This past Sunday we were baptizing people on stage during worship. I truly love and cherish these times. So awesome to see people proclaim their devotion to Jesus publicly. The testimonies given were powerful and a real encouragement to the body, they certainly were for me. And then something happened, I’m simply calling it, “the incident.”

On our last baptism we had a bit of a miscue and the person got dunked facing the reverse direction and instead of the water splash going over the intended side, a mini tidal wave came and washed over my pedal board. 3 thoughts rushed through my head:

1. I wonder how bad this is going to hurt when I get electrocuted?
2. Please Jesus spare my pedals, I don’t have the $ to replace.
3. What am I singing and playing right now?

Apparently from the tweets that went out shortly after, I had a terrified look on my face, so I didn’t play it off well. I stumbled through the song we were playing trying to get my head together and just hope no fires started. One of our elders Mark thought quickly and tossed up a towel over the pedal board and started to dry as we sang. He’s an electrician so has no fear of getting shocked.

As far as I know the pedals are fine, few more tests. But it was a great Sunday and I’m so thankful for the work Jesus has done in those people’s lives.

1. You Love Me Forever – Merchant Band (loop not yet available)
2. Jesus’ Name – Ryan Delmore
3. Gloria 34 – Taylor Sorensen (loop available)
4. The Solid Rock – Edward Mote (loop available)
5. True Love – Phil Wickham (loop available)

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

Most of the time I try and respond to that urgency in my spirit, there are a lot of songs I have in the queue to loop so I have to prioritize in some way. So this arrangement is a version off of the E-pop arrangement. Same hook in the piano melody but used some different instrumentation, rhythm and added a more heavy instrumental section.

Remember to vote on the loop below, this really helps me get a sense of what folks find useful. Also it is used to calculate top loops widget in sidebar for people to quickly see the better loops.

Song: The Solid Rock by Edward Mote (E-pop arrangement), Album “Rain City Hymnal Vol. 1”
Key: Bm
Bpm: 72 (3/4)
Click-In: 2 bar

Section: Time (bar)

• Verse 1: 0:47 (20)
• Verse 2: 1:27 (36)
• Chorus 1: 1:47 (44) *Note: a beat drops in chorus (each chorus drops a beat)*
• Verse 3: 2:20 (57) *beat 2 is now beat 1*
• Chorus 2: 2:40 (65)
• Verse 4: 3:14 (78) *beat 3 is now beat 1*
• Chorus 3: 3:34 (86)
• Instrumental: 3:47 (92) *back on beat 1*
• Chorus 4: 4:07 (100)
• Outro: 4:20 (105) *beat 2 is now beat 1*

Download: aif / mp3 / mid / rns (Reason 4) / vocal cue

In part 2 of the interview we talk about the story behind the track “Gypsy Girl.”

[tweetmeme]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.

1. Skeleton Bones – John Mark McMillan (loop not yet available)
2. Lead Me To the Cross – Hillsong United (loop available)
3. Live or No Longer Live – Kyle Campos
4. How He Loves – John Mark McMillan
5. Who You Are – Desperation Band

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

5. Inauthentic

There are 2 primary ways our worship can be inauthentic, one way is how our worship presents or describes our object of worship, Jesus. Another way our worship can be inauthentic is in our engagement and life with Jesus in worship. Bad art will take some vague idea and attempt to represent it in the cheapest way possible to achieve an intended emotional response from viewers. Neither the artists engagement or representation of the object of art is authentic it’s just utilitarian. I’m going to use 2 definitions of authentic to illustrate this idea.

Authentic Jesus

• def. authentic: conforming to fact and therefor worthy of belief

If our worship is not conformed to truth, the person and work of Jesus, then what we are singing is not worthy of belief and shouldn’t be sung. Our worship can lead us and others astray from the gospel by either being generously vague or acutely false. And honestly there are great examples of both in popular CCM worship. John Owen wonderfully said,

“We must not allow ourselves to be satisfied with vague ideas of the love of Christ which present nothing of his glory to our minds.”

And I love how Bob Kauflin puts it,

“If most of our songs could be sung by Buddhists, Muslims, or Hindus, it’s time to change our repertoire.” -Worship Matters

We have to be careful about crafting songs that are vague and presenting an inauthentic view of the very specific and clear demarcation of Christ and anything other than Christ. Our job as worship leaders is to point people to Christ, not an “elevated idea” or even an idea about Christ, but Christ himself. If you’ve read any previous posts in this series or any other posts on this blog really, you’ll know how I value creativity. I think there are many ways to creatively point people to Christ and imagery, poetry and the arts in general can be used in a way that present clearly, the authentic Jesus. So I’m not saying art = vague, both simplicity and creativity have the same potential to miss the mark, use them both with wisdom.

Not much needs to be said about acute false statements, descriptions, ideas of Christ in worship. They exist unfortunately, and they always will until Christ returns. This is typically what separates worship pastors and music leaders, entertainers and shepherds. A pastor seeks to lead the congregation to Jesus and remove every obstacle in that journey including bad lyrics, but a entertainer seeks bring something of themselves to the people in the context of church, but not Christ. Don’t be an entertainer.

Authentic Worshippers

• def. authentic: genuine; undisputed credibility; with authority

In other words, believe and live what you sing and sing what you believe and live. Paul urged the Colossian church to “walk(live) in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work…” How careful we should be singing something we don’t believe or have no evidence or fruit of believing in our lives. Our religion is so transparent at times that we get used to operating in it without even seeing it.

Our worship should be saturated with humility and repentance when we start singing things we know we struggle to believe or live out. This is why I seldom make it out of a worship set without crying. Glorifying God for who he is in worship forces me to see the separation in sin, the short comings in my life, and moves my heart and affections more towards Christ. Being an authentic worshipper doesn’t mean having it all together it just means we are continually asking Christ to knit and hold us together in him. It means that not one word escapes our lips where the cost hasn’t been counted because we’ll have to give an account for every word, every word that we sung but didn’t mean.

I pray that all of us as worshippers would be authentic, that our hearts would be genuine in our praise, confession and words of adoration.

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!

1. The World Can’t Take It Away – Ryan Delmore
2. Dress Us Up – John Mark McMillan
3. The Solid Rock – Edward Mote (loop not yet available)
4. Death In His Grave – John Mark McMillan (loop available)
5. Hosanna – Hillsong United (loop available)

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

But what does concern me is that the only place we are gathering to sing songs of praise to Jesus is in the corporate Sunday morning gathering. I don’t want people to think that’s the only place where that kind of thing happens. Certainly worship is much more than song and we live our lives in scattered worship 7 days a week, but I’d like to see purposeful worship through song be part of that.

I’ll cut to the chase, here’s the idea. I’m going to visit each gospel community group when they meet in some one’s home and I’m going to bring some recording equipment with me. I’ll lead the group in a few songs and get a good recording of the vocals. I’ll lead the same songs in each group so I have a bunch of tracks from each community group singing the same songs(in the same time–using click).

I’ll take these tracks and mix them into the loops we use on Sunday morning so while we are worshipping as a unified body we hear and join with the praises sung in our scattered lives and scattered communities across the valley. I don’t want this to be an audio stunt of any kind, but an example of our Sunday morning worship continuing through our lives and our gatherings outside of the church. I’m excited to give it a try and see how it works.

How have you cultivated worship through song in small groups? Is it spontaneous or planned every week? How well does it work?

4. Unoriginality

This is a delicate topic because in some ways our worship is intentionally unoriginal. We are singing the praises of an unchanging, everlasting God, who gave us the greatest revelation man will ever know 2000 years ago in the cross and chose to make his word known through scripture that should never be added to or subtracted from. So at some level we certainly shouldn’t be looking for anything new there, that content remains the same. But the methods of delivery continue to change and that must be purposefully and missionally original.

Let me define the phrase “purposefully and missionally original” as it relates to worship.

Someone who’s inspired and informed by the gospel through the Holy Spirit to reach a specific people with the message of Jesus in an effective way through music and the arts.

The art in my hotel room was copied all over the country or all over the world, no thought was given to the different contexts it might be displayed in and if there might be a more effective art piece in different areas. The thought being if it worked in Beverly Hills it must work in Omaha, or Denver, or Miami, or Puerto Rico. Seems silly right? The culture, the idols worshipped, language used in those areas is so different.

But how silly are we in the church when we say the same thing? If it works in Australia at Hillsong, it must work in Phoenix, or in Santa Barbara. We attempt to carbon copy the missional expression without doing any of the evaluation or prayer to see if that expression would be effective in our mission field.

Being purposefully and missionally original requires worship leaders to find how best to use music and the arts for the people in their mission field through prayer, study and practice, for the glory of Jesus Christ. All being attractionally unoriginal requires is a CCLI license and a few hours of band practice to cover the latest CCM hit.

I’m not saying that Hillsong or Tomlin won’t work in multiple churches, locations and cultures, I’m just saying don’t blindly assume they will. And then perhaps you can find an arrangement that better suits your church rather than just ripping the cd.

Let’s be purposefully and missionally original.

I started the worship service with a Psalm that’s been on my heart and lips for the past week or so.

Psalm 69:29-32: “But I am afflicted and in pain; let your salvation, O God, set me on high! I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving. This will please the Lord more than an ox or bull with horns and hoofs. When the humble see it they will be glad; you who seek God, let your hearts revive.”

Checking the condition of our hearts is so important and even more so asking the Holy Spirit to revive it and set it straight. I love that this is a man(David) afflicted and in pain singing a song of thanksgiving to God. That was both encouraging and challenging to read. The worship filter of circumstance is so conveniently dangerous and pathetic, I think it’s important we combat it at every opportunity.

The body responded in worship amazingly well, the past 2 months or so have been such a blessing to be a part of. God has really been pouring out his grace upon us as a body and it’s not something I take for granted. I’m excited for what lies ahead and I feel a great sense of urgency about it.

We did a new arrangement of The Solid Rock hymn this week. I did a loop based off of the amazing E-pop arrangement. I thought it went over really well. I’ll try and get that loop posted this week, there’s a few minor adjustments I’m going to make. By the way, the original title for The Solid Rock hymn was “The Immutable Basis of a Sinner’s Hope“… awesome and amen.

1. Rain Down – Delirious (loop not yet available)
2. God of This City – Bluetree (loop available)
3. Broken Me Loose – Kyle Campos
4. The Solid Rock – Edward Mote (loop not yet available)
5. With Everything – Hillsong (loop available)

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

Here inside your presence I’m taken by the wonder of You
Here inside your glory we give our lives wholly to You

Moved on to the pre-chorus which was a simple “Holy, Holy are You” which was good and all. But then I hit Verse 2…

Your love it burns inside our hearts are satisfied by You
Your love is our reward it’s why we ask for more of You

What?!?! God’s love is our reward? Let’s look at the definition of reward to make sure we are on the same page here:

reward: “a recompense for worthy acts or retribution for wrongdoing” or “fair return for good or bad behavior”

It seems entirely ridiculous to me we’d have to dive into this much for us not to see the foolishness in this line. This isn’t extra-biblical this is entirely contra-biblical. It violates the core of the gospel. I don’t like to rant, but folks this line is simply not truth, and I’m shocked and saddened that it would be sung. Here’s what the gospel says about our reward for our actions:

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

So our just reward for our actions and fair return for our behavior is death, not God’s love. But the glory of the gospel is the cross, “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more”. We received grace instead of what we deserved, death. Here’s how God’s love really works:

Romans 5:6-10 “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person–though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die–8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”

We did not and cannot earn God’s love, repeat, we did not and cannot earn God’s love. 1 John 4:19 “We love because he first loved us.” We can keep plowing through scripture, there is no shortage because it’s the entire narrative of the gospel.

I don’t know Chris Quilala, I don’t know Kim Walker, but I believe they are Christians brothers and sisters who love Jesus and I don’t mean to bash them. In fact I bet you if I asked them, “do you think you earned God’s love or did he love you first, while you were a sinner?” That they’d answer, “no, I didn’t earn it.” Which is why I’m so puzzled that they’d sing just the opposite.

I’ve tried to think of any context that line works in and I can’t, I just can’t. Working in the second half of the line only confuses me more, “that’s why we ask for more of You.” I haven’t a clue what this line means. If anyone has an explanation by all means step in here in the comments and let me in on it, I truly feel like I’m missing something.

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.

1. Jesus’ Name – Ryan Delmore
2. How I Live – Kyle Campos (loop available)
3. Come Thou Fount – Robert Robinson
   
4. Death In His Grave – John Mark McMillan (loop available)
5. True Love – Phil Wickham (loop available)

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

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.

Song: Death In His Grave by John Mark McMillan, Album “The Medicine”
Key: D
Bpm: 105 (3/4)
Click-In: Fade in with organ

Section: Time (bar)

• Verse 1: 0:27 (17)
• Chorus 1: 0:54 (33)
• Interlude “Ohs”: 1:20 (48)
• Verse 2: 1:41 (60)
• Chorus 2: 2:08 (76)
• Interlude: 2:34 (91)
• Chorus 3: 3:08 (111)
• Interlude: 3:34 (126)
• Bridge: 4:01 (142)
• Solo: 4:56 (174)
• Bridge: 5:24 (190)
• Outro (interlude): 6:18 (222)

Download: aif / mp3 / mid / rns (Reason 4) / vocal cue

3. Safe

The ugly art on my hotel room wall was meant to be as inoffensive, innocuous and unspectacular as possible. It’s vanilla, bland, no rough edges and probably shown to a panel of people making sure they see nothing that could possibly be misconstrued as inappropriate or offense. Hmm this is reminding me of about 90% of the Christian music I’ve heard, despite us writing for and singing about Jesus, the most offensive and divisive person in all of human history.

Music

Many would argue that our worship music should be safe, that the music should be as broadly appealing as possible. I understand the argument and even agree with the intention, but I don’t believe having a band play bland music accomplishes the desired goal. Safe, bland, plastic worship music may not offend your congregation but it certainly won’t captivate them either. I much more appreciate strong reaction to music either positive or negative, as opposed to apathy.

If we’re reaching diverse people in our community you can imagine how much diversity you have in music taste in your congregation. I’ve found trying to have a single band appeal to all those tastes is a lesson in futility. In my church context we hope to present multiple bands that each excel in their music style and don’t play safe. In that collection of bands hopefully we show that Jesus is glorified in through many different styles.

But whatever the style, if the fear of man (congregation’s response) is the motivation in your music rather than the gospel and the passion gifted to you by God, and safety and refuge are found in human approval rather than Jesus, well that’s an incredibly dangerous position to be in.

Lyrics

A quite similar situation is found in our worship lyrics. It’s almost like we want our congregations to be able to zone out and sing without even thinking about what they are singing. Why else would we have such a narrow context in worship and use so much stale language to communicate the glory of Jesus? When I listen to a lot of Christian music it sounds like the words were written during their lunch break at work. I don’t often get a sense of toil, struggle and meditation in worship songs on what should be sung and how best to deliver it lyrically. You can’t read the Psalms and not hear the struggle and toil in those words and stories.

One huge reason for this is the sense that many songwriters have that as long as it’s from the heart it’s good. Spill our guts and God is glorified. Can we engage our minds in the process? Can we worship with all our heart and all our mind? You can’t read the Psalms and not see David’s mind spinning around the majesty of God, the metaphors that bring it to light, the examples found on earth, the implications of it on our lives. God is so rich and when we take the safe, well traveled path lyrically I think we’ve disengaged from the wonder of God in either our hearts or minds, and sometimes both.

Example

Your congregation is really struggling to deal with the recent diagnosis of cancer among members of your congregation and leadership and your pastor asks you to write a song about it. The safe thing is to sing about the goodness of God in heaven, God is the great physician and will heal, that we should cast fear aside and worship in joy. All true, but is there even a greater truth to be sung here?

The dangerous thing to do would be to sing of the goodness of God in cancer, sing of God as our healer and whether we are healed in the flesh or if we die that he’s healed our spirit and Jesus has reconciled us to the Father and that we fear nothing but God himself and worship in joy, but also through our pain, disappointment, sickness, success, failure, through all of it because we are obsessed with his glory.

Conclusion

Worship leaders, remember you serve the church and it’s not about you, it’s about Jesus. Serving them doesn’t mean gaining their approval though. Serve them by glorifying Jesus by singing about all of who God is. Do the music God has gifted you to play, given you the authority to play and given you a passion to play. Push yourself creatively in your music and lyrics to find new ways to tell the story of the gospel and majesty of Christ. Some people may hate your music, does that bother you more than compromising the conviction in your spirit? Some people may love your music, does that give you more joy that the smile of the face of God? Stop fearing man more than God. Stop seeking the applause of man more than the delight of Christ.

I had never heard of Megafaun previous to the show but as soon as they hit the first line of the verse on song 1 I knew I was gonna dig em. 3 piece band which usually stuck to a lineup of drums/percussion, guitar and banjo, but each member played multiple instruments so you had a mix of bass, electric, synths, piano and other goodies. Their 3 part harmonies were rich, on point and almost as majestic as their beards. Their sound is very eclectic, always containing a strong front porch folk element reminiscent of The Avett Brothers, their harmonies would remind you of the Fleet Foxes but then there’s also a subtle rock/experimental element that comes across very Wilco‘ish at times. I don’t think they are confused as much as excited about music and they seem to follow their inspiration no matter what musical alley it leads them. Kudos for that, it was thoroughly enjoyable listening to them take those journeys. Their latest record is “Gather, Form & Fly” and I’m giving it a spin now and loving it.

Then out comes Bon Iver and opens up with Flume, one of my favorites. The band is killing the harmonies, and I mean killing as in nailing them. The textures they create with the keys, guitars and percussion are really incredible. I was afraid they’d come off disorganized and lazy in a live environment but the arrangements are complex and the instrumentation and vocals are layered so richly. I can’t say enough about the quality of the vocals, especially Justin Vernon’s voice. I didn’t know how his falsetto would hold up for an entire show, but wow, I was blown away. He was singing his guts out and sounded incredible all night.

Now for my favorite moments of the night, first was his electrified version of Blood Bank. They rocked that song out and I really hope they consider releasing a live album cause that arrangement was incredible. Second was the insane epic ending, again with an electrified version of The Wolves. Justin had the entire crowd singing “what might have been lost” at the top of their lungs and then all hell broke loose as then entire place just started yelling as they washed out the ending in a giant indie, feedback filled rock fest. Certainly a concert memory I won’t soon forget.

Then as a sweet nightcap, Megafaun came out and joined Bon Iver for an acoustic, gather around the campfire(or a small condenser mic), family song. It was a great way to end the show.

Thank you Bon Iver and Megafaun for one of the best shows I’ve ever been to, you guys were amazing.

If you are interested in downloading the app we have a full version and free version on iTunes. Free version has static instead of animated radar, doesn’t let you set any radar options (transparency, speed), doesn’t let you drop pins on the map to get weather in precise locations and only lets you save 2 favorites. Go for the paid!

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.

1. The World Can’t Take It Away – Ryan Delmore
2. Dress Us Up – John Mark McMillan
3. My Soul Sings – Delirious (loop available)
4. Death In His Grave – John Mark McMillan
5. Hosanna – Hillsong United (loop available)

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

2. Cheap

The value of the art hanging in the hotel is a direct product of what went into making it. What did it cost the creator of this art in time, effort and material? That value determined how much it sold for and to whom it was sold. What if each art piece was commissioned and an artist labored over each piece, meditated on what was required for the room, what would fit the context it would be displayed, what the audience needed to be presented with and how best to capture the beauty that was his inspiration? Well those art pieces would be much more valuable.

Worship leaders very often cheapen the gospel through our cheapened worship music and this happens due to a few reasons:

• We don’t invest prayer and labor in our songs as on overflow of inspiration for the glory of Jesus and edification of the body, but instead seek the fastest route to receive our earthly payment.

For some the earthly payment might be an immediate emotional response. If you’ve been in church any length of time it’s not hard to perceive what people respond to in worship at an emotional level. There’s nothing wrong with an emotional response because it should be there, but it’s cheap if that’s the depth of the response and engagement, purely emotional. This kind of worship is very much like the seed sown on rocky ground(Matthew 13:20-21), it’s received immediately with joy but has no root in our spirits and when met with trial, fades away. I find this to be the evil, ripened, low hanging fruit in front of most worship leaders, especially those who serve in a charismatic environment.

Our earthly payment could also be industry success and respect amongst our peers, creative goals accomplished, the praise of our audiences, the list goes on.

• We write music out of emotional desire and spiritual angst but never get around to presenting the gospel and the treasure…Jesus.

Our songs end up consisting entirely of supplication or even demands on what we want and what we feel. There’s not a problem with supplication and emotional expression as long as we don’t stop there, that should be prologue to the truth. We’ve presented the conflict but not the eternal truth in response and if we do that what’s the point? We’re just whining at the throne instead of worshiping and pointing people to Jesus.

If our worship songs do more to make the congregation empathize with humanity instead of see the splendor and majesty of Jesus than we’ve wasted our time and cheapened our worship.

• We present a limited view of the character of God to suit the mood we wish to create and maintain in the church and worship service.

If our idol is joy, then we write and sing songs all about the joy found in Christ. But never sing about the cost paid for our freedom, the wicked deceit in our hearts and sin we must repent of. There’s bright lights, plenty of dancing and shouting, but never bowing, weeping and mourning.

Conversely we could idolize earthly dignity and cultural relevance and never sing for joy in the midst of trial and tribulation. Those in depression could walk in and engage in worship feeling comfortable in our somber presentation of the cross but never get confronted with the joy and victory in the resurrection.

In order for us not to cheapen our presentation of the gospel we can’t ignore aspects of God’s character just because it makes us or our congregation’s uncomfortable. If we do we’ve carved our own image of God and just in case you haven’t read the left hand side of scripture, it never ends up good for those that do that.

I pray that we labor over our worship songs for the glory of Jesus, that we’d present the gospel and our treasure Jesus in every song we sing, and that we wouldn’t carve our own image of God to worship but worship Him for all that He is.

A few weeks ago we rolled out our new home group/community group/gospel community structure and I’m shocked at how much grace God has shown. Our groups are really taking off, people are engaging in community and I really think it’s building a sense of true love and commitment to one another in the body.

This week we announced our first batch of covenant members of LCC which marks another new chapter for us. I’m so excited about rolling out membership and seeing people commit to God and one another in a way that’s so counter-cultural, so against our ingrained, rugged individualism. I’m pumped about what’s ahead and if the last few weeks are any indication God is going to blow away my expectations.

1. Jesus’ Name – Ryan Delmore
2. God of This City – Bluetree (loop available)
3. Lead Me to The Cross – Hillsong United (loop available)
4. Gloria 34 – Taylor Sorensen (loop available)
5. With Everything – Hillsong (loop available)

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

The song is based primarily out of Philippians 1, which was challenging to work out of. The text is supremely rich, just not the most melodic phrases to work with, so it was a challenge but I wanted to use it. This recording is from the 2nd time we ever played it live. There’s plenty left to do with the song arrangement wise, so this is pretty raw but I like to get a picture of where the song is heading first naturally before working on tighter arrangement details, loops and such. I really question my judgment releasing songs publicly that are so early in the process, but getting critique at this point is always helpful.

Credits:

Kyle Campos (vocals, guitar)
Kendra Rohl (vocals)
Josh Dailey (Bass)
Jon Utter (Drums)

Lyrics:

Verse:
The passions of our youth, faded into sin
We laid waste to our call, and shame took us in
But you reached out in the night, left ninety nine behind
A dead man you found, filthy and bound
You loosened the binds, and life now I find

Lead me to live, lead me to live (x2)

Chorus:
Adonai, You gave me life
Now lead me in all that I do
Adonai, in this heart of mine
Shape me in the image of you

Chorus-Out 1:
Rejoicing in all things we sing
Christ be honored now
If we live or no longer live

Chorus-Out 2:
To live is for Christ, die is gain
We are not ashamed
If we live or no longer live

“So heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss and my heart turns violently inside of my chest”

David Crowder changed the lyric after consulting with John Mark (which was a really cool thing to do by the way) to this:

“So heaven meets earth like an unforseen kiss and my heart…”

I personally appreciate the original line in its correct context. The people that have issues with it typically take it out of context and that’s too bad. I’ve had numerous exchanges on this blog explaining the context of this lyric and why I do not change it when I sing it.

It’s unfortunate John Mark needed to come out and clarify but I think it was an incredibly humble and mature thing for him to do and he did it very well. You should go read for yourself what John Mark has to say about the “sloppy wet kiss” but here it is simply and succinctly:

The idea behind the lyric is that the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of earth converge in a way that is both beautiful and awkwardly messy. Think about the birth of a child, or even the death of Jesus himself. These miracles are both incredibly beautiful and incredibly sloppy (”gory” may be more realistic, but “Heaven meets earth like a gory mess” didn’t seem to have the same ring).

I think it’s a brilliant line that attempts to illustrate the love in God’s sovereignty though many times we fail to see his love in tragedy, it’s there. I love John Mark’s heart for Jesus, I love that he makes us uncomfortable with his lyrics, his songs are a gift to the kingdom but more importantly HE is a gift to the Kingdom.

1. Uninspired

The art in this hotel came from no deep well of desire or conviction, no sense of calling, honor or worship to anything great. It’s just something to get the job done efficiently and fill wall space.

As worship leaders very often in our own song writing or leadership we operate not from an overflow of the Holy Spirit’s work in our hearts, but from a desert and dependence on our flesh and we end up filling space just the same. We fill that space in our hearts with idols and we fill space in worship sets with things that satisfy the flesh. We can end up doing nothing out of a holy spirit inspired conviction, thirst and desire to see Jesus glorified, but more to see that the obligation is met and that people are satisfied.

When leading worship becomes an obligation instead of an honor, we’ve likely either forgotten what Jesus has done or we hold the ultimate prideful, sin infested position that what he’s done is not enough to warrant anything better from us. Romans 12:1

“Therefore I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God–this is your spiritual act of worship.”

Maybe we’ve lost view of God’s mercy, maybe God’s grace is no longer sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9) and something else is now inspiring us and motivating us. Idolatrous inspiration has a lot of deadly fruit, the least of which being bad art. If the gospel isn’t motivating and inspiring us, then our works are useless, they’re death to ourselves and at the least, quite harmful to others.

Inspiration and motivation is a heart issue, don’t fill space with idols, let Jesus ruin you and the gospel inspire and motivate all you do.

Recently I became heavily convicted about my lack of prayer and focus on preparation. I was almost entirely reliant upon practical decision making, strategy and some sort of prideful and religious sense of continuous prayer in spirit that really meant no real expressed time of prayer. Let me be clear though, there’s nothing wrong with preparation and strategy, but when it takes the places of prayer, communion with God and reliance upon the Holy Spirit, then it’s sin. I needed to repent and make sure my preparation and strategy was an overflow of prayer and led by the Holy Spirit.

I was excited when my pastor made the decision to use our 1hr time of prayer prior to service as a time for the elders to pray for people. It was a blessing for me to be able to minister to those in the body and pray for them. It’s so encouraging to see humble people come forward out of a love and passion for God and to hear their heart and be able to battle with them in prayer. It was the best preparation/warm-up for leading worship that I can remember.

I believe that time led directly to us having one of the best services I can remember. Worship was incredible, people were passionately praising Jesus, corporate engagement was off the charts, it was powerful. I pray that next week we’re able to come with the same humility and passion.

1. We Cry Out – Kim Walker (loop available)
2. Skeleton Bones – John Mark McMillan (loop not yet available)
3. Live or No Longer Live – Kyle Campos
4. Messiah – Phil Wickham
5. True Love – Phil Wickham (loop available)

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

The value in bold is how many I have in my rotation. I understand that 78 worship leaders is not a huge sample so there’s probably a large margin of error here. But just play along and lets assume this is an accurate representation.

When I saw over 60 in rotation I was blown away, if that’s the case that means you’re only playing certain songs once or twice a year. At that point I’m not sure why you’d even have those songs in “rotation”. Sure maybe you bring them out for a specific purpose, but rotation? Maybe others are just way more talented than I, and that’s not hard to believe. But here are the problems I see with rotations that large:

1. The congregation spends more time reading words and remembering the melody than worshipping.
2. The arrangement isn’t all that tight and tends to be simplistic because it would be extremely difficult to have over 60 songs arranged in creative ways and not struggle to pull it off.
3. You end up keeping old (possible stale) songs in rotation longer because you play them so infrequently they seem fresh, though years have passed.

Some benefits I see:

1. Lots of material to be able to build more content focused sets that support message series and such.
2. Keeps the band on their toes.

What benefits and drawbacks do you see from having such large worship song rotations?

Almost 1 year ago my family made a trip to Lake Tahoe for a family members wedding. We turned it into a nice vacation time and we just had a blast. But inside I was a mess struggling to deal with the financial burden my family was under. Our business had failed and the combined emotional and financial stress was intense. I woke up in the middle of the night shaking with my mind going crazy and I told my wife, “I think I may be having a nervous breakdown.” I’d never felt like that in my life, I’m usually a pretty calm and collected guy.

We prayed and really sought the Lord and asked for His spirit to heal our minds, hearts and give us wisdom on how to proceed. I really believe God answered those prayers because shortly after returning I was laid off with no severance and went unpaid for 6 months…with no savings. Had I tried to continue handling this weight by myself I may have jumped off a cliff, but instead those months of unemployment were one of the most fruitful times of my life and I thank God for it.

While in Lake Tahoe I started to write a song. The music arrangement came quickly and all I could sing over it was “Adonai“. I didn’t sit down with the intention of using that name for God, but I think God was trying to teach me what him being Lord really meant. I relented and laid down much of my life that I had retained Lordship over that weekend. The rest of the lyrics wouldn’t come until this last week and I decided it was time to sing it at church.

How well it went over I’m not sure, I’ll give it the same grace I give all new songs. A 3 week run and then we’ll review it. The song is called “Live or No Longer Live“, it’s a song of salvation and sanctification and Christ being honored whether we live or no longer live. Much of it is based out of Philippians 1. I will post details on the song and audio recording later this week.

1. Rain Down – Delirious (loop not yet available)
2. God of This City – Bluetree (loop available)
3. Live or No Longer Live – Kyle Campos
4. None But Jesus – Hillsong United (loop not yet available)
5. Where We Belong – Hillsong (loop available)

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

What are your thoughts on what Matt has to say here?

I enjoy shedding light on great music that many have not heard and I think this fits the bill. Adam is a great guy, incredibly humble and talented. In part 1 of the interview we talk about where Adam grew up, the vision behind the record and the story behind one of my favorite tracks “Broken Binds Us.” I also give a sneak peak of the tune in the video.

This post was written by Mark and Kendra Rohl. Mark is an elder and worship leader at Life Connection Church in Phoenix AZ and Kendra sings on the Our Rising Sound band. Previously as part of the “God in Our Worst Times” blog series they shared their struggle of having their own baby and their hope of adoption. That post ended with hope and faith, but a yet unrealized miracle. By the grace of God they are now able to share the conclusion to their story, and the amazing miracle that God gave them.

God in Our Best Times

January was an exciting month for Mark and I. We had selected an amazing Christian Adoption Agency here in Phoenix called CFCA and started our 8 weeks of infant adoption/parenting classes! It felt great to be in the process and taking steps forward. We went into the matchbook at the end of June and we were told it would probably be a 6mo – 1yr wait time. We were hopeful, excited and full of faith that God had the perfect birth mom and baby for us. We spent many nights calling out to God on her behalf and praying that we would be able to form a good relationship with her, that the baby would be safe and healthy in her womb, that we would be able to share Christ with her and that ultimately she would become part of His family and ours. We could never have dreamed of how completely, perfectly and faithfully God would answer those prayers.

We receive “The Call”

On Monday Aug. 3rd we got a call from CFCA that a birth mom had selected us and wanted to have a match meeting with us to get to know us better. She was due at the end of Sept. which seemed so fast but we were so excited! We prayed and thanked God and asked that if this was meant to be that He would make it perfectly clear. Although we were both very excited we just didn’t have a peace about things and didn’t feel like this match was going to come to fruition.

The next day we were telling everyone the exciting news about our potential match and the word was out and our amazing community of friends and family were in prayer for us that God would continue to open the right doors and shut the others. Tuesday night as we were getting ready to go to church Mark got a call on his cell. All I heard him say was hospital, Tucson and as I looked at him to see his shocked face he put the woman on speakerphone

“Hi, this is Susan from CFCA Tucson and we have a birth mom here that is in labor and she has selected you from the matchbook, can you be here right away?“

What!  We were both in complete shock, we wandered around our our bedroom listening to the details she knew “healthy mom, healthy baby from the ultrasound it looks to be a girl, no prenatal, ethnicity 1/2 Italian 1/4 Irish 1/4 Hispanic.” She asked us to take a minute to pray and call her back if we were interested. We hung up the phone and just sobbed on the floor of our bedroom. We instantly knew that this was it! We threw some random things into a suitcase, got in the car and we were off to Tucson to see what the future had in store for us.

It’s a boy!

On the way there we called the adoption worker back and she said “Well the baby was just born and it’s a boy!  he is perfect,  healthy and beautiful and the birth mom would like to talk to you, is that okay?” Wow, sure I said not knowing what to say to this brave woman or how to even pull myself together to sound like a halfway sane woman myself.  She got on the phone and told me how excited she was that we were coming, how she knew from the moment she saw our match letter that we were the ones God had sent her to raise this baby boy, and the words that changed our world in an instant “I can’t wait for you to meet your son, he is beautiful.”

Our son? Could it be? Could this be the long awaited arrival of our child? The one we have been fighting for, praying for, crying out and believing for? It was too beautiful to comprehend, so full of God’s grace and peace that all we could do was burst into worship to Jesus. Worshiping Him for His goodness and faithfulness not even knowing how much more He had in store for us. The ride to Tucson was filled with lots of tears, lots of laughter, prayer, worship and conversations I will never forget with family and friends with Jesus at the center of it all. We didn’t have a boy name yet so being the tech savvy people that we are Mark downloaded a baby name app onto his iPhone to start looking at names. Mark has always loved the name Toby and I have always loved the proper version of that, Tobias. He looked it up and it means God’s Goodness. Done! That was the perfect name for this little boy.

We arrive at the hospital to see our son

Arriving at the hospital was surreal, what do you say to a woman who is giving you the most incredible gift in the world, how would this all be, would we connect with her, relate to her, get to share Christ with her? We walked into the room to find beautiful Vanessa in the hospital bed with a couple of friends. We went over and hugged, cried and thanked her. She told us to go look at our son and that moment will be etched in my mind for eternity. Peering down to see this angelic little face of a boy we just met but have loved for years is something indescribable that words can’t contain. The nurse handed him to me and Mark and I just stared in awe of the wonder of God’s creation and again, His goodness.

The next 3 days were spent sitting in Vanessa’s hospital room getting to know her and her getting to know us. We spent hours just loving on our son and loving on her. We had the most natural, genuine connection to her that allowed us to all to feel more at ease with the process than seemed possible. The nursing staff, agency and everyone who met us all in that little room said they had never seen anything quite like it and we got to share with them about God’s goodness and the peace that Christ gives that passes all understanding. As we got to know more about Vanessa we fell more in love with her. She is strong, mature, beautiful and more courageous than anyone I have ever known. She chose life for her child and then continued in selfless love by giving him to people she felt would raise him well. She said she knew from the moment she found out she was pregnant that God was leading her to adoption. She did everything perfectly to protect him, care for him and nurture him in her womb and said that all along, she knew she was carrying him for someone else.

The last day we got to pray for Vanessa for a long time and that was a moment where time seemed to stand still and as she put it,

“It felt like Jesus walked into the room, sat on the hospital bed next to me and showed me the deepest love I have ever known.“

She said she always believed in God and prayed but hadn’t had a personal relationship with Jesus and in an instant, as only Jesus can do, He revealed Himself to her in such a real way that she gave her heart fully to Him. As we prayed for restoration in her family with her mother, father and others God moved so quickly and beautifully. Within an hour of our prayer time she received calls from all the people we had prayed for and those who had once been against her were know the supportive, loving and tender people she needed. The Holy Spirit continued to work in each of us that day and made the transition so seamless, peaceful and joyful that it could only be attributed to Him.

The journey home with Tobias

As we left the hospital with our son in the backseat and made the long drive home we had time to reflect on the journey; the sweetness of the gift in light of the length of the fight and the pure and lasting joy that Jesus produces through it all. No way we could have even known to pray for what God gave us and it humbles us and causes worship to leap out of us to the source and King of our lives.

The other incredible part to this story is the way the community of friends and family at Life Connection Church came together to serve us. We have been studying and learning about how to live as a gospel community and I believe that LCC truly lived out exactly what that looks like and is continuing in that to this day. In 2 days people came together to gather every piece of baby equipment we could possibly need, tons of great cloths for Tobias, diaper, supplies, etc.  We left with only a bassinet and walked into a transformed home that was bathed in prayer, love and community and it was another unforgettable moment. The first night we had some of our closest friends over to meet Tobias and as we cried and celebrated him with the people that have fought along side up for so long it was a moment of pure joy in the King of Kings, the Lover of our Souls, the Father of every good and perfect gift!

As the days have passed we have talked to Vanessa nearly every day and she is falling more and more in love with Jesus. From the time we spent with her she got such a heart to find her own gospel community that she is now attending an amazing church in Tucson and has already begun sharing her testimony and impacting lives. She continues to see restored relationship with her parents and children and we know that this is just the beginning of a lifetime with Jesus pointing her to Himself and His cross to bring her to wholeness & transformation into His image.

All of this to say that God is the author of this story and we will continue to submit our lives humbly, reverently and with awe of His goodness and point everything back to Him. To Him be the glory forever and ever!

-Mark and Kendra Rohl

You can listen to Mark and Kendra’s testimony they gave at Life Connection Church below.

Download audio file (markkendrarohladoptiontestimony.mp3)