Mark Rodriguez

Preparing a Worship Set Part 2

2009-10-04T23:29:13-04:00

In my last post I stated the obvious you need songs. Now in this post I'll discuss the criteria. We are experiencing a great move of God as it pertains to worship music. Right now there are so many bands and worship leaders writing amazing anthems for churches across the world. Chris Tomlin, David Crowder, The Desperation Band, Charlie Hall, Matt Redman, Brenton Brown, and of course how can we forget Hillsong just to name a few. But how does a worship leader pick songs that work for the church that God has called them to lead. How do you write songs that speak to hearts in your congregation. Here's my list:

Pick songs that are easy to sing. A lot of amazing musicians/worship leaders many times write songs or choose to play songs in their church that are fun or musically challenging, but if people can not follow you, you are not leading worship you're just performing a song.
Pick songs you can pull off. I know this is going to make some people uncomfortable but you don't have to be an amazing musician or have a great band to be a great worship leader. When I first started leading worship at Calvary Fellowship I only knew how to play 4 chords. So I picked songs that I was able to play well. In my early years the capo was my best friend. Then as the team began to grow. I continued with this same philosophy. I picked songs that my drummer could play well, songs the guitar player was able to play well. Today I'm blessed with professional musicians that can play whatever I ask them to play. However this rule is still one that we use every single week. This Sunday the youth band lead worship in our adult service. Of all the songs that they know I choose 4 that I knew they could play skillfully and with the least amount of pressure. I knew that the mere fact that they would be on the big stage with the lights, Pastor Bob listening back stage and the entire church looking up at them was enough pressure.
Pick songs that speak the language of your congregation. I love a good hymn. And from time to time I've tried incorporating them to what we do at CF. But the truth is this, the type of people that we are reaching at our church have no Church background. While a lot of these songs bring back memories to me and lead me to a higher state of worship, they leave the majority of our church gazing at us wondering what language we're singing in. As a worship Pastor my #1 responsibility is not to teach people how to speak in Old English or to force them to bring a dictionary to church, but to use the 20 minutes that I have to lead people into the presence of God.

These are the top 3 things I look at when I'm adding songs to our repertoire. Why? Because If I don't I will be a distraction. I want to point people to God. I don't want people to think wow this band is great but I can't sing this song. I don't want people to think man they tried real hard but that song didn't sound good. I don't want people to say what do those words mean?

Bizzaro Sunday at Calvary Fellowship

2009-06-29T19:59:34-04:00

Bob and I are switching rolls this weekend. I'll be teaching the service and he'll be leading worship. Neither of us are rookies though... I taught my first sermon to an adult congregation when I was 12 years old and have been teaching ever since and Bob was part of 2 very successful rock bands (watch one of his music videos here) and was Calvary Fellowship's first worship leader. It's going to be an amazing service! Don't miss it... Invite some friends This is calvary's website!

Preparing a Worship Set Part 1

2009-06-23T08:35:29-04:00

At Calvary Fellowship our services are roughly 65 minutes long and on a typical Sunday we play 4 songs. I get emails and calls on a regular basis from worship leaders asking me what songs are you doing, why don't you use these songs, and how do you prepare your worship set. So here goes:

The first thing you need to prepare a worship set is obvious songs so here are a few of the songs on the CF worship team's rotation:

HIllsong United:

You Deserve

Salvation is Here

Mighty to Save

Evermore

King of All Days

Look to You

The Time Has Come

From the Inside Out

Where the Love Last Forever

Break Free

Always

Desert Song

Desperation Band

Ready Now

Endlessly

Promises

Light of Salvation

Chasing

Passion Peeps

Sing, Sing, Sing

You Lifted Me Out

How Great is Our God

Holy is the Lord

Indescribable

Hosanna

Marvelous Light

Salvation Is Here

Sing to the King

Your Grace is Enough

Center

Our Love is Loud

You Are My Joy

Made to Worship

Mute Math's Version

Love Song

CF Originals

All I Need is You

Release Me

In PART 2 I will cover the criteria that songs need to have to make the cut.

The New Macbook Pro 17"

2009-06-17T16:29:07-04:00

My New 17" MacBoo Pro is friken Amazing... love the new design WOW...

2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor

4GB memory

500GB 5400-rpm hard drive

NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT graphics processor with 512MB GDDR3 memory

NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor

I've been a faithful apple "believer" before it was cool...

Now I'm so glad I never gave up on the brand...

New Song: King of All Days

2009-06-15T12:30:49-04:00

This song is Rocking My world! We Introduced it to the congregation on Sunday and it was Incredible.

King of All Days

By: Hillsong United

In your surrender
As You lay down Your life
You took up a sinners cross
And your life rescued mine

In this redemption
Love and mercy display
And lifted my eyes to see
That your truth never fails

Lord of the heavens
King of all days
Without You my world slips away
Redeemed by your mercy
Consumed by your grace
Now I live for You

[CHORUS]
I'm found in the arms of love
For your love it has saved my soul
I'll run to your arms of love
Your life's gonna lead me home

Glorious savior
In your light I am free
If things of this world will fail
Still you are all that I need

Lord of the heavens
King of all days
Without You my world slips away
Redeemed by your mercy
Consumed by your grace
Now I live for You

[CHORUS] x 2

[BRIDGE]
And at your cross
I lay my burdens
At your feet
Where your love covers
All I've done
Now I walk with you lord

[CHORUS] x 2

iPhone 2.0 Problems

2008-07-15T22:04:05-04:00

Is it only me, or did Apple not work out all the kinks b4 they released the 2.0 update. I guess this next thought can be across the board. U can have an amazing product, but if u release it prematurly it makes u appear foolish. And u piss a lot of people off along the way.

Graphic of the Week

2008-06-13T21:50:45-04:00

Here are some signs that we designed for the hall in the theater leading up to our children's sign-in table. At CF part of our philosophy is you can never have too much signage.

Micro Blogging

2008-06-13T10:44:24-04:00

I had breakfast with my wife this morning and I confessed to her that I've been twittering... She's like so now you're micro blogging... She's so funny sometimes... It sux that I was the butt of her joke. It's awesome that after being together for almost 14 years (dated for 8 married for 5 1/2) we can still make each other laugh, and enjoy some coffee in the morning.

I love my boy

2008-06-03T16:21:43-04:00

This is Kaleb in his Elmo towel...

Please Don't Do This At Home

2008-05-31T23:18:31-04:00

I went to one of my friend's wedding today. It was awesome to see 2 great people get married. The ceremony was amazing. I was taking notes cuz I'm marrying one of my best buddies in a few weeks, and Bob does the best wedding talk I've ever heard... (And I'm not kissing up!)

But here was the most shocking part of the entire night. I went to my car for a sec during the reception and check out the sign i saw in the parking lot.

THIS IS THE WORST THING YOU COULD EVER DO TO TRY TO WELCOME PEOPLE TO YOUR CHURCH...
OMG!!!!!!!!! The best part is ALL OTHERS WILL BE TOWED AWAY.... What the HECK IS THAT!!!!!!

PINCH ME PLEASE...