Wow – what a great morning of worship!  It was one of those days (for me) that you just can’t help but praise God.  I like those days.

Admittedly I wasn’t feeling it when I got to church this morning.  I had overslept (accidentaly turned the alarm OFF instead of snoozing) and was running late.  I was preparing for an extra long day with the Back to School Rally coming up after church, and I was having a really hard time waking up.  But by the time we were on the chorus of the second song I was ready to dance!

God is good!

Anywho, here’s the list:

• Salvation Day (Beeching)
• Happy Day (Jesus Culture-style)
• We Will Worship You (Whittaker)
• Here Is Love (Cook/Rees)
• kids message
• I Am Free (Egan)
• announcements
• message
• Reign In Us (Starfield)
• communion

I mean, how can you NOT be happy with Salvation Day and Happy Day back to back?  Seriously?

It was a great time of worship, and Pastor Chris followed it up with a great message on how to love your enemies a la David.

After church we headed over to President’s Elementary School for the Back to School Rally, and gave away around 500 or so backpacks filled with school supplies.  Lots of local churches and businesses joined forces to fill them and give them away – along with lots of other fun goodies at the rally.  The hot dog line at our church booth was mighty long.  I think they cooked & handed out around 400 hot dogs this afternoon!

It turned out to be a fabulous day… and now I’m tired.  It’s a good tired though, a very good tired. 

How was your weekend?

This week we are focusing on love for our enemies.  It’s a worthy topic, and one that I’m sure most of us could learn a bit more about.

There are also verses each day in this study that are there to help support the basic idea, and today’s verse – found in Galatians 6:3 – seems to exist to remind us that we really aren’t all that and a bag of chips.

Check it out:

³For if any person thinks himself to be somebody [too important to condescend to shoulder another's load] when he is nobody [of superiority except in his own estimation], he deceives and deludes and cheats himself.

That’s in the Amplified version.  I also liked the New Living Translation:

If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important.

Ouch.

This gets back to biblical servant-hood.  You know, that thing we are called to as heirs to the Kingdom of God.

I don’t know about you, but serving my friends isn’t all that challenging.  Serving the church, yeah I can do that (after all, it is in my job description).  But serving those that I don’t really like?  Not so easy.  Serving those that have hurt me?  Even harder.

But right there in Galatians God is telling me that I’m cheating myself when I find it beneath me to serve someone.  I’m deluding myself to think that I’m somehow better than they are.

I’m just not that important.

To myself, of course, I can often times think “I don’t need to do that,”  but if I follow through on that thought I’m not following God.  I’m setting myself up as my very own idol on my very own pedestal… and I’m going against God.

I don’t want to go against God, because I know who will win every single time… and it ain’t me.

But I also have to fight that battle against my own flesh that wants to do things my own way and doesn’t want to have to fold the laundry or clean the toilets or pick up trash in the auditorium or set up and tear down the sound system twice each week.  But I have also seen the blessings that come from doing each of those things – my family has clothes to wear, I’m not embarrassed when someone uses my toilet, the auditorium looks better when everyone else gets there, and relationships and camaraderie are built when I humble myself enough to serve others.

And you know what?  I actually like to set up the sound system.

But I’m still scared to crawl under that stage to get the snake out.  Can I pass on just that one?

As I read Hebrews 12:14 this morning, I at first zeroed in on the whole “peace with everyone” part because it is the topic for the week – loving your enemies.

Then the second part of the verse caught my eye:

Strive to live in peace with everybody and pursue that consecration and holiness without which no one will [ever] see the Lord.

Pursue consecration and holiness.  Sanctification.  Separation.  Holy lives.  Clean lives.  Different translations use different words, but they all point to the same thing – living a life that is set apart and pleasing to God.  Living a life that in as much as you can is without sin.

This, I think, is a key to the christian walk.

We are called to be in this world, but not of this world.  We are called to be set apart, to look different in the way that we act and react in this world.

This leads to a lot of discussion about those gray areas of life.  Things like watching movies and drinking alcohol, listening to secular music and wearing pants vs. dresses.  Areas that have divided the Church and sullied the Bride of Christ in the eyes of the world.

I’m not going to address those areas, simply because I don’t have God’s answers to them.  I believe that God will convict each person in those areas as He sees fit, and it’s not my place to force my brothers and sisters to what God has convicted me of.

It goes back to that whole “strive to live in peace” part of the verse.  Don’t create conflict where there doesn’t need to be any.

But what does it look like to be set apart?  To pursue holiness?

Personally I understand it to live my life in such a way that I am pursuing God above all else.  That I am sensitive to the promptings of The Spirit in my life, and I am seeking to live a life that gives glory and honor to the Almighty God… and not to me.

and it is hard.

But if we do not seek God, if we don’t pursue a life that is set apart to Him, Hebrews 12:14 tells us that we will never see Him.  It doesn’t matter what translation you look it up in, the bible is pretty clear on that point.

To see God, we must pursue Him.

And that means that our lives are to be lived with an eternal perspective.  That we continuously place God on the throne of our hearts (even though we want to be there ourselves) and seek to serve Him in all things.

ALL things.

Come to think of it, isn’t that what worship is?  Every breath we take, every thing we do is done to give God the glory.  Is done in worship of Him.

We are set apart for Him.  We were created for Him.  We need to worship Him… with all that we are.

Father’s Day is such a great holiday!  It’s a chance to honor our earthly fathers and our heavenly Father that gave us life.  For those blessed enough to have a Daddy, it is a chance to take the time to thank them for teaching us and showing us a glimpse of our Father in heaven.  For those of us whose Dad’s are no longer with us, it is a chance to remember them.

Today we had a BBQ after church to honor the men in our families – and we were blessed that two of our guys were willing to man the grills to help feed everyone.  The ladies brought some tasty side dishes, and we had a housefull of people!

In our house today we are trying to have a lazy day.  The fact that it’s raining outside helps – Eric can’t go outside and do yard work!  After having a busy weekend filled with late nights, it’s kind of nice to just relax.  Eric is sitting on the couch playing scales on te guitar, A is trying to find someone to play games with her & M is playing games on the computer.  It’s quiet, which is a very good thing.

However it is days like today that remind me how much I miss my dad.  He was killed 8 years ago, and while I am thankful for a(nother) day set aside to remember him, it does make me sad that I can’t call him & wish him a Happy Father’s Day. So for those of you that have your dad’s, don’t take them for granted.  Take the five minutes to call them and let them know you care.  You never know when it may be your last chance.

But back to the point of this post… the setlist!

• Sing, Sing, Sing [A]
• You’re Worthy Of My Praise [E]
• Reign In Us [F]
• Agnus Dei [C]
• kids storytime
• Best Friend [C]
• announcements
• Message – “Red Bull may give you wings, but God gives you springs!”
• Unashamed [D]
• communion
• Amazing Grace (acapella)
  

We learned a new song today.  Quite literally.  Jennifer R found “Best Friend” Wednesday morning, we got the chart together Friday around noon, and we (as a band) put it together this morning around 9:15.  It’s a great song though, so we will be doing it again soon – just in a slightly higher key!  Sorry, but I’m still not a tenor, and no amount of making me sing at the bottom of my range will change that! 

Other than that and “Unashamed”, the songs were pretty well-known.  We taught Unashamed last week (as special music), and led it during communion today, so I’m hopeful that people are picking it up.

How was your worship service this weekend?

As always, this post is part of the Sunday Setlist blog carnival over at TheWorshipCommunity.com – check it out to see what songs were sung at churches all over the world.  This week is the 100th consecutive week, whic is just kinda cool.

Wow – yesterday was such a beautiful day here in Washington – in the 70′s, bright, clear, sunny skies and just relaxing.  Today?  Well, its not raining… yet.  There is a nice breeze and it’s in the mid-60′s, but cloudy.  Overall it’s not bad though!

Today’s sermon was on Samson… on how God gives each of us gifts and on how he failed to use them to Gods glory.  Pastor Chris preached on Fatal Flaws.  In that vein, we approached our worship set through the lens of grace.

• We Will Worship You [D] (Whittaker/Ingram)
• Everlasting God [Ab] (Brown/Riley)
• Your Grace Is Enough [F] (Maher)
• Sweetly Broken [F] (Riddle)
• kids story on using our gifts to glorify God
• Everything To God [A] (Anderson)
• Message – Fatal Flaws
• Unashamed [D] (Neufeld/Neufeld/McKelvey)

We led Unashamed as special music, as we haven’t ever sung it @ FRF before, but I did see a few people singing along (which was great!)  It is my hope that everyone was able to really listen to the words and recognize once again the amazing gift that we have been given.

Hopefully we got a good recording of the sermon this week!  If so, I’ll get it linked when it’s uploaded.  If not, then it will be like the past few weeks, unfortunately.

How was your service this morning?

To see what songs were sung at churches all over the world, take a look at TheWorshipCommunity.com!

I was reading this article over at WorshipTheRock.com and it got me thinking…

Do we as a church have any of those songs?  I know that I personally have some songs that speak to me over and over and over, and I know that they will continue to speak to me in the future… that they will minister to me again and again when I need to have my spirits lifted.

But what about your church?  Are there any songs that fit that definition for your church body?

I know that for a while the song “Trading My Sorrows” fit that definition, but I’m not sure that it still does.

I’m asking for your input.  Are there songs that continually feed your spirit?  Are there songs that you feel would fit that description for your church body?

Please share…

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?