Yep, I’m a little late getting this one posted… sorry.

Mother’s Day… a day that has been set aside to honor those who birthed us.  Who nurtured us (birth mom’s or otherwise), and taught us how to be.

It’s a great day.

I got some really cool gifts from the girls – both handmade.  A built a little wheelbarrow for a potted plant to sit on, and M gave me a gift in a jar recipe for “Chocolate Lover’s Cookie Bars” and a little desk calendar of “I love my mummy because…” with notes she hand-wrote in.  I also got flowers from Mr. Man.  And the sun was shining… a beautiful Western Washington day in the high 60′s.

But on to the list…

• All Because of Jesus [G] Steve Fee
• Glory to God Forever [G] Beeching/Fee
• Only You [G] Andy Park
• Here I Am, Send Me [G] Martin Anderson
• kids storytime
• Jesus Saves [D] Whittaker/Fieldes/Ingram
• announcements
• message
• We Will Worship You [C] Ingram/Whittaker
• communion

Yep, it was a Fee Band & Carlos Whittaker kind of day.

We introduced Jesus Saves & We Will Worship You this weekend, one as a kids song and one as a “listen to this while you ponder communion” song.  They will be making repeat appearances in the coming weeks.

May is going to be an interesting month for us… we have at least 2 people missing each week I think.  One of our vocalists has been gone for a couple of weeks visiting family, and there has been such a huge hole there.  This week one of our electric guitarists played acoustic to fill in for the acoustic that will be gone for 3 weeks… and his missing electric left another hole in the sound.  It’s just different when the sound changes from what you have gotten used to, ya know?

Well, that was our list – what did you sing?

To see what was sung all around the world, head over to TheWorshipCommunity.com!

It seemed to have passed me by without even realizing it… May Day was yesterday!  I finally remembered and wished someone “Happy May Day” oh, around 10:00 last night.  C’est la vie.

So that makes today the day after May Day.  May 2nd.  And a beautiful day in early may it is here in Western Washington… with the snow level around 2,000 feet and the low-hanging clouds and temps in the 50′s.  Low 50′s.

Ugh.

Yes, it’s cold and blustery – but we aren’t under water, so it’s all good!

Well, I was supposed to be postinga MIA setlist this morning… I was supposed to be taking the weekend off and celebrating Mother’s Day with my mum-in-law, but we had a sick kiddo and didn’t want to spread the germs.  So, I’m posting it from the perspective of the stage, as usual.

So, without further ado… the list:

• Glorious (Paul Baloche/Brenton Brown) [Bb]
• Glory To God Forever (Steve Fee/Vicky Beeching) [G]
• God of Wonders (Marc Byrd/Steve Hindalong) [F]
• My Savior, My God (Aaron Shust/DD Greenwell) [C]
• kids story
• Counting On God (Jared Anderson) [E]
• Message – Somebody Pinch Me
• Doxology

Glorious is one of our most requested songs these days.  It seems that everyone loves singing it – and playing it (which is usually a pretty good thing!)  Having two electric guitars on that one makes it just a bit more fun too, as David plays the bridge during the intro – about an octave higher than I sing it.  It’s just kewl.

Glory to God Forever is a new song for us – we just introduced it last week – and it seems to be fairly well received so far.  It’s played quite a bit on the radio here too, so it’s fairly well known to a good chunk of the congregation already.  It was great to see a few people fully entering in this morning while we sang it (even while others were still learning the words).

Since I was planning to be gone, we had split the songs up between a few people so they could all lead together, so Art led the next two songs and I got to sing harmony (yay!)  We haven’t done God of Wonders in quite a while, and it was nice to pull it out of the file and shake off the dust a bit.  And I have to throw out kudos to our media gal – the background she found for it this morning was so stinkin’ cool.  It looked like we were flying through space and getting to see God’s extra-planetary creation up close & personal.  Everyone on stage wanted to turn around and watch it.  Good job Carol!

Scott & Julie did a great job with the kids story this morning too – Scott played the part of Peter sitting in jail wonderfully, and I think the kids had a lot of fun getting to be the angels getting him out of jail.  They were even extra quiet so they didn’t wake up the guards!

So, that was our Sunday… how was yours?

**as awlays, this is part of the Sunday Setlist Bloggy Carnival over at TheWorshipCommunity.com – check out what was sung all over the world this weekend!

Yep, I admit it.  I’ve apparently gone awol.  Missing In Action.

Yeah – sorry about that.

It’s been a kinda busy month or so around these parts… ya know with taking 3- classes, having sick kids, Easter, family in town – twice, and me being stupid & throwing my back out (tends to make sitting nearly impossible!)

BUT – I think I’m back!  Yay!

Of course, along with the list above, there has been the spiritual aspect as well.  Personally I’ve been arguing with God (yes, again) and – as usual – He’s winning.  Don’t you just hate that?  He ALWAYS wins!  (thank goodness!)

I’ve finally determined that my personal lesson for 2010 (at least the first half) is just how much of a wimp I really am… and I mean in just about every way.  I can’t do this thing called life on my own, or in my own strength.  DUH!  I have to do this thing called life in HIS strength.

Living life in His strength just isn’t the easiest thing in the world to do because that requires you to turn over control.  Something that within our humanity we tend to find just a little bit difficult.  Sure, we say that we will lay our troubles at His feet, that He is in control… but as soon as we start to feel like we aren’t in control we try to take it all back again.

You see, it’s the leaving it there that’s the hard part.  Sure, we will turn it over to God when it starts to get hard.  When we start to feel overwhelmed.  But as soon as those feelings pass we start to justify why we really should take control again.  After all, we aren’t feeling overwhelmed anymore, so we can handle it… right?

WRONG!

Our lives are so far beyond our control, so far beyond what we can handle in our humanity that it’s nearly insane to even try.  We have a threat of losing our job – quick!  Send up a prayer.  We get bad news from the Dr. and quick!  Send up another prayer.  We have tried to put God in a little brass lamp that we can rub whenever we think we need something.  God is not a genie in a bottle.  God is not our personal “get me out of this jam quick” savior.  He is the God of the universe!

And once we get a glimpse of how great He really is, well, it should change us.

Jesus calls us to live out a life in submission to Him.  He calls us to take up our cross and follow Him – not to say a few words and expect Him to follow us around like a pet dog!  That’s the wrong kind of unconditional love.  In that scenario, well, we would be the dog.  We should be the one looking at our Master with adoring eyes and willing to do whatever He asks us to do – NOT the other way around!

Yes, Jesus Christ is our Savior.  But He is not going to save us from the trials of life.  He is going to save us from our sin.  The bible never promised that choosing to follow Jesus would be easy – in fact, it promises exactly the opposite!  To take up our cross and follow Jesus is to choose a life of persecution.  Is to choose a life of discomfort, of possible loneliness.  To choose to give up everything and follow His leading, no matter the cost.

I recently began reading the book “Radical – Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream” by David Platt, and I must say that he brings out some pretty hard truths in just the first chapter!  so far the line that got me the most was this:

And the danger now is that when we gather in our church buildings to sing and lift up our hands in worship, we may not actually be worshiping the Jesus of the Bible. Instead we may be worshiping ourselves.

As Platt brings out in his book, we have begun to change who Jesus is to us.  We don’t want to believe that He would actually call us to walk away from our job or sell something that we like to help someone else – or even to choose not to buy something we want and give that money to missions.  We don’t want to think that he might actually ask us to leave our family of birth and risk our lives to tell people about Him!  No, that’s not what Jesus would ask us to do!

Um… folks, re-read the gospels and you will see… that is exactly what He asked His disciples to do.  To walk away from their livelihoods, their families and everything they knew, and follow Him wherever He would lead to – even unto death.

Wow…

And to think, I struggle with setting aside time each day to work on the bible study that I’m leading!  Here I am, an American Christian living in a 1500 sq. ft. house with 2 cars in the driveway and junk that I really need to figure out how to get rid of.  HEre I am with plenty of food in the fridge and pantry that my family can have something to eat whenever they feel a twinge of hunger.  I have fresh, clean water piped into my warm, dry house – so much that I don’t think twice about using it to take a longer-than-normal shower occasionally, and re-wash that load of clothes that got left in the washer a bit too long.

We are so full of ourselves!

We are so comfortable!  Proclaiming that we believe in Jesus Christ doesn’t bring any stronger persecution to us than perhaps some laughter around the water cooler.  We have good jobs, and so far no one can fire us for professing to be a Christian.  Our country is slowly losing it’s Judeo-Christian morals and values, but we are too afraid to rock the boat to say anything about it.

People in Asia are being killed because they profess faith in Jesus Christ.

They are being thrown in jail.  They are being tortured.

and they are glad to suffer for the sake of Christ.

I’m preaching to me here… I can’t think of any time that I truly suffered because of my belief in Jesus Christ.  Being teased at school doesn’t quite make that cut – especially when you grew up in a fairly “Christian” part of the country.  I do find myself wondering if I would have the strength to suffer for His sake.

I know that on my own, I would fail.  On my own, I couldn’t do it.

But I’m slowly learning that I’m not called to do anything on my own.

I am called to live out the life that He places before me… and to live it by and in His strength.

After all, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And for those interested in “Radical” – you can download and read the first chapter here.  And while supplies last you can get a free copy of the companion book “The Radical Question” by going to WaterBrookMultnomah.com/RadicalQuestion

And no, I haven’t received a free copy of the book – I followed the same steps I just told you about and downloaded the first chapter… I’m still processing what I’ve already read, and I’m only halfway through chapter one.  I am very much looking forward to reading the rest of the book… and a little frightened!  I know that God is calling me to go deeper with Him… but being the comfortable American that I am, that is a scary thing.

But is it worth it?

Absolutely.

Yep, this post is going up before our services this weekend.  Seems a little backwards, doesn’t it!

I wish I could take credit for the idea, but I can’t.  I came across this post over at Kretzu.com/blog today, and it just makes sense, so I’m going to try it.

We will have two services this weekend – one on Friday night at 7, and our regular Sunday morning service at 10.  Both will be held at the Old Arlington High School (or Highland Christian School, for those that prefer that) in the auditorium.

Here are the songs that we will be singing for Good Friday…

• Jesus Messiah (Chris Tomlin)
• The Wonderful Cross (Chris Tomlin)
• Blessed Redeemer (Casting Crowns)
• Lead Me to the Cross  (Brooke Fraser/Hillsong United)
• Nothing But The Blood  (Matt Redman)
• Jesus’ Blood  (Martin Smith/Delirious?)
• The Love of God  (Mercy Me)
• You Gave Your Life Away  (Kathryn Scott/Paul Baloche)

And these are the songs for Resurrection Sunday morning…

• Today Is The Day (Lincoln Brewster/Paul Baloche)
• All Because Of Jesus (Steve Fee)
• Glorious (Paul Baloche/Brenton Brown)
• Revelation Song (Kari Jobe – written by Jennie Lee Riddle)
• Glorious Day (Casting Crowns)
• Happy Day (Tim Hughes-sung by Steve Fee/Kim Walker)
• Marvelous Light (Charlie Hall – as sung by Christy Nockles)

These can all be found on iTunes, YouTube.com and other places.  I’m sure you can even find them on a Pandora station.  If you have them, I encourage you to listen to them before our services this weekend!

What is the reason behind posting this early?  It’s simple… worship is not something that just happens on a Sunday morning for 20 minutes or so.  Worship is what we do each day with our lives.  Worship is giving our lives over to God each minute.  Music is just a small part of that, but it is a part that can be very powerful.

If you have the time to listen through these songs – even just a few of them – you will be preparing your heart and mind for more fully bringing your worship before God when we gather together this weekend!  Personal worship is a vital part of our Christian walk, but corporate worship is also very important.  We need to gather together with our brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to pray together, to sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with one another.  We need to worship God together.

By listening to the songs in advance, you will also be more familiar with them – some of them are still newer songs to our body.  Some of them are also planned as special music, but I would love for the words to really sink into your hearts and minds – they are very powerful.  I pray that you will allow the truths that are being sung to wash over you, to seep in, and to be real in your hearts and lives.

I am really looking forward to worshiping with you this weekend.  We had such a fun rehearsal last night, and it is my hope that some of that joy that we felt will be passed along to each person that joins us this weekend.

Worshiping God through music is fun!  It brings us joy and allows us to relax into God’s presence more easily.  It is my prayer that our times of corporate worship do that for you as well.

Happy Easter!

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…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.