This week we started our Summer Sex Talk series, so not much opportunity for worship songs supporting the message. Although Pastor Aaron does tell a true story of a worship leader at his college who did Your Body Is a Wonderland by John Mayer in a worship set. I wish I was joking, talk about Jesus is my boyfriend worship songs, that just takes it to an entirely new level of wrongness.

Our band was a man down, well woman down, as Kendra Rohl, vocalist extraordinaire was out of town. We managed to keep the ship sailing and did mostly simple arrangements. In fact we did Found by Hillsong United for the first time, I’ve always dug the song but just never introduced it for various reasons. I think overall musically the set was ok and corporate involvement/participation I thought was just ok as well. I’m taking a week off coming up and I think I have some praying to do on where and how to lead this thing next.

I think our church body needs to be challenged on some things and I need to grow in some things as well. I desperately want to see this body grow in maturity in all areas but specifically here as it relates to our expression of worship through music and fellowship with Christ. So I’m looking forward to taking some time to focus on this, get convicted, get revelation and get some direction up in lovely Portland OR.

1. Solid Rock - Delirious (loop available)
2. The World Can’t Take It Away - Ryan Delmore
3. Ready Now - Desperation Band (loop available)
4. I Will Trust You - Chris Lizotte
5. Found - Hillsong United

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

For updates you can follow Kate’s dad on twitter @aaronmcrae or visit Kate’s website.

Pretend I gave you $1,000 but you had to spend it on music gear. What would you get?

I’d get the new Abelton Suite and have a few hundred left over to buy a decent condenser mic, like a Shure KSM27 or Rode NT-1. What’s next on your list of music goodies?

This week was a special service, we had Pastor Chris Daukas and his core team at Grace Church join us in worship. Chris preached along side our pastor and it was incredible being able to unite with them, worship and fellowship with them. I wish we could do it more often.

The worship set went well, it wouldn’t be complete without at least one hurdle. In the middle of the first set my strap lock snapped off, the guitar stayed on my shoulder, but I had to be very still so the strap wouldn’t completely come off. The transition from song 1 and 2 was long while I switched straps with my backup guitar. But hey, compared to last week’s 2 string snapping extravaganza this was nothing.

I tried to do a relatively simple set since we had some visitors and I wanted them to be able to enter in as much as possible. We did a new arrangement of Come Thou Fount which I thought went really well, I’ll be mixing that this week and see if I can’t release the live recording on the site.

1. Jesus’ Name - Ryan Delmore
2. Everything - Tim Hughes (loop available)
3. True Love - Phil Wickham (loop available)
4. Come Thou Fount
5. Our God Reigns - Delirious (loop available)

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

1. Thriller

Where else is there to start. The best music video of all time, an incredible song and it gave me nightmares when I was a kid, but I loved it.

2. Smooth Criminal

Another epic video, will anyone ever be able to do music videos like this guy again? I doubt it. Great song as well, I can always jam to this song.

3. Billie Jean

Man I can remember dancing to this song in my room. This video always tripped me out, I still don’t think I really get it. But talk about epic, sidewalk lighting up, I mean…brilliant. I can’t say enough about his sense of melody, it’s incredible.

4. Dirty Diana

I’ve never been in a concert atmosphere like this and I really wonder if I’ll ever have the opportunity in my life to experience it. And no I’m not going into the Jonas brothers teenage mosh pit.

5. Beat It

This was back in the day when gangs just had break dancing battles to settle turf wars. Simpler times.

Farewell Michael, you inspired me as a kid and I’m not sure this world will ever see or hear anyone quite like you again.

Folks what are your Top 5 MJ tunes?

As leaders we can’t be paralyzed by a fear to critique. The root of this fear is really idolatry in that our gifting is our value in the kingdom and when someone critiques it we feel devalued in the kingdom. I’m not trying to go Dr. Phil on you, but seriously why can’t I love my Christian brother and critique what he’s trying to sell me? How far does this go, am I offending someone because I didn’t buy their album?

On a twitter conversation I was having Fred McKinnon mentioned that many people’s policy is:

“If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”

I agree with his assessment and know that to be the case, but it’s way off in my estimation. What a bunch of babied, insecure in the gospel, little musicians we are if we have a policy of, “hey if you don’t like every single aspect of my music and aren’t prepared to just rave over it all, then don’t say anything“.

I’d like to point out an example of a honest review I did of a Sovereign Grace Christmas cd. I was worried how it would be received, but I thought it would be a disservice to Bob Kauflin if I didn’t review it honestly. I tried to give encouragement on what I thought was done well and honest, specific critique where I thought it was not done well. I was probably insensitive on some points and could have phrased things better. But even with that, Bob responded incredibly well, responded with grace. I don’t think Bob started questioning his value to the kingdom or thought I should live in eternal damnation. Bob correct me if I’m wrong

Do you feel like you’re sinning against God or injuring your brother if you critique their music/gifting? Are you afraid to do so? Do you think that’s healthy? Am I an insensitive jerk?

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 Forever - Merchant Band (loop not yet available)
2. Dress Us Up - John Mark McMillan
3. Gloria 34 - Taylor Sorensen (loop available)
4. So Near - Vineyard UK (loop available)
5. Everlasting God - New Life (loop available)
6. How He Loves - John Mark McMillan (end of service)

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

In your submission include a note about the specifics of your setup. Please feel free to tweet this and pass along to friends whom you know have a home studio. It doesn’t even have to be a recording studio, maybe it’s just your practice area on a porch over looking the ocean, that might win just off the scenery.

OK let’s get started!

cforms contact form by delicious:days

I had to really search my heart for an answer. My answer in short was, “Because God’s grace has impacted me to the point where I see and desire no other way. There aren’t any other options.” Really that’s what it’s boiled down to. I serve, follow and love Jesus because his grace has chased me down, replaced my heart and now I see my life in context to how it fits in and serves his kingdom. I love how Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 15:10

“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me was not in vain.”

As Steve’s follow up questions probed deeper, “Why do you sacrifice for this? Why allow yourself to be broken?” it became clearer and clearer that my life makes no sense outside of grace.

I don’t know why I’d sacrifice as much as I have, why I desire God to break me down, it’s just crazy really. There is no logic behind it, there is no formula, there is no global earthly reward I could point to that could explain why this life made sense. There is a great level of foolishness here that can’t be avoided, nor do I want to avoid it. Because as I explained to Steve, God’s grace does not compute in our brains, the math doesn’t work. Works makes sense, or as Matt Chandler brilliantly puts it, moralistic deism. That makes sense, you do good and you get good back. Do bad and you get bad back. But I did bad and God showered me with grace and replaced my heart. I received beauty for ashes and gladness for mourning.

Any good that comes out of my life is a reflection of grace poured out. It’s totally changed my heart, my mind and spirit and I can’t point to any 12 step program that makes you earn it or put God in your debt in any way. I don’t know if that comforted Steve or scared him, but it is what I know to be true.

Now I desire to simply place myself in his hands daily and beg him to work with this gross lump of clay. And because he is a good and loving God he does and it doesn’t make earthly sense, but I love him.

I was hoping to have had at least one of the new loops I’ve been working on completed for this Sunday, but it wasn’t meant to be. I did remix an existing loop for How I Live though and was much happier with how it sounded. We kind of had to start over with he mixes in our headsets and FOH because we had another church use our sound system. Times like these I wish we had a digital board. But I actually think we got things sounding better than previously after working with it.

Worship went great, people really entered in, there was a reverent, passionate spirit in the building and it was a joy to see our body unite in worship the way they did. Really awesome. We started off One Prayer with an amazing sermon by Francis Chan speaking on God Is Strong. I was curious to see how our sanctuary operated as a “video venue” and it worked great. I was really encouraged by how much people entered in. People were engaged and attentive to the sermon and I think our body was blessed. So thank you Francis Chan!

1. Skeleton Bones - John Mark McMillan (loop not yet available)
2. Hosanna - Hillsong United (loop available)
3. How I Live - Kyle Campos (loop available)
4. Messiah - Phil Wickham
5. Where You Go I’ll Go - Brian and Jenn Johnson (loop available)

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

• Ed Young recently made a video that chastises pastors, believers, leaders who use what he considers to be profane language. Words like: “sucks”, “pissed”, “screwed”, “hell”, “damn” etc… I’ll be honest, I use every one of the words regularly in casual language and don’t see them as “profane”. They are frequently inappropriate in some contexts but I don’t see them as profane. Profanity is contextualized in a given culture at a specific point in time. What was profane in the 60s I’m sure Ed Young says regularly. Contextualize, but don’t compromise.
• Re:Sound recently launched their official website and their first album released is Rain City Hymnal, which has some great new arrangements of old classic hymns. Something the Mars Hill guys excel at. Can’t wait for their new albums.
• Good feedback over at Ragamuffin from non-worship leaders on what their favorite worship songs are.
• Christian Audio is offering Eugene Peterson’s “Christ Plays in Ten-Thousand Places” audiobook free this entire month. Coupon code: JUN2009
• Church Soundguy has a great post on how to deal with microphone feedback.
• Sweet video on a new iPhone app Automap that will control Ableton Live. This could come in handy. Have I mentioned I really want Ableton Live 8? I gotta get on that.

Oh wait actually it’s more of me in my pj’s, haven’t taken a shower in a couple days, chained to my desk, pounding Hansen’s natural soda, wondering if I’ll ever have another creative thought in my life. Yeah, stark contrast. Watch and enjoy.

I created an evaluation form that all band members and people behind the booth fill out. Here are the questions that I ask.

1. Are you doing what you feel called to?
2. Describe your current role in view of God’s calling on your life?
3. Are you able to recommit to the worship team? Why or why not?
4. What area(s) do you need to improve in musically?
5. What’s your practical plan to improve in your area(s) of need?
6. How can your band leader assist in this process?
7. How would you rate the musical quality of your current band? (Poor, Average, Good, Excellent)
8. What can you do to help the band improve?
9. What can your band leader do to improve the band’s overall quality?
10. How would you rate your band’s interpersonal relationships overall? (Poor, Average, Good, Excellent)
11. Do you have any relational issues with anyone in the band?
12. What has God shown you about worship or anything else through your service on the band?

After receiving everyone’s input I’ll follow up with each person personally and discuss their input, where they are at musically, relationally and spiritually. This is a great opportunity to catch issues before they are issues.

Do you have an evaluation process? If so what does it look like?

This week we started One Prayer and Pastor Aaron Dailey brought an incredible message entitled God is Enough. He asked me for songs around that theme and there are a fair amount of songs around that, just not many good ones. I settled on None But Jesus, as it’s in our semi-regular rotation and sufficiently addresses the topic. We played this song as our final song in the set and then again in ministry time and thought it fit really well with what the Holy Spirit was doing.

Musically the set went really well I thought. I feel like as a band we’ve hit a pretty good pocket. There’s a level of comfort, familiarity and enjoyment that we’ve hit together as a band that is translating to much better sounding music. There’s certainly many areas of improvement left, I think we’ve hit a solid floor to build off though, which feels great. Couldn’t come at a better time as we have a handful of new songs to introduce both originals and covers. Looking forward to getting a little refresh in the rotation and dropping a few stale tunes.

1. Rain Down - Delirious (loop not yet available)
2. The World Can’t Take It Away - Ryan Delmore
3. True Love - Phil Wickham (loop available)
4. With Everything - Hillsong (loop available)
5. None But Jesus - Hillsong (loop not yet available)

By they way, when I write “loop not yet available” that means I have and use a loop for that but have not posted it on the site for various reasons. If you would like to hear the loop for possible use you can contact me and I’ll send it to you. It may be posted for general consumption in the future though.

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

1. Haddaway - What Is Love?

If I were a sketch comedian I might have an excuse. But Night at the Roxbury was cool like what 10 years ago? My only defense is I have this track unchecked. A brief moment of sanity in an otherwise bat crazy decision.

2. Dawn Penn - You Don’t Love Me

Wut the….how the…where the….why is this track within 10 laptops of me? Some one slipped me a rufee and popped this in my iTunes and somehow rigged it so it comes on EVERY TIME I shuffle. There’s only a couple acceptable raggae artists and this isn’t one of them.

3. Dirty Vegas - Days Go By

Ok yeah I get it, it was a big hit for a while. But I never even liked this song. I’m chalking this one up to some friend’s wedding I dj’d and they made a special request. I can’t be held responsible for this.

4. Duncan Sheik - On a High

I must have been on a high when I purchased this one. Yes kids, the evidence comes back this was purchased by me. This proves total human depravity more than any other experiential evidence ever could.

5. Boyz II Men - End of the Road

No this isn’t cool, not even in a reminiscent sense. Confession: I remember playing this in the background as I talked to ladies on the phone when I was in middle school. I was Leon Phelps smooth. Double Halfway confession: I actually did this first in the 5th grade to a much worse song that I will take to the grave. I’ll never tell, my mom reads this blog for heaven’s sake. Mom aren’t you amazed I made it through?

one more as a special bonus…

6. Randy Travis - Open the Eyes of My Heart

If Jesus would have opened the ears of my head up I would have nothing to do with this track. This officially marked Open the Eyes of My Heart covers had run their course. The Randy growl going into the chorus does bring a smile to my face for all the wrong reasons. Lord I apologize, I should have stopped at 5.

Ok so let’s hear it, don’t be embarrassed we all have our musical skeletons in the closet. What’s the worst in your collection?

Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

It’s always a challenge to prepare worship for Sunday and not bring in all your issues into the set. You end up picking songs that minister to your situation instead of picking songs that minister to the body and glorify Jesus. I’ve spoken before how being an elder in the church has really helped in leading worship because you’re more aware of the pulse of the congregation and if there are corporate issues. This greatly informs my selection of songs, knowing what our body has to worship through and repent of. That being said, here’s what we sung:

1. Jesus’ Name - Ryan Delmore
2. Gloria 34 - Taylor Sorensen (loop available)
3. I Will Trust You - Chris Lizotte
4. Our God Reigns - Delirious (loop available)
5. Reprise (Be Lifted High) - Hillsong United

The set flowed really well I thought. I thought we may be a little out of sync since I missed last week and we hadn’t played for a couple weeks, but the band played really well. I really enjoyed our remix of the “Be Lifted High” reprise, might have to do a little loop to that.

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

Lisztomania (The Brat Pack Special)

Anyone know any better French bands? Please chime in.

Secondly you may have noticed a new commenting system. I’ve been evaluating Intense Debate for quite some time and working out some issues. It’s up and running now and this allows for a lot more fluid conversation on posts so I expect all you sleeper readers to come out of the shadows and leave some comments. You can vote for comments, reply to specific comments in a thread fashion and now we have gravatar support so you can see pics of who is leaving comments.

If you read this blog, please leave a comment on this post introducing yourself. I know for a fact many MANY more people read the blog than comment, and I’d like to get a bit more interaction going here. Helps with post ideas and makes this blog more useful for everyone involved.

So please leave a comment and let us know who and where you are.

Moral of the story is this, you have to know when things aren’t working and then have the guts to make a change. I’m so lucky to have a team of skilled, humble people that don’t get offended if I tell them their part just ain’t working. Who cares if it’s what you had planned all week, who cares if the drummer was really excited about his part, nobody cares about forethought if the final product sucks and we’re not here to please musicians who love their cool new part. Thank you to my band for being flexible, knowing who we serve and laying their pride at the foot of the cross.

1. We Cry Out - Kim Walker (loop available)
2. Dress Us Up - John Mark McMillan
3. Lead Me to the Cross - Hillsong United (loop available)
4. Messiah - Phil Wickham
5. How He Loves - John Mark McMillan

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

1. He’s just as passionate about his right to be a moron and refuse to follow federal agents instructions as he is about proper male urinating technique.
2. He’s not that tough, that’s not a beating.
3. He drives a car even though cars are not specifically mentioned as profitable in the KJV bible.

UPDATE:

Here’s actual footage of the event.

[via FAILBlog]

As I finished praying there was a single woman(I assume this since she was alone with her child) standing next to my wife and I and I was doing double duty at that point, father and elder praying for people. I started to pray for her and her baby and she was crying really hard, it broke my heart as I can only imagine the things she’s broken over and what brought her to church this day. I only had a minute or 2, my wife started to talk with her and then we had to get off stage. I don’t know if she spoke with anyone after service, I pray she did.

This just made me realize how much is going on out there in the congregation that goes unnoticed and unspoken. To make this a church systems issue I think is both silly and prideful. There is practical responsibility on our part, but any system we come up with is at the mercy, literally and figuratively, of the Holy Spirit. Our visitor card isn’t going to reach that single mom where she was at yesterday, but my prayer is the Holy Spirit touched her, comforted her, made her feel loved and out of that, that our church would be attentive, intentional, humble servants to this woman to bring her into community.

Here’s the much less important set list:

1. The World Can’t Take It Away - Ryan Delmore
2. Hosanna - Hillsong United (loop available)
3. Come Thou Fount
4. With Everything - Hillsong (loop available)

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

• Why should I consider using loops in my worship service?
• Won’t using loops cause a congregation to get bored?
• Do loops leave any room for spontaneity in worship?

If you’re wanting to get started looping here are some articles helping you with that process:

• 8 steps to configure Ableton with loop and vocal cue tracks
• Configuring Ableton Live to run your click tracks - The link above showed you a more comprehensive loop setup that runs your loops and click. But if you wanted to just use Ableton for running your clicks, this is a great tutorial for that, as well as just general Ableton Live info.
• How to send click tracks to monitors and not mains
• How to transpose a loop in Reason
• How to create your own click track in Garage Band

Some sites where you can download loops:

• www.OurRisingSound.com - here of course
• www.themonobox.com - Matt hasn’t been posting for a long time, but he does have some good loops and tutorials still available.
• www.sacredloops.org - Again, not much content here, but hey there aren’t many people doing this kind of thing.
• Bwacks Forums - good place to ask questions on loops

If you have questions that none of these articles and tutorials address please don’t hesitate to ask. If you have any suggestions for loop links above let me know and I’ll add to the list.

Credits:

Kyle Campos: vocals, guitars, loop composer
Kendra Rohl: vocals
Josh Dailey: Bass
Jonathan Utter: Drums

Musically things went well. Every weak I’m making adjustments tone wise on my amp rig and mic placement, and each week I think it’s improving. We only did 4 songs this week to make time for the baptism, we played the Our God Reigns refrain over the baptism. Here was our set:

1. You Love Me Forever - Merchant Band (loop not yet available)
2. Jesus’ Name - Ryan Delmore
3. True Love - Phil Wickham (loop available)
4. Our God Reigns - Delirious (loop available)

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

• Video: How to make a baby - it’s not what it sounds like. Really cool and creative way of tracking and capturing pregnancy. One of those, wish I would have thought of that videos.
• Ragamuffin Video: Top gospel choir in the US - mad sangin skillz.
• Photo essay of a beautiful bride - This photo essay shows the story of a woman dying of cancer who married her high school sweetheart days before she passed away. Moving, beautiful and sad.
• Guitar amp recording techniques - This article discusses best guitar amp mics and mic placement strategies. Older article but still just as valuable.
• A little swine flu humor - Uncircumcison fever nearly made me spit up.
• Resurgence: Qualifications of a Worship Pastor Parts 1 and 2 - Wonderful article and invaluable points made. For those considering bring on worship pastors this is a must read to identify the qualifications needed.
• Pastor Steven Furtick interviews Ted and Gayle Haggard - loved the way Steven opened the interview.