The brand new March/April 2010 issue of Worship Leader Magazine is titled “Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs: Writing and Selecting Music to the Glory of God.”  And appropriately, for such an issue, they’ve profiled our Worship & Arts Pastor/ songwriter/ musician/ record producer Mike Cosper in their “Worship Leader Profile.”

If you get the magazine, check out his two-page spread on pages 66-67.

Amidst his profile and a sample set list from a Sojourn Gathered worship service, you’ll find a Q&A interview.  Here are some of his quotes from the Q&A:

On Sojourn’s biggest challenge in adapting the hymns of Isaac Watts:

Bridging the language gap was often difficult. English has changed significantly in the last 250 years, and we had to decide at some point in the process that it was okay to get pretty radical in changing and adapting the lyrics for the sake of comprehensibility.

On songwriting and choosing songs for corporate worship:

Songwriting (and song-choosing as a worship leader) is a pastoral task. It’s an amazing moment in our week when we (the congregation) allow someone else (the worship leaders) to put words in our mouth.  Where else do we do that?

On the biggest lesson he’s learned in leading worship:

I had some radical eye-opening a few years ago when I spent a season in the book of Hebrews. I learned that our job is actually pretty simple. The hardest work — making a way for people to come before God — was already done in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our job is to lead in a way that makes it clear that Jesus is our worship leader. We don’t have to “lead people to the throne room” (as people often say), we just need to point them to Jesus.

Welcome to the sojournmusic.com weekly worship music set list review.  You can find links to the set lists of this church and many other churches each week in the Worship Blog Carnival at theworshipcommunity.com. And you can learn about some of the songs we sing at Sojourn Gathered each week in advance of the Sunday service by reading my “Getting Ready For Sunday” post each Thursday at Sojourn’s online journal, TravelBlog.  Photos this week by Chuck Heeke.

1. Abiding City by Sandra McCracken. You can hear a preview of the song, and read Sandra’s introduction to “Abiding City” at the Builder and The Architect link (check out all the other songs on that CD from the same link).

2. Come Ye Sinners by Joseph Hart, new melody by Sojourn’s Brooks Ritter.  This rich hymn text is a great Call to Worship:

Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,

Weak and wounded, sick and sore;

Jesus ready stands to save you,

Full of pity, love and pow’r.

3. Lead Us Back by Bobby Gilles and Brooks Ritter.  Read our “Story Behind The Writing Of ‘Lead Us Back’ here at sojournmusic.com.  You can also get the lyrics/chord sheet and mp3 to this contemporary hymn of confession here, or listen to “Lead Us Back” at Last.fm.

Falling down upon our knees,

sharing now in common shame,

we have sought security,

not the cross that bears Your name

Fences guard our hearts and homes,

“Comfort” sings a siren tune,

We’re a valley of dry bones —

Lead us back to life in You

4. Fellowship So Deep by Aaron Senseman and Kinley Lange.  This is a great song to use as an intro to the Passing of the Peace, which is how we used it here.  Check out the original version by Caedmon’s Call at Yahoo music.

Christ the lamb was made to suffer

and to die upon a tree

so that we, sisters and brothers,

could know His fellowship so deep …

5. Open Thou Mine Eyes original hymn text by Lancelot Andrews, additional words and new music by Isaac Wardell.  This is a simple “sung prayer” which we sang together as a Prayer of Illumination right before our pastor’s sermon (from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter ten).

6. Nothing But The Blood, the classic “Sunday School” song by Robert Lowry.  We sang “Nothing But The Blood” as our Communion hymn this week:

This is all my hope and peace,

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

This is all my righteousness,

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

7. Solid Rock (My Hope Is Built On Nothing Less) by Edward Mote and William Bradbury.  Millions of Christians have sung this hymn of assurance through the centuries.  We love to sing it here in Louisville at Sojourn Gathered, too.

His oath, His covenant, His blood

supports me in the whelming flood.

When all around my soul gives way,

He then is all my hope and stay.

We sang “Solid Rock” during the baptisms at this Sojourn Gathered service.  Over 20 new believers came forward to be baptized, spread across our two campuses and five services.  Worship leaders read their testimonies of salvation aloud before the baptisms.

8. Mission’s Flame by Matt Redman.  This was a fitting song to “send us out,” following this service that focused on the mission that Jesus called us to in Mark 10.  It was also a great song of praise to close the service, just prior to our Benediction:

Every tribe, every tongue

Every creature in the heavens and the earth

Every heart, every soul

Will sing Your praise, will sing Your praise

Every note, every strain

Every melody will be for You alone

Every harmony that flows from every tongue

We’ll sing Your praise, we’ll sing Your praise

We’ll sing Your praise, we’ll sing Your praise

Worship band for the 9:30 and 11:15am services at the Midtown campus:

Kristen Smith — vocals and keyboard

Charlie Richardson — vocals and guitar

Brooks Ritter — vocals and guitar

Mike Cosper — lead guitar

Bryan Todd — bass guitar

Ryan Harvey — drums

Worship band for the 10am service at the East campus:

Rebecca Elliot— vocals and keyboard

Jamie Barnes — vocals and guitar

Eric Spann — lead guitar

Jonathan Ruff — bass guitar

Sean Brooks — drums

Worship band for the 5 and 7pm services at the Midtown campus:

Rebecca Dennison — vocals

Brooks Ritter — vocals and guitar

Mike Cosper — lead guitar

Daniel LaChance — keyboard

Martin Stam — bass guitar

Miguel Angel Monroy — drums

The Band of Bloggers is a big yearly event in Christian blogging circles.  On Tuesday, April 13 it comes back to Louisville — during Together For The Gospel week — after camping in Chicago during last year’s Gospel Coalition Conference.  It’s a luncheon, from 11 to 12:45.

This event sells out every year so if you’re interested, register today at the Band of Bloggers website (get all the info there, too).  You’ll have to look me up if you come — I’ll be there, as well several other Sojourn bloggers.

Panelists include Justin Taylor, Jon McIntosh, Jared Wilson and Trevin Wax.  Here’s a quick blurb from the website:

The theme for this year’s meeting is “Internet Idolatry and Gospel Fidelity.” With the advent of new media and the increasing influence of technology on our lives, it is important to address the relationship of the gospel to technology, especially the areas where we are tempted with idolatrous desire (power, identity, influence, acceptance, control, etc.).

Welcome to the sojournmusic.com weekly worship music set list review.  You can find links to the set lists of this church and many other churches each week in the Worship Blog Carnival at theworshipcommunity.com. And you can learn about some of the songs we sing at Sojourn Gathered each week in advance of the Sunday service by reading my “Getting Ready For Sunday” post each week at Sojourn’s online journal, TravelBlog.  Photos this week by Dan Canales.

1. Get Up, John written by Bill Monroe, arranged by Emmylou Harris and Ricky Skaggs.  We began with this bluegrass gospel song, to set the tone for this day’s sermon (all about the baptisms of John and Jesus, from the Gospel of Matthew):

Well get up John go tell Jerusalem
Savior’s waiting on the shore
Baptize Him in the River Jordan
I’ll send a dove from Heaven’s door

2. My Maker And My King hymn text by Anne Steel, melody and arrangement by Worship & Arts Pastor Mike Cosper.  View the chord/lyric sheet and hear the mp3 of this song of adoration here at sojournmusic.com.  You can also listen to the mp3 to “My Maker And My King” and every song from Before The Throne at Last.fm.

3. Psalm 57 by Sojourn’s Jeremy Quillo.  You can view the chord sheet in the These Things I Remember page here at sojournmusic.com.  Also listen to the “Psalm 57” mp3 from Last.fm.

4. Nothing Without You written by Bebo Norman. We sang this song of confession and petition prior to the Passing of the Peace:

Take these hands and lift them up
For I have not the strength to praise You near enough
For I have nothing, I have nothing without You

Take my voice and pour it out
Let it sing the songs of mercy I have found
For I have nothing, I have nothing without You

5. Come Thou Long Expected Jesus hymn text by Charles Wesley and music by Rowland Pritchard.  This may not be one of Wesley’s best-known hymns, but it is likely one of his best written.  And that’s saying something.  Wesley wrote about 6,500 hymns.  From the date of his first hymn in 1738 until his death in 1788, that would mean he averaged two hymns a week for fifty years. I get exhausted just thinking about that.

We used “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus” as our Communion hymn at Sojourn Gathered:

Come, Thou long expected Jesus
Born to set Thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us
Let us find our rest in Thee.

6. Invitacion Fountain written by Michael Pritzl of the Violet Burning. This is a great “call and response” song, especially since this week was a prelude to our Baptism Sunday next week at Sojourn Gathered:

If You lead me Lord, I will follow
Where You lead me Lord, I will Go
Come and heal me Lord, I will follow
Where You lead me Lord, I will go
I will go

The worship band at the East campus substituted “There Is A Fountain” for this song.

7. We Are Changed by Sojourn’s Bobby Gilles (moi), Neil Robins, Dave Moisan.  You can view the chord sheet from our Over The Grave page here at sojournmusic.com, and listen to the “We Are Changed” mp3 from Last.fm.

The worship band at the East campus substituted “Only Your Blood Is Enough” from Over The Grave for this song.

Worship band for the 9:30 and 11:15am services at the Midtown campus:

Megan Shaffer — vocals

Dave Moisan — vocals and keyboard

Justin Shaffer — lead guitar

Mike Cosper — slide guitar

Martin Stam — bass guitar

Ryan Harvey — drums

Worship band for the 10am service at the East campus:

Katie Davis— vocals

Jamie Barnes — vocals and banjo

Brooks Ritter — vocals and guitar

Rebecca Dennison — vocals

Dony Erwin — upright bass

Worship band for the 5 and 7pm services at the Midtown campus:

Samantha Lilly — vocals

Chad Watson — vocals and guitar

Derek Keijner — lead guitar

Shane St. Clair — keyboard

Bryan Todd — bass guitar

Smitty Smith — drums

Last Friday night at The 930 Art Center, Sojourn’s gallery and music listening room (and home of our Midtown Campus), Dirt Poor Robins performed during their CD release party. This band, made up of Sojourn Music members (who have played on albums like Over The Grave, Advent Songs and Before The Throne) dressed up as characters from Alice In Wonderland.

To see more DPR concert photos, as well as photos from opener Dave Moisan (another Sojourn worship leader) and a tour of the art exhibit that also opened on this night, visit TravelBlog, Sojourn’s online journal.

Last month I told you that Worship Leader magazine had reviewed our latest album, Over The Grave: The Hymns of Isaac Watts, Volume One. This month, they’ve included our song “Refuge” on the latest compilation worship CD, songDISCovery #83 (mailed to their subscribers).  In fact, it’s the lead track on that CD.

It’s an honor to be included on the latest edition of this project, which they designed as a way to alert worship leaders and music ministers around the world to new music for Christian worship.  Check out the listing for “Refuge” and learn what other songs are on the disc here (link will be active on the Worship Leader website until April 30, 2010).

Welcome to the sojournmusic.com weekly set list review. Check out a special message by Lead Pastor Daniel Montgomery about this worship service and a short video from the service, on the Pastors’ Blog at our online journal, TravelBlog.

You can find links to the set lists of this church and many other churches each week in the Worship Blog Carnival at theworshipcommunity.com. You can learn about some of the songs we sing at Sojourn Gathered each week in advance of the Sunday service by reading my “Getting Ready For Sunday” post each week at Sojourn’s online journal, TravelBlog.  Photos taken this week by Dan Canales.

1. Where Your Praise Never Ends by Sojourn’s Charlie Richardson.  This was a fitting open song because the theme of this service and our pastor’s “Psalm Series” sermon was Praise.

Ones that have gone before us
Saints that have joined your chorus
Know of your glory now
My voice prepares the notes
That I’ll sing before your throne
Rehearsing the day I’ll see you face to face.

2. Our Great God by Fernando Ortega and Mac Powell, of Third Day.  Like the first song, this has been a staple of Sojourn Gathered worship services for years.  It’s a modern hymn of adoration:

Let every creature in the sea
And every flying bird
Let all the mountains, all the fields
And valleys of the earth
Let all the moons and all the stars
Throughout the universe
Sing praises to the Living God
Who rules them by His word

3. Psalm 25 adapted and set to music by Joe Day of Mars Hill Church in Seattle.  A psalm of praise during a Psalmic Praise-centered Sunday.  More specifically, Pastor Joe used Psalm 25:8-10 as the setting for his tune:

All your ways are
Loving, faithful, Lord
To those who
Seek your face

You give grace to
The humble hearted
And instruct them
In your ways

4. Thy Mercy text by John Stocker, music by Sandra McCracken.  Can’t wait till she comes out with her new hymn-based recording this year. “Thy Mercy” is from her project The Builder And The Architect.  Here, we used it as a communion song:

Without Thy sweet mercy I could not live here;
Sin would reduce me to utter despair;
But, through Thy free goodness, my spirits revive,
And He that first made me still keeps me alive

5. King of Glory by Chris Tomlin.  We sang this coming out of Communion this week, which gave it a celebrative, “love feast” feel.  “King of Glory” is another psalm-based contemporary worship song (based off Psalm 24).

Lift up your gaze
Be lifted up
Tell everyone
How great the love
The love come down
From heaven’s gate
To kiss the earth
With hope and grace

Who is this King of Glory?
The Lord, strong and mighty

6. Blessed Be Your Name by Matt Redman.  This is a favorite of many Sojourners, and of course Christians around the globe.  Worship Leader Lorie King and I discussed “Blessed Be Your Name” as part of the “Worship Song Series” on the Inside Sojourn podcast.  You can download podcast episodes at iTunes, or listen specifically to the five-minute discussion of “Blessed Be Your Name” right here.

7. Mourning Into Dancing by Sojourn’s Jeremy Quillo.  You can view the lyrics and chords on our These Things I Remember page.  If you don’t own These Things I Remember, listen to the “Mourning Into Dancing” mp3 for free now at Last.fm.

For that matter, you can also hear it and a couple other Sojourn songs on a great new short video that tells the story of Sojourn’s ten year history.  Check it out:

Sojourn Past from Sojourn Community Church on Vimeo.

Worship band for the 9:30 and 11:15am services at the Midtown campus:

Lorie King — vocals

Charlie Richardson — vocals and guitar

Brooks Ritter — vocals and guitar

Mike Cosper — lead guitar

Daniel LaChance — keyboard

Brian Shrock — bass guitar

Buck Buchanan — drums

Worship band for the 10am service at the East campus:

Katie Stayte— vocals

Jamie Barnes — vocals and guitar

Kristen Smith — vocals and keyboard

Phillip Miller — lead guitar

Jonathan Ruff — bass guitar

Sean Brooks — drums

Worship band for the 5 and 7pm services at the Midtown campus:

Anna Young — vocals

Brooks Ritter — vocals and keyboard

Rob Maine — lead guitar

Martin Stam — bass guitar

Smitty Smith — drums

Sojourn Music will participate in the 13th annual Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s Community Hymn Sing this Tuesday, March 2.

A Sojourn band made up of Pastor Mike Cosper, Jamie Barnes, Brooks Ritter, Rebecca Dennison and Martin Stam will play songs from our Over The Grave album and other Isaac Watts hymns.  If you’ll be in Louisville next Tuesday at 7:30pm, check out this free event.

Other music artists include award-winning Steve Green, as well as David Hamilton, Nashville producer and arranger for Michael W. Smith and other Christian recording artists.  Hamilton will be the worship leader and conductor of the Hymn Sing Choir and Orchestra.

Take a one-minute tour behind the scenes with me at The 930 Art Center.  I recorded this yesterday.  You’ll see:

• visual artists continue to prepare our gallery for the big free exhibit opening this Friday (see a short video interview with 930 Gallery Director Michael Winters, and learn more about this upcoming event).
• Brooks Ritter and Sojourn musicians rehearsing in the auditorium

Then I take you into that most sensitive of areas, the Men’s Restroom, to check the poster displays for upcoming Sojourn events like the exhibit, the Dirt Poor Robins CD release party (which is also free, and held in conjunction with the art exhibit this Friday) and more.  Note: no one else was in the restroom.  I repeat, you will not be grossed out by the presence of anyone in the restroom.  This is a family broadcast.

Welcome to the sojournmusic.com weekly set list review. You can find links to the set lists of this church and many other churches each week in the Worship Blog Carnival at theworshipcommunity.com. You can learn about some of the songs we sing at Sojourn Gathered each week in advance of the Sunday service by reading my “Getting Ready For Sunday” post each week at Sojourn’s online journal, TravelBlog.  Photos taken this week by Ryan Harvey.

1. Shelter Me written by Buddy and Julie Miller.  This husband-wife team has written many solid tunes.  Check out the descriptiveness of these lyrics (and check out how apt they are, since this week our sermon centered around psalms of pain and lament):

dark waters rise and thunders pound
the wheels of war are going round
and all the walls are crumbling
shelter me lord underneath your wings

2. Come And Sing by Sojourn’s Jeremy Quillo.  We used this as the “Call To Worship” song on our liturgically-themed Before The Throne CD, and that’s how we used it here, too.  Check out the chord sheet here at sojournmusic.com, and listen to “Come And Sing” at Last.fm.

3. Psalm 51 by Sojourn’s Rebecca Dennison.  We recorded this song of lament and petition on 2005’s These Things I Remember (get the chord sheet here).  You can hear “Psalm 51” now at Last.fm.

4. God Who Saves by Aaron Senseman.

There is truth in His body, raised that third day
There is joy in a stone rolled away
There is hope pouring out of the tomb where He lay
Pouring out, pouring over the grave

5. The World Will Know by Sojourn’s Mike Cosper and Brooks Ritter, based on Isaac Watts’s “At Thy Command, Dearest Lord, The Wond’rous Cross,” and “Psalm 22, part 2.”  You’ll hear this on our next worship album later this year.  We used it as our Communion hymn this week.

Let the vain world pronounce it shame,
And mock our righteous cause
We come to boast our Savior’s name
And triumph in his cross

6. Deep In Our Hearts by Sojourn’s Joel Gerdis, Brooks Ritter and Mike Cosper. This is another new song which we’ll release on our next record, Volume Two of our Isaac Watts project.  As is characteristic of Isaac Watts (and we hope, of Sojourn) the lyrics leave no doubt that our hope and salvation is in Christ alone.

O for His sake our guilt forgive,
And let the mourning sinner live;
The Lord will hear us in His name,
Nor shall our hope be turned to shame.

7. Before The Throne Of God Above by Charitie Lees Bancroft and Vikki Cook.  Our song for the Sending this week is one of the classic hymns of assurance.  You can view the chord sheet from our Before The Throne page.

Because the sinless Savior died,
My sinful soul is counted free;
For God, the Just, is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me
To look on Him and pardon me

Worship band for the 9:30 and 11:15am services at the Midtown campus:

Katie Davis — vocals

Brooks Ritter — vocals and guitar

Derek Keijner — lead guitar

Shane St. Clair — keyboard

Bryan Todd — bass guitar

Alex O’Nan — drums

Worship band for the 10am service at the East campus:

Lorie King — vocals

Joel Gerdis — vocals and guitar

Phillip Miller — lead guitar

Steve McLean — keyboard

Bryon Shrock — bass guitar

Matt Harris — drums

Worship band for the 5 and 7pm services at the Midtown campus:

Rebecca Dennison — vocals

Dave Moisan — vocals and keyboard

Eric Spann — lead guitar

Martin Stam — bass guitar

Andy Meyers — drums