Sunday Setlist Aug. 30th – “BEST” Ever!

So this week I was terribly busy prepping for leading worship at River and for our normally scheduled youth activities then we got the rest of the equipment for the FireStudio and wanted to install and set that up as well. SO CRAZY! I think most of my struggle came from wanting to do what I wanted to do for music on Sunday instead of shutting up and listening to the Spirit lead me because once I did that everything came together! Here’s how it went down:

Prelude:
True Love - Phil Wickham – E
Happy Day – Tim Hughes – C

Morning Music:
O, for 1,000 Tongues to Sing - Crowder – G
How He Loves – Crowder – A
I Love You Lord – ??? – D
Jesus Paid it All – Kristian Stanfill – A

Offertory: Your Name – Phil Wickham’s version with Paul Baloche – G

Communion: None But Jesus – Hillsong - C

Closing song:
In Christ Alone – Matt Papa – E

So…YEAH…that’s a lot of songs for us! But it was terribly fun. The team killed too! We just had electric, bass, drums, 2 backing vocals, and I swapped from acoustic to electric and back. The two backing vocals were students and I actually had picked None But Jesus for them to sing together for Communion and when we got to practice once said “OH, I LOVE that first acoustic song on there!” So I had them sing True Love as well It was awesome seeing these two girls take it on like that!

The next thing you might notice are keys. This past year not leading worship, I’ve really become aware of how a key can kill any idea of me singing on Sunday morning or promote me to really sing out. I also noticed that when I just show up to church, I haven’t warmed up or practiced or done anything to help promote my ability to sing THEREFORE when I lead I need to be uber-aware that I’m singing with a bunch of people just like that! So I dropped the keys for How he Loves, Jesus Paid it All, and In Christ Alone. I’ve got to say, I was pretty anxious about that decision and whether the songs would sound flat or dull but they didn’t and it proved to be a great decision because WOWZERS I heard people singing out!

Lastly, the theme of the morning was where God really showed up! We had a guest preacher this week and that’s always hairy because while my advice was to “pick songs on the name of Jesus and the transforming power of His name. And I’d really like Your Name done” that’s a real wide berth to operate under. However, the songs and the message were 1 huge arrow pointing towards Jesus and it was like we sat down side by side and handpicked all the songs together to highlight portions of his message. I guess we did by allowing the Holy Spirit to work us
I had 2 “themes” I was working: the love of Jesus showcased by 1,000 Tongues and How He Loves that transferred into a response song with I love You Lord and focused on the cross: Jesus Paid it All. What was ridiculous was how perfectly that set everything up and In Christ Alone was a great exclamation point for the day.

I’m still reeling on the morning and how it went but I’ve rambled long enough. More on that this afternoon.

As always check out the rest of the Sunday Setlists at Fred’s Blog Carnival!

Sunday Setlist Aug. 23rd – 3rd Guitarist!

It’s been like FOR-EV-VER since I did a Sunday Setlist but I only try to do them when I’m leading (which will be this weekend!) or in this case a special scenario where I get to play with one of my heroes! But first, the songs:

• Prelude – Amazing Grace (My chains are gone) instrumental
• Starter – Open the Eyes of My Heart
• Come Ye Sinners
• Your Grace is Enough
• Mighty to Save
• Amazing Grace (My chains are gone)
• Offering – Offering – Paul Baloche
• Communion – noodling
• Closing – My Hope is You

The second service an audible was called swapping the order:

• Come Ye Sinners
• Your Grace is Enough
• My Hope is You
• Mighty to Save
• Offering
• Communion
• Closing – Amazing Grace (My chains are gone)

Interestingly enough they both worked. The second though did close the service more in line with the message that morning.

So I might be using the term “hero” a bit loosely but Kevin Smith is a phenomenal musician (and you can buy his music here on iTunes) and who used to play in bands that I looked up to when I was wet behind the ears trying to do it in college. I end up finding a church that has his brother on drums (really a hero of mine! I <3 Bubba Fong!) and I’ve gotten the tremendous opportunity to play with his other brother on percussion and now finally with Kevin. So it was a fun morning simply with that happening, but also because I got to play 3rd guitarist and sing back up! I mean 3rd guitarist! That’s the best place to sit! Adding ambiance and thickness, there isn’t a whole lot of pressure b/c you could quite possibly not do anything and it not really be noticed but if you do play just right then it sets the place over the top with that added little bit of: hey what was that? I LOVE getting a third guitarist! When I lead it makes all the difference in the world for me and this time I got to be that guy for Kevin and our team.

So not a whole lot of special happening with the songs, all familiar ones but some cool stuff happened. Open the Eyes, I got to use the Phaser (set to stun of course.) We played a funky fresh version of Come Ye Sinners, I think it might have been in Dm? Your Grace was awesome b/c I again used the Phaser in the choruses for the “woh woh woh” thing happening and I got the lil lick in the prechorus breakdown. Mighty to Save just cries out for 3 guitars! Acoustic, the lil chimey thing, and the wah. I got the wah.

So thick weekend especially because we also had drums and percussion! Besides the fact that they were brothers and the percussionist knew how to be a percussionist with a drummer! Oh man, nothing worse than a percussionist who doesn’t know how to percussion with a drummer

AND worship happened! Kevin does a great job of leading people to worship and even getting off the mic to let them sing. It was a good morning. Thank you Lord for letting me be a part of it.

This coming week, I’m in the driver’s seat! So, Sunday Setlist will be back again! Make sure you check out everyone’s mornings with Fred’s incredible carnival at Sunday Setlists each and every week though!

It’s all about rhythm!

Call it what you like, I’m  musician so I’ll call it rhythm possibly even “groove!” I’ve noticed my life taking a different rhythm lately. Tonight was a huge example of that! For years the rhythm of my Thursdays were something like 10-12 hour days sticking around church all day because it was too much of a hassle to leave and go home and come back again for worship practice. Feeling spunky I might get a Smoothie around 5:15. Getting home around 9:30 or so I’d grab some left over dinner and eat on the sofa catching up with Project Runway and The Ultimate Fighter with Rae. It’s not something I thought about…it’s just what I did.

Well, tonight was the first time I did that in quite some time. I felt like I was dying on the way home! I was tired, cranky, hungry (I even had my Smoothie!), even disoriented (see crazy tweets!)

SO WHAT IS RHYTHM?!? You know it, even if you can’t describe it. It’s when you find yourself tapping your foot, bobbing your head, or jumping up and down. It’s a particular pattern of a beat or accent that recurs over time.

As with a song, our lives find a certain rhythm. Tonight’s irregular pulse in the rhythm I’ve found my evenings has had me notice a few things that have become rhythmic in my life that I am certainly grateful for:

• My new mornings: I’m trying to save some $$$ and am really using my own coffee maker instead of trucking to St. Arbucks so much! It’s given me some pep in the morning b/c I am certainly NOT a morning person!
• My new soundtrack: there is a sudden influx of some great music in my life but none more entertaining than my good friend David Loti’s new solo project Amalgam. Chloe asks for it every morning on the way to day care and has become special to the both of us singing along to his crazy songs!
• My Wednesday Men’s Small Group: It feels new only because I missed so much in the Summer because of camps. This group is the source of my sanity and an audible voice of God’s wisdom speaking into my life each week by some great men!
• My new attitude: Rae says I must be man-strating because I’m in this crazy cleaning craze! Cleaning the house, my desk, and my office at church! It’s nuts! Sounds silly but I’ve even been cleaning up around here! (Notice the “Under Construction” sign above?) My Google Reader is streamlined and working insanely well!

I’m sure there are others. This has been a great exercise to take note of what’s going on around me. I’m looking forward to a new one that Rae and I will be tackling with Mud next month in reading through the New Testament in September!

What about you?

Purge Update

I must say: this new system of using Google Reader is far superior than my previous one! Tada:

I’ve been able to keep my Locals and Red folders under 20 unread posts a day! That’s awesome. And some of those 12 are posts I’ve starred and kept unread so I’m actually even further ahead than that. This has been SO much better than keeping them in folders by their styles or categories. Using order of importance, the blogs that I’m most interested in and people I’m in the most community with get read nearly every day (so far this week! Ha.)

NOW the downside of this system is that gaping 183 in the Green folder. Those I’m not the most in community with are getting left behind. I want to take an evening and truly purge that folder by either adding them to another folder or deleting them all together.

Do you have a system? Am I anal?

Purge Strategy Session #2

Quick update on Session #1 is that it’s going TREMENDOUSLY WELL! Today I had more free time on my hands that a typical Tuesday but it was great buzzing straight in my Red (high priority) folder and knocking them out this morning and then Yellow for lunch and sit down with the rest when I got home and had time to meander around! I think this new system is really going to work!

Session #2 was going through my Twitter @’s or Mentions and adding everyone who I’m in contact with to my blogroll. Fortunately, it wasn’t that many more but I realized I had been missing some of you. You went straight to Red! It’s my hope to have overlapping circles of community so that they all intercede and work with one another instead of against one another. It would be like trying to do music, do youth, do church, do social outings all with completely separate sets of friends all while trying to be a Dad and a husband! Crazy!

The final stage of Session #2 is compiling my Twitter feed as I did my Google Reader…only I’m stuck! I can’t decide between Seesmic and TweetDeck. Someone had tipped me off to HootSuite and the video and interface are sweet but they’re web based and I’m not thinking that’s going to work the best for me. I like the desktop interface of the previous 2. I suppose I just can’t decide between Userlists or Columns.

HELP! Which do you use? Seesmic or TweetDeck?

Purge Strategy Session #1

For a desperate attempt to get me up and blogging again I’m taking my social networks by storm starting with my Google Reader!
Previously I had tried to create some specific folders to categorize all of you in. That failed and many of you ended up unfoldered. GReader now looks like this:

It’s pretty self explanatory but in case you need help:
Local – All my locals blogging
Red – STOP and read ASAP
Yellow – Read these next
Green – If I have time I’ll get to you. I also put people I’m not really sure why I’m following in here as well. If I don’t recognize you this week then…buh-bye, otherwise you’re golden…literally get it! Haha.
Church News – Church blogs or those pertaining specifically to doing church.
Entertainment News – Specific entertainment blogs

So that’s how I went this time around.

Next comes Twitter with similar categories in Tweet Deck.

Then Facebook.

Finally this here blog!

But this does mean…I’M BACK people!