize that much of who John Wimber was, or rather what he was believed to be, was formed by his critics and by the outliers in the Vineyard rather than himself, his theology, leadership and teaching. My heart felt glad reading the overflow of John’s heart and how Christ centered he was. I want to highlight a few of the portions here and examine them briefly.

John sets out foundationally that we worship the Father, through the Son by the Holy Spirit. John quotes from John 4:23 early on and uses it to clarify this foundation of worship:

Jesus was saying worship must be in keeping with God’s nature, which is spirit, and it must be rooted in truth, which is found in Christ.

A simple, yet profound and often missed exegesis of a scripture so crucial to our worship. John hammers home the point that our worship is “Christ centered” and our songs are both “to him and about him.” As his exegesis continues on this point John writes about deeply intimate worship and how our “expression in worship may be more exuberant and free” than we are comfortable with. But instead of diving into the biblical postures of worship, John points to the bigger heart issue.

Worship is not about personality, temperament, personal limitations, church background, or comfort. It is about God. We are called to do it for his benefit, not ours. Yet the irony is that we do indeed greatly benefit when we give ourselves to worshipping God.

I would substitute “glory” for “benefit” in the above portion, because “benefit” makes it seem as if God can be made better, or improved in some sense by worship and of course that’s not the case, God is complete, whole and perfect. But as John continues he makes it clear that’s not what he’s trying to say either.

This is not some kind of ego trip because poor old God has a bad self-image. He doesn’t need to be buttered up by the loving things we say.

John continues on in how “our praises enthrone God” and “as we acknowledge the greatness of God and His supreme position over all creation, we become aware of our own limitations.” In short the better view of God we get the more we realize how bad off we are and just how much we need Jesus. This truly is at the heart of the gospel becoming bigger and bigger to us as our intimacy with Christ grows.

Now John Wimber does something that might surprise some of you, he wraps up his “essence of worship” by quoting J.I. Packer. All my reformed brothers are now standing and clapping at their desks as they read this.

J.I. Packer says, “Worship in the Bible involves praising him for what He is, thanking him for what He has done, and desiring him to give Himself more glory by further acts of mercy, judgment and power, and trusting in him for our concerns for our own and other’ future well being.”

Dr. Packer has grasped the true essence of worship. As we interact with God, we will find ourselves more and more satisfied in him and less and less satisfied with the things that have attracted or enticed us.

Doesn’t the second paragraph sound a lot like John Piper’s Desiring God? I must admit I wasn’t expecting this, but loved reading it. John makes it clear what the heart and true essence of worship is, how it must be Christ centered, how expression comes from the overflow of the heart, how worship is for God’s glory not ours and how God is not a weak, wimpy God with a bad self image that we must prop up with praise. To me this should now be read as a pastoral letter from John to the church, admonishing them and reminding them of the truth. I don’t mean the Vineyard specifically because I’m no longer in it and I don’t pretend to know what is happening in it, but for the broader church. This strikes at the heart of Christ-less worship and idolatry in music.

But this should also be read as an encouragement in intimacy with Christ in worship and how that is done biblically in spirit and truth. Where our passion should be and what that ends up looking like in corporate worship, namely not a dry, emotionless, comfortable experience.

Much more could be said here, but I’d rather ask you guys what you think. Has any of this been eye opening as to who John Wimber was as a pastor? Does this surprise an of you that these texts came from the founder of the Vineyard? Question for the Vineyard guys, 13yrs after this was written, do you still see this as foundational truth in your worship theology or have other things replaced it?

June 24 2009

Sunday Set List: “Oh the sound of snapping strings”

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sundaysetlist

This past Sunday I accomplished 2 things I’ve never done before. I broke 2 strings on 2 different guitars and one of the strings I broke was the D string…on an acoustic! That’s hard to do. I felt sick when I woke up that morning and I knew it was going to be a struggle, I prayed for it not to be, but I knew I was going to have to push through. In fact it reminded me of something one of my old pastors used to tell me.

95% of the Christian walk is digging and fighting in the trenches. Maybe 5% of it is mountain top experiences.

In this worship trench in the middle of “So Near” I snapped a string on my electric which had a 2 pronged effect. Screwing up the back half of So Near and causing me to think what song I was going to play next instead of what was planned. We were planning on doing an electrified remix of Kevin Prosch’s “So Come“, but that wasn’t going to work on my backup guitar which was an acoustic. (note to self, keep an electric backup) So I decided to do “Everlasting God” by New Life acoustically last.

That actually went well and I walked off stage feeling like we weathered the storm. Sure it wasn’t the smoothest of set, but we managed to get through it. At the end of the sermon my pastor asked me to play “How He Loves” by John Mark McMillan. Wouldn’t you know it, in the middle of that song I broke the D string(the D string!) on the acoustic. 2 strings, 2 guitars, 2 awkward recoveries.

I’ve become pretty good at ripping off the snapped string and carrying on, but when you are the only guitarist, there’s no hiding being out of tune once a string snaps. I rarely break strings, never broken 2 in one set and never a D string. I figure I should be good for a long time for string breakage.

  1. You Love Me ForeverMerchant Band (loop not yet available)
  2. Dress Us UpJohn Mark McMillan
  3. Gloria 34Taylor Sorensen (loop available)
  4. So NearVineyard UK (loop available)
  5. Everlasting GodNew Life (loop available)
  6. How He LovesJohn Mark McMillan (end of service)

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

March 30 2009

Sunday Set List: “In spite of the band”

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Train wreckYesterday was rough from a music point of view. If you’ve read my blog for any length of time you know I’m pretty critical of myself and the music. Well you didn’t need to be very critical to know there were some major problems. So much so that I really wasn’t looking forward to this post at all and was considering skipping it. In short we just had problems hearing the click and our time was all over the place which led to some meltdowns. There’s several things we need to fix to make sure this never happens again and it’s on top of my priority list for this week to fix. Need to turn down the suck asap.

So as we walked off stage I’m feeling really frustrated and wishing we could just have a do-over. I take my 10 minutes to drink some water, cool down a bit and try and get re-focused back on service. I walk back into the sanctuary and Pastor Aaron is preaching on Jesus, who Jesus is, who he is not and who we worship him as. Straight up gospel. One thing you have to understand is we have a lot of new Christians and then some churched folks and I’m not sure which one of those groups has heard less about Jesus or who has a more messed up Christology.

It rocked people to the core and as I walked up at the end to play Lamb of God for the alter call, I was humbled more so than I can remember. People are coming up to give their lives to Jesus and I realize how small I am and how unimportant my “gift” is to the kingdom. And it was GREAT! It was less of me more of you Jesus, played out in front of me. I was crying in the back of the stage because it was almost like I tried my best to screw things up and God showed so much grace that he moved powerfully despite my best efforts.

So worship leaders remember that when you’re thinking that one magic ministry song is really going to usher in the spirit. We don’t boss the spirit around by playing sweet music. Don’t get me wrong, let’s play good music, nobody wants to hear crap…but let’s not fool ourselves into thinking music mediates the presence of God, cause I just saw that it surely doesn’t.

  1. The World Can’t Take It AwayRyan Delmore
  2. Skeleton BonesJohn Mark McMillan (loop not yet available)
  3. How I LiveKyle Campos (loop available)
  4. So NearVineyard UK (loop available)
  5. With EverythingHillsong (loop available)
  6. Lamb of GodTwila Paris / closer to Sarah Reeves arrangement (end of service)

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

March 06 2009

Review: Ryan Delmore “The Spirit, the Water and the Blood”

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This album has been out for a few months and I’m glad I’ve waited to review until I was really able to dig into it. I’ve known about Ryan for many years, we were both leading worship in the Vineyard in our youth, Ryan was about an hour north of me in the 5 Cities area on the coast of California. We shared many of the same friends but our paths never crossed until recently when I sat down to interview him upon the release of this album.

His music, voice, songwriting has all matured so much from The Burn days. I can’t tell you how blown away I am by this album. Songs like Jesus Name, Sing Like Mary Sang and The World Can’t Take It Away immediately grab you, you don’t need any more listens than 1 to love. Then songs like Sacred, True Religion and Love of God grow in your heart on each listen, the depth to these songs deserves and calls for repeated listens.

Ryan has all the sensibility of Tom Waits and Petty with the grit and country hooks of Ryan Adams. The absolute worst thing about much of the Christian contemporary music is the cheap, cheesy melody hooks. You won’t find any of those here. The richness and sincerity of these songs and production can’t help but make you feel like you just wandered into a basement worship session to hear Ryan’s love songs to Jesus.

If you’re wondering how many of these could be done in church, I pretty much plan on doing every one of them, I’ve never said or done that with any other album. This truly is one of the greatest worship albums I’ve heard. Period. If you don’t like alt-country-folk-rock and are looking for another Hillsong album, well move along, but if you love some twang and soul then by all means this is the album for you. You can and should buy the entire album at Vineyard Music or on iTunes.

If you want to hear Ryan in the flesh, he’s playing with my band at Anthropology Men’s Conference at Life Connection Church this weekend, starting tonight. Get there!

January 19 2009

Sunday Set List – “Cardinals worship day”

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Much of the congregation was worshiping at the foot of the Cardinals altar and didn’t make it to church. Jesus faced some tough competition for worship and lost out on some due praise. I kid I kid…no really…just kidding….no I’m serious…joke…not really. I’m not a football guy so I wasn’t even aware there was a big game. Kurt Warner can sure throw the ball…but can he save your soul? Again just joking…not really…totally kidding…nope.

My cold is getting worse, I feel like I’ve been sick for a month. We had to shuffle some songs because while a 50% accuracy is an incredible shooting % in basketball, it’s a really awful % of notes missed vocally. Thanks to Kendra who basically led the set and sounded great as usual.

  1. We Cry OutKim Walker (loop available)
  2. Sweetly BrokenJeremy Riddle (linked to arrangement that’s closer to ours)
  3. So NearVineyard UK (loop available)
  4. Come Thou Fount
  5. Everlasting GodNew Life (loop not yet available)

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

December 28 2008

Sunday Set List: “Vacations and Weariness is upon us”

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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 OutBrian Johnson/Kim Walker (loop available)
  2. Sing (Or the Rocks Will Get To)Taylor Sorensen
  3. Ready NowDesperation Band (loop available)
  4. So NearVineyard UK (loop available)
  5. Where You Go I’ll GoBrian and Jenn Johnson (loop available)

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

December 01 2008

Sunday Set List: “Everyone is turkified”

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Service this week seemed like there was a small carbon monoxide leak in the building. Not enough to injure or kill, just enough to cause people to look asleep while awake. Lots of folks were still on vacation or in a sleeping coma from over eating. We were disjointed as a band, no big mistakes or anything, but we had some monitoring issues that knocked us a bit and we never seemed to get into a groove.

Days like today I’m not sure what to think other than I don’t have a good feeling about how it went. The sermon was fantastic, so I’m excited about that. So I guess it was just worship that was rough. Here was the set, imagine it going well for me would ya?

  1. Salvation Is HereHillsong United (loop used, not yet available)
  2. Dress UpJohn Mark McMillan
  3. EverythingTim Hughes (loop available)
  4. So NearVineyard UK (loop available)
  5. Where You Go I’ll GoBrian and Jenn Johnson (loop available)

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

October 20 2008

Chris Lizotte Interview Wrap-Up (All 3 Videos)

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I’d like to thank Chris Lizotte for taking time out of his day to talk with me. Chris’ music as he was starting out in the Vineyard gave this young man hope that there could actually be cool Christian music. Years later he’s still doing his thing, making great music and pastoring leaders to further the kingdom. I admire the humility, love and kindness Chris walks in and exudes. Thanks again Chris.

Folks remember to stay tuned and subscribe to the feed to keep up to date on the availability of Chris new album, Signal Hill Revival.

Part 1

Chris talks about how he met Jesus and how he ended up getting plugged into the church leading worship. Chris also discusses the leaders and pastors that were instrumental in shaping and discipling him as a young believer. Chris has a new album coming out in November called “Signal Hill Revival” and in part 2 we discuss the progress and what to expect from the album.

Part 2

We discuss the making of Chris’ upcoming album “Signal Hill Revival”. Chris talks about what’s behind the songs, some special guest appearances and his hope that his kids will appreciate the work.

Part 3

Chris talks about his role as worship pastor, what he finds most challenging about being a worship pastor and describes his most memorable worship experience with Kevin Prosch. Chris also bravely faces the ORS question of “What’s Next?”

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