Part of the Sunday Setlist blog carnival over at TheWorshipCommunity.com - check it out!

I know, I’m late getting this posted.  Life happens sometimes

Before I get into the gory details, here is the list…

• All Because of Jesus
• Glorious (Baloche/Brown)
• Revelation Song
• Indescribable
• kids story
• We Are One/By Our Love (Mark Swayze Band)
• announcements
• message
• The Wonderful Cross
• communion
• Amazing Grace

We were missing quite a few people again this week, but had others back.  The bigger issue that we were facing, however, was that it was the first Sunday we used the in-ear monitors.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!

Yeah, it was scary.  Somehow, though, it all worked out (at least that’s what people in the congregation were telling me.  Phew!)  The perspective from the stage was a bit less glowing though!

There were a few lessons learned… one main one was that I should never EVER attempt to lead a song that is just “that much” too low for me.  Especially for a kids song.  Yes, I thought I knew this, of course, but I did it anyway.  ugh.

As you can see, this week it is much more of a worship confessional… I confess, it sucked (from my perspective) and I take full responsibility for making it more challenging for everyone.

The upside was that we as a band (albiet missing a few members) have played long enough without any monitors and together as a team that it all worked somehow.  Good job team!

Lesson 2 - when you know you are missing something on Wednesday that you will need on Sunday… make sure that you have it on Sunday!  Some of the extenders for the headphones were mono instead of sterio… and I confess that I still haven’t picked them up.  Yeah, I need to do that.  Tomorrow.  Because I hadn’t picked those up yet the vocals didn’t use their in-ears - and neither our sound guy or myself were aware of that until, oh, about the time the service was starting… too late to set up a wedge.

Lesson 3 - check all batteries BEFORE the service starts.  Voice recorders and wireless microphones.  Yep.  Oh, and a sound check on that wireless mic would be a good plan too (if only the worship leader could get her rehearsal done in time to do it…)

So yeah, it was one of those weekends.

How was yours?

Being a parent is a roller coaster ride - it has it’s high’s and low’s, it’s moments of thrilling joy - and terror.

But it’s a roller coaster that I am so thankful that I get to go on.

I have learned more about God through being a Mommy than I had ever thought possible.  And with two completely opposite girls, well, I am learning a bit about myself too.

We have one child who truly has a servant’s heart.  She will clear the table without being asked, she will share just about annything she has with others, and her goal in life seems to be to make others happy.  And we have one who has a master’s heart.  She wants to be served, to make all of her own decisions, and she only wants people on her terms.  Like a 9:30 at night when she is supposed to have been asleep for an hour - yep, that’s when she wants to have deep, meaningful conversations.

Don’t get me wrong, she has amazing qualities of her own.  She cares deeply, she is very artistic and creative, and she is the friend that will defend you to the end (or the mortal enemy that will fight until the end!)  The struggle of parenting her though is much more of a struggle.

So, knowing that I have a child with a low self-worth, who expects to have everything go her way and then decides that the world hates her when it doesn’t, and knowing that it’s apparently not something we did as parents that made her this way, what advice would you give?

Well, I finally figured something out this weekend.  I was talking with a friend a few weeks ago about this very topic, and was advised to figure out how to make her think that she is the one making the choices in her life.  The majority of our battles come from her being told to do something, and her not wanting to be told what to do.  However, when you are a child, well, let’s just say that a family isn’t a democracy, nor is it anarchy.  At least it shouldn’t be.  A family is a monarchy - ruled from the head down.

When you are living in a monarchy, it’s not very typical to see the peasant’s making the decisions instead of the king, correct?  But what about the daughter of the king?

Ah, there’s the rub.

The daughter of the king wants to have a little pull, to flex a little decision-making muscle.  After all, if her Daddy is the king, she should have some power, right?

It could just work.

I decided to try a new tactic this weekend - almost by accident.  When it comes to things that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things I’ve decided that I’m not going to fight it.  I’m not going to force my will upon her.  I’m not going to suck the air out of the room and scream & yell (not that I do that!) and force her to bend to my will.  Nope… I’m just not going to care.

And somehow, it worked.

On the non-essentials I. Don’t. Care.

I don’t care if she refuses to dress up for church (I used to - biiiiig family battles as I was walking out the door to lead worship and leaving her Daddy to clean up the emotional mess and get her dressed - usually in what I had said no to).  I don’t care if she folds her socks & underwear nicely before taking them to her room.  I don’t care that she loads the dishwasher in a way that totally drives me bonkers (well, at least I try not to let her see it!) and it seems to be working!  She gets to choose how she does these things and they are getting done without a fight.

This morning she didn’t want to get out of bed on time.  She wanted to stay home and get a couple more hours of sleep and then “miraculously” feel better around 10 am.  The problem with that today - beyond missing the beginning of school and letting her practice laziness and hone her skills at manipulation - is that I don’t have a car.  I have no way of getting her to school if she doesn’t ride the bus.  Ah, so she’s sure she can get her way.  She’s figuring that she can get a couple more hours of sleep, get up around 10 or so, and watch movies, play Wii, etc.

That won’t be happening.

I told her once she had eaten breakfast and was pretty much ready for school we would talk about it.  As I walked out of her room to send her sister off to school I told her that she would be spending the day in her room - ALL day - but that it was her choice. After all, she could always spend it cleaning her room.

As I was watching her sister walk down the hill towards the bus stop this morning I heard a mad scramble to grab the already-prepared lunch box and shove it into her book bag as she slipped on some shoes.  She chose to go to school.

And because I didn’t care, she didn’t feel that she was being forced to do it.  She looked at the choices before her and decided that school was the better one.

There was no battle of wills, there was no fight.  And I now get to have a peaceful day of work instead of a day of constant struggle against her wanting to do what I said she couldn’t do.  And she gets to go to school and learn.

It’s like a win-win.

I know that some reading this might have a problem with allowing kids to make more choices and “get their way,” but I can assure you that on the issues that matter there is no choice.  On the issues that matter they are given the “choice” between doing what they need to do and punishment.  But on the little things that don’t matter we are letting them learn to make decisions for themselves so that as they grow up and have to make those bigger choices, well, hopefully they will have learned enough about making choices that whey will make the right ones.

Wow - today was powerful (for me anyway).  We had a smaller group than normal (down by 4 people/5 sounds) but the worship wasn’t missing anything!

Da Liszt:

• Rain It Down [G] Carlos Whittaker
• Blessed Be Your Name [G]  Matt Redman/Beth Redman
• Here I Am, Send Me [G] Martin Anderson
• Here Is Love [D] Steve Cook/Vikki Cook/Phillip Rees
• kids story
• Counting On God [D] Jared Anderson
• announcements
• message - guest speaker
• Doxology

This was our second week doing Rain It Down, and people are really starting to pick it up.  I took a minute or so to expound on it today to help people get a little more out of it, and I hope that people were more blessed by it.  It’s such a great song to sing when you are in the midst of something.  There is just something about reaching out to God while in the middle of the storms that is so… powerful.

We followed that up with Blessed Be Your Name, again pointing out that we need to praise God in the good and the bad times.  Then we moved into Here I Am, Send Me and Here Is Love recognizing what God went through to make us His own.

Personally with the storms of life, today was just what I needed.  A reminder that God is there.  A reminder that while God never said that He would take away all of our problems, He did promise that He would be right there beside us while we are going through them - that we don’t need to fear the storm, we just need to cling ever closer to Him through the storm.

On a musical note, however, I am seriously considering raising Rain It Down a step to A - the verses are just so low for me.  ;)  The original key is C, but I know that the rest of the vocalists would pitch a fit over singing it that high…

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As always, this is part of the Sunday Setlist blog carnival over at TheWorshipCommunity.com - head over to see what songs are being sung at churches all over the world.

How was your worship service this weekend?

I’m taking a class right now, and one of the required texts for reading is “Ancient-Future Time” by Robert E. Webber.

As I was reading today, I came across a sentance that caused me to stop and ponder it for a while - and I wanted to share those thoughts.

Mr. Webber made the following statement:

When we turn away from something, we turn towards something new.

Of course he was applying it to our turning towards God through Jesus and turning away from sin, however this concept (unfortunately) works in the other direction as well.

When we turn away from God, we are turning towards sin.  Or, if you prefer, when we turn towards sin, we are quite seriously turning away from God.

In our lives when we choose to turn away from some part of our lives, there will be something there that is different - and not always better for us.  Alternatevely, when we turn towards something new, we are making a choice to turn away from something that is presently a part of our lives.

The ideal is, of course, to turn towards God and away from sin, to turn towards truth and away from a lie.  The unfortunate thing is that we can also choose to turn towards sin - effectively turning away from God.

So what do we do when this has happened in our lives?  The correct choice is to make a course correction when we realize that it has happened.  We must then repent and turn back to God - and away from the path that sin is leading us down.  A path that leads to destruction and death.

How do we know that we have turned away from God?

The bible says that the Holy Spirit will whisper to us when we turn to the right or to the left to help us stay on the correct path, however we can condition our spirit to ignore His promptings - and the more we ignore them, well, the less we hear them in the first place.

THIS IS DANGEROUS!

Once we have conditioned ourselves to ignore Him, just think of how much harder it is once we desire to hear His voice again!  We must take the time and put in the effort to re-cultivate our spiritual ears to listen to Him, and while we are cleaning out our ears we must make the concious choice to die to the flesh in regards to the temptations of that path of sin!

Fortunately we serve a God who is a God of Love… a God that offers grace and forgiveness to us no matter how far we have strayed from Him.  We don’t deserve His love, grace and forgiveness, and there is no way we could ever work our way back to Him on our own.  BUT… He so desires us that He created a way for us to “get back into His good graces” as it were.

We must cry out to Him in repentance and ask for His forgiveness.  Until we are broken by our sin and cry out to Him we will continue down that same side road over and over again.

The choice of turning away from the sin and towards God MUST be a willful decision.  We can’t just float along through life and try not to ripple the waters around us.  It’s either walk-by-faith… or sink.

If we don’t place our faith in Jesus we will sink.  If we turn away from Jesus and look to the world, we will sink.  If, however, we will keep our hearts focused on Jesus, we will be able to walk on the water towards Him.  He has promised to give us whatever we need to get through the storms that we find ourselves in - but He never promised to take us out of the storms.

There’s a great new song out by Carlos Whittaker called “Rain It Down” that describes what we should be doing.  Here are the lyrics:

There’s a storm coming in the distance
Some will run to it and some will resist it
Our eyes will turn to the sky
With desert hearts looking to the heavens
Desperate for Your holy fountain
Our eyes will turn to the sky

Rain down on us Father
Rain down on us Spirit
Rain down on us Jesus
Rain down on us

There’s nothing like Your healing water
Pour it out on Your sons and daughters
Our eyes are lifted high
We are here and we are waiting
Flood our hearts ’til they’re overflowing
Our hands are lifted high

Come Lord we’re thirsty now
Come Lord and rain it down
Come Lord we’re thirsty now
Come Lord and rain it down

When we find ourselves in the midst of a storm we need to embrace it.  We need to cry out for God to rain down His healing waters upon our dry & thirsty souls - not cry out for it to be over.

We need to turn towards God.

Lent…

Growing up (in the church, I might add) I had never heard of this season.  Not once.  I remember the first time I ever heard of it - and of someone giving something up for it.  I was a sophmore in college - yeah, like I said, I had never heard of it.

So what is the big deal about this thing called Lent?

Well, recent study has shown me that there actually is a big deal about it… and it all comes down to the heart.

The season of Lent is a season of preparation - preparing your heart and mind for Easter.  The 40 day period was chosen (in part) due to the 40 day period that Jesus spent in the desert before beginning His earthly ministry.  There are also other periods of preperation lasting 40 days in the Bible - it rained for 40 days & 40 nights and created a flood to cleanse the world, Moses stayed on the mountain of God 40 days, the spies were sent into the promised land for 40 days, and Elijah travelled 40 days to reach the cave where he had his vision, just to name a few.

So how do we use this time?  We pray - or we should.  It is a time to truly look at our lives and see if there is anything holding us back from the best that God has for us.  The things that people “give up for Lent” are (usually) not bad things - they are good things, however they may find that these things hold them back from the better and best that God wants for them.  De-cluttering our lives and minds from these things and devoting extra time to prayer helps us to see this.

So why fasting?

Well, fasting is very biblical.  Jesus said “When you fast…” not “if”.  God calls us to fast on occasion to draw our focus to Him.  Again, removing something from our lives can help us have a greater appreciation for it when it returns.  Ash Wednesday is traditionally a day of fasting, as are the 6 Fridays in Lent.  Sundays, however, are excluded from Lent, as they are a day of celebration for what God has done, namely conquering the grave and bringing us salvation.

This season helps re-align our focus - feeling the pangs of hunger and not allowing yourself to partake of something you enjoy for a short season helps us to focus in on our need - our need for God’s grace and the salvation that Jesus brought through the cross.

Taking the time that you would usually spend eating or watching tv or whatever your “thing” is that you give up for a season is beneficial in that you will draw closer to God - and that is never a bad thing!

I have never taken part in Lent before, however this year I will be.  I will have days that I fast, days that I spend that extra time in prayer, and I will be giving up something that is fun - but not a necessity to life.  And I will be spending that 20-30 minutes a day (or longer) that I used to spend on that and giving it to God.  After all, I’m sure He has a better use for it that I was putting it to!

I’m looking forward to this time - to the opportunity to walk through a period of suffering with Jesus, to draw closer to Him, and to more deeply appreciate the celebration of Easter.

How about you?  Is Lent a part of your life?  If not, is it something you have ever considered?

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Yep, it’s that gushy, pink-and-red holiday that’s all about luuuv.  ugh.  *grin*

But on a happier note, we had a great morning at Falcon Ridge Fellowship today!  We led All Because of Jesus for the third week, and we debuted another new song today - one that I was really excited about.

We had almost everyone there this morning - we were missing our usual bass player, but David switched over and played today so the sound was great.  The best part though?  I got to sit in the congregation and take communion with Eric… and that hasn’t happened in a looooooong time.

Anywho, here’s the setlist:

• Rain It Down [G] Carlos Whittaker
• All Because Of Jesus [G] Steve Fee
  
• Glorious [Bb] Brenton Brown/Paul Baloche
• You Never Let Go [F] Matt Redman/Beth Redman
• kids storytime
• Glorious [G] Chris Tomlin/Jesse Reeves…
• announcements
• Message
• You Gave Your Life Away [E] Kathryn Scott / Paul Baloche
• Communion message
• My Chains Are Gone - chorus only

We introduced @loswhit’s new single Rain It Down this morning, and the band was sooooo excited to do it.  It is such a fun song to sing and play, and (hopefully) that enthusiasm was contagious.  I had posted on my FB age a couple of weeks ago that we would be doing it & everyone should download it, and (fortunately) a few had done that and already knew it.  However since I know that a few will be asking where to find it I’m posting the link again - if you want to download it, head over to iTunes here.

All Because of Jesus is a great tune too, and we have a lot of fun with it.  They play it quite a bit on the local christian station up here, so most people already knew it - helpul when your teaching something new. It’s great to see most of the congregation singing along when you’ve recently introduced a song to them.   Baloche’s Glorious is like that too - people connected with that one almost immediately, and it quickly became one of the favorite songs.  I think Glorious and Here I am, Send Me are our two most requested songs.  Having both Glorious’s on the list today was a little confusing, but it worked out great.

Well, I’m off - Eric is taking me shopping for something sparkly and we have to drop the girls off at a friend’s first, (well, after we finish grouting the rest of the tile - soooooo romantic!)  so I’ll catch you later!

As always, this is part of the Sunday Setlist bloggy carnival over at TheWorshipCommunity.com - check it out!

So, how was your service this weekend?  Any songs you loved?  Any you loved, well, not so much?

Ever have one of those sets where you just can’t not worship?  It was like that for me yesterday.  1 brand new song, and 3 songs that we hadn’t done for a while but were great old friends.  You know, the kind that you don’t have to worry about where you go next because you know the song so well that it just comes out.

And I almost missed it.

M has had some kind of cold/flu bug for about 10 days now and I seem to have caught it on Friday night.  I spent Saturday in bed (as much as I could anyway) so that I would be abe to make it to church this weekend.  And I did make it, but it was rather touch-and-go for a bit.  The biggest problem was the sore throat that came & went.  It was gone Sunday morning, but the voice still wasn’t all there.

BUT

I am so thankful for the truth on the lyrics we sang in Baloche’s Hosanna - “when we see You, we find strength to face the day.  And in Your presence all our fears are washed away”  That was so true for me yesterday!  He gave me the strength to face the day yesterday, and I am so thankful!

Anywho, here’s the list:

• All Because Of Jesus [F]
• Hosanna (Praise Is Rising) [F]
• It Is You [A]
• Enough [F]
• kids story
• Love The Lord [D]
• message
• Lord You Have My Heart [D]
• Communion
• Doxology

All Because Of Jesus was brand new for us this weekend, but people were joining in pretty quickly.  We did it in F, however the verse was still a bit low for me (since I was sick).  I’m thinking about trying it out in G next week… or maybe A.  We’ll see how high I can convince them to go

Chris ended up leading It Is You & Enough - which was great because that meant I got to sing harmony - yay!  We haven’t done either of those songs in months and I really missed them.  It was just a morning of truly singing out praises to God and truths about Him & sending them back to Him.

We stayed very simple on Lord You Have My Heart - just 2 vocals, an acoustic and a djembe.  We sang it over the congregation while the bread and grape juice were passed out for communion and asked people to take the time to prepare their hearts and minds for the Lord’s Table.  Then Wayne shared a message about taking in Jesus’ flesh & blood into our bodies as a symbol of taking Him into ourselves.  It was pretty powerful.

After the service the girls decided that they were going to a friend’s house - and then informed all 4 parents involved!  It’s always fun when they try to do that.  Fortunately for them it worked this time!  They left with their friend and Eric & I actually got to have a date!  Honestly it was almost surreal.  He’s been out of town or pulling 14-hour days at the sales meeting for 2 weeks now, so we haven’t even seen each other at all except for last Tuesday evening.  It was so nice to get to go to lunch just with him.  We really need to do that more often…

All in all it was a great weekend - despite being sick.  Today, however, this bug seems to have pulled in the reserves and in attacking again.  Oh well, not much going on now

How was your service?

*This is part of the Sunday Setlist Bloggy Carnival over at TheWorshipCommunity.com - see what songs are being led all over the world!

I was bouncing around the blog-o-sphere tonight and happened upon a post that Carlos Whittaker did a while back asking 2 simple questions…

• When does a worship leader really botch it for you?
• What is the biggest gripe you have about something a Sunday worship leader does?

There were LOTS of responses - most of them contradicting each other, ironically - but one of them encapsulated it for me.  A gent named Rick tossed this comment into the mix, and I wanted to share it.  I also want to ponder it myself for a bit.  Here is what he said:

I hate it when my worship leader…
-has to remind Christians that corporate worship is a mandate from God.

-has to risk being a cheerleader because the people that claim to love God exhibit no sense of joy when singing about Him.

-has to burn the first song because 75% of the congregation is late, talking in the lobby, perfecting their coffee, or sleep walking instead of enthusiastically taking advantage of celebrating our Savior with like-hearted people.

-has to endure darts of personal preference from hundreds of individuals who have lost sight of what Sunday worship time is prescribed by God to be.

-is treated as a thoughtless hire rather than a divinely appointed servant.

-is expected to never get nervous but be humble,
execute notes and lyrics without flaw while avoiding performance and being vulnerable,
make no effort to teach or guide but don’t be a juke box, and stay traditional and contemporary,
all while burying, birthing and resurrecting songs appropriately.

I’m sure that’s easy to do!

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This also comes on the heels of seeing one of my fellow worship leading mom’s getting roasted by a “friend” on her facebook wall because she gets “paid too much just to sing on sundays, most people volenteer their time for that.”

Is this really where the Modern Church has gotten to?  Are we really that consumer-minded?  Are we that angry and judgemental?

The true question should be “what is it that helps draw you into the presence of God?” or “is there a way that your local worship leader can help you shake off the baggage you brought with you so that you can truly worship God?”

As a worship leader, these are the questions that I would love to have answered!  I want to know if there is something that I can do to help you enter the throne room of your Saviour and King.  How can I help you feel released?  How can I get out of your way and create an environment where there isn’t anything to distract you from living out your sacrifice of praise of an Almighty God?

Don’t get me wrong - I totally get why Carlos asked the questions, and I do appreciate some of the responses.  There are things that I do that would drive some of his readers insane (and I’ll be working on some of them - but not all of them!).

To be the person that God has called to stand up in front of His church and lead them is a daunting task.  To be the person that is responsible for getting a list of songs together that:

1. The congregation knows
2. Relates to the pastor’s message
3. The band plays/sings well
4. Has a natural “flow”

well, that is a hard thing some weeks!  And we do it every. single. week.

Yes, there are times that it all comes together in such an amazing way that there is no doubt that God had His hand in it… but there are also weeks that I look at the passage we will be studying (and the supporting passages) and I draw a huge blank for days.

Then you add in the hours of practice, set-up & tear down, the creating of charts (in multiple keys), the time spend seaking out new music to add to your church’s repitoire, building relationships with the members of the band and making sure they are growing spiritually… and the list goes on and on.  Oh, and having the guts to get up in front of you each week and blowing it as often as not (even when you may never know) - mixing up words or chord progressions or sounding like an idiot when you lose your train of thought.

I’m human.  Your worship leader, worship pastor, director of music, etc - they are only human too.  We fail, we get nervous, we have things that come up in our lives that reduce the time we have to prepare. The unexpected happens.

BUT

We serve a God that gives each of us a second chance - you, me and even your worship leader.

Next time your worship leader does or says something that bugs you - and I’m sure they will - take a step back and try to see the why in it.  Why does it bug you?  Is it something that needs to be addressed spiritually or theologically?  Is there something that hints at hipocracy in their lives?  Or are you just grumpy today?

Are we coming to church to be entertained, or are we coming to worship the Saviour of our souls in unity and community with a body of believers?

Just some things to think about.

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**I’m not saying that ALL churches are this way, I’m just making a generalization based on the fact that nearly 200 people chimed in and over 80% of the comments had a negative slant.  Help us out - tell us how we can help rather than throw us under the bus. If you really want to see the negativity (from both sides, unfortunately,) just google “I hate when my worship leader” - ugh.

** 2nd disclaimer - I’m not trying to cast angry comments back, but rather to help the general church-attendee to see that there may be more to it than meets the eye.  I really do want comments and feedback - I want to help make your corporate worship experience as seemless and God-honoring as I can!  I also want you and I to be able to worship together, side by side.  After all, that is the point of corporate worship!