Sunday Recap – February 13th, 2011

We had a great morning of worship at Bethel today, and it was so nice to be healthy again to enjoy it! This post is part of the Sunday Setlists group at The Worship Community, where worship leaders share their recaps from Sunday’s worship services.

Contemporary Services

We had the Worship Choir join the team this morning for these service, and we also introduced a new song – “More Than Amazing” by Lincoln Brewster.  You can watch the video (coming soon) of this service and see the Planning Center details.

“Hosanna” (Paul Baloche and Brenton Brown)
– We’ve always used the Paul  Baloche version of this song, although I enjoy Brenton’s version as well.  Zack does such a great job on the solo part, and today I thought he did exceptionally well! The whole band, team and choir did great today!

“God Is Great” (Marty Sampson)
– An oldie, but still good! This one and older Hillsong tune – very fast!

“Our God’ (Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman)
– We changed this one up a bit this morning in the arrangement with the dynamics and it really seemed to have new life.  I love this song, but it hasn’t always worked as well as I had hoped. Today, though, it went great!

“More Than Amazing” (Lincoln Brewster and Mia Fieldes)
– We introduced this as a new song today during the offering. This song is from Lincoln Brewster’s newest album, but it really doesn’t sound like one of his songs until you get to the second time through on the Tag.  It’s mainly piano-driven on the whole  first part of the song, which is quite unusual for Lincoln. It’s really a great song, and one that I’m sure we’ll end up doing quite a bit. Watch the video of this song from this morning below.

“What Can I Do” (Paul  Baloche and Graham Kendrick)
– Another Paul Baloche tune with a nice closing song feel.

Cafe Connection Service

I didn’t get to be part of this service today, but I heard they did a great job! Patti does such a great job coordinating really all of the other elements of this service besides the music! Today she had a Valentine’s Day theme at all the tables, and really just a fun atmosphere!  Adam led the worship team with Brenda singing, Zack  on percussion and vocals and Jake on mandolin. The Easy Worship was acting up, though, today in here. It froze up whenever I tried to play a PowerPoint file. Hmm… I’ll have to take a look at that! You can see the Planning Center details for this service.

“Our God Saves” (Paul Baloche and Brenton Brown)

“You Never Let Go” (Matt Redman)

“This Is How We Know” (Matt Redman)

“How He Loves” (John Mark McMillan)

Traditional Service

I led in this service today, along with Janet on the keyboard, Pennie, Howard and Rick on vocals.  Thanks, team! You can watch the video (coming soon) and see the Planning Center details for this service.

“A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”
“His Name Is Wonderful”
“There’s Something About That Name”
“Blessed Be The Name”
“Jesus Is Lord of All”
– Rick did a great job on the solo here, and Pennie and Howard on the duet.
“Living For Jesus”

“O The Blood” at Bethel on 2/6/11

There’s a new song out on Gateway Worship’s latest CD, God Be Praised, called “O The Blood” that is such a powerful song! I’ve been waiting to use it at just the right time, and last Sunday it seemed to fit perfectly as a lead in to communion.

Bekah Whitson did a great job on the solo, along with the rest of the team.  Listen to the powerful words of this song.

All About Worship Retreat 2011

Worship Leaders – If you’re looking for a retreat to attend this year where you can just get away and get refreshed, then consider the All About Worship Retreat 2011.  This is the 2nd annual retreat for those involved in different aspects of the worship ministry, put on by the people behind All About Worship, an organization dedicated to inspire, encourage and equip worship leaders and songwriters.  I was able to attend the retreat last year, and it really was one of the highlights of my year! It’s a small event, with only about 60 attendees, so you really feel like you get to meet a lot of the worship leaders who are there, and connect on a deeper level.  With the small group sessions, and breakout classes, there’s plenty of time for discussion and sharing.  The worship times were amazing! It was so nice to be led in worship, rather than worrying about how things will go.

This year’s retreat looks like it will be amazing, with worship leaders Brenton Brown, Michael Farren (Pocket Full of Rocks), Sarah Reeves, and Dave Fitzgerald.  The hosts of the event are the All About Worship Podcast hosts Wisdom Moon and Ben Abu Saada.  This year’s event will be held on May 19-21 at Grace Church near Kansas City, KS.  Register early for the best price.

Watch this promo video for the retreat to get a taste of what it will be like!

Sunday Recap – February 6, 2011

Wow – what a morning!! I barely made it through, and I’m sure I wouldn’t have, had it not been for God’s strength helping me through! I’ve felt  horrible the last couple of days, and today it seemed to affect my voice the most. I could barely speak, and singing was out of the question as the morning went along.  Regardless, God was glorified, and the rest of the team stepped up to fill in the gaps, and we still had a great morning of worship! Now I can just relax as I watch the Superbowl pregame here in Wisconsin! (I’m actually a Vikings fan, being from MN… but it’s still  exciting around here!)

This post is part of the Sunday Setlists area of The Worship Community, a site for worship leaders to share information.

Contemporary Services

We introduced “O The Blood” this morning, a song that I’ve been waiting to do for a long time! What a powerful song! Kari Jobe sings it on the new Gateway Worship album, God Be Praised. It was a perfect introduction to our communion service today. We also changed up how we did communion this morning.  Usually we do it after the message, but today we made it the central part of our worship time before the message.  Again, because of my condition today, a big thanks to the other singers for filling in, and to Marv for doing the verbal transitions today! You can watch the video of this service, and view the Planning Center details.

Cafe Connection Service

Zack led the team this week with Brenda on vocals and Jake on bass.  They did a great job this morning, and it’s great to see that service grow! You can see the Planning Center details for this service. Continue reading Sunday Recap – February 6, 2011

Several Ways to win Brian Doerksen’s new Level Ground kit

There are three sites that are giving away a free resource kit to Brian Doerksen’s new Level Ground CD.  The kit includes:

  • CD Recording
  • CD Trax
  • DVD with 2 hours footage and behind the scenes
  • Digital Songbook with transposable charts

All you need to do is go to Russ Hutto’s post about it and enter.  You can also enter at www.fredmckinnon.com and www.theworshipcommunity.com

Watch the video below to get an idea of what the DVD will be like!

 

 

The Powerful Life of the Praying Pastor – Day Two

Day Two of “The Powerful Life of the Praying Pastor” conference here in Minneapolis was excellent! It was filled with so many rich, powerful speakers along with times of bonding with the team. The Lord has already arranged some really neat divine appointments, and I have been challenged immensely in my prayer life today.

“Helping Your People Discover the Praying Life” – PAUL MILLER

This first session this morning focused on living a life of prayer. Most Christians are struggling with prayer. That was the result of a survey done by Paul Miller, and his team, which showed that 90% of Christians and 80% of pastors do not have no functional prayer life.  That was a very devastating stat! Many people feel guilt, confusion and frustration with prayer, not knowing how to concentrate while praying, or what prayer should look like, or even how or what to say to God.

Paul said we need to become like a little child in our prayer life.  He gave many Scripture references that show how Jesus held children up as an example (Mark 10:13-16, Mark 9:33-37, Matthew 7:7-11, Luke 10:21, Matthew 21:14-17, John 5:19, Matthew 6:9-13, Mark 14:26).  A child comes to God just the way he is, not concerned about our problems with prayer, just with his needs.  They are helpless, desperate in their prayers. We need to bring our muddy, worried self to prayer, not our fixed-up, fake self. God doesn’t want the “spiritual” you in prayer, he want the raw, honest, real you.  We need to learn how to ask in the right way. Some don’t ask anything of God, while others ask selfishly. We need a balance, as exampled by Jesus in the prayer at Gethsemane.

 

“Prayer as a Way of Walking in Love” – FRANCIS CHAN

This was my favorite session of the day, and one of the best messages I’ve heard about prayer! Francis Chan is always challenging, and it was amazing to hear some of the stories he told about how God has answered his prayers in incredible ways!  As we experience God’s answers to prayers, our awe of who He is increases. He reminded us that every time we talk to someone, we need to depend on God’s power to change them. We can do nothing on our own. He said it would be like us going to a cemetery and trying to talk to the people in the graves, trying to convince them to come alive again.  Prayer is a powerful tool!

We need to picture what our services look like to an unbeliever who comes in looking for God. Will  he find God in our services, or will it just be a produced presentation of people looking good?  We need to have that child-like excitement about our God, that we had when we learned stories of His power as kids in Sunday School.  Why have we lost that? Do you still believe?  James 5:17 was used as a reminder that Elijah didn’t have some supernatural power that we don’t have; it was his fervent prayers that brought the rain. We have that same power, even more with the Holy Spirit in us, that we can call on to do amazing things. Do we believe He will?

He also reminded us from Isaiah 58:6-9 that it is when we  free the wrongly imprisoned, let the oppressed go free, share our food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless, that it is then that He will answer us when we call.  Are we pleading for things, while at the same time ignoring the poor? That could be why God is not answering your prayers. We need to abide in Him (john 15) in order to bear much fruit.  We shouldn’t focus on the work of God more that the pursuit of God Himself.

Psalm 27:4 reminds us that we should have one thing that we seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord and gaze on His beauty and to seek Him.  He needs to be our stronghold, nothing else; not people, conferences, our free time, or anything else.

 

“Robert Murray McCheyne” – JOHN PIPER

This session was a biography by John Piper of Robert Murray McCheyne, a pastor from Scotland who led a powerful, but short-lived life of prayer.  I didn’t know much about McCheyne before this, other than the fact that there is a reading plan on YouVersion by him.  But, learning about his poetry, conversion, call to ministry, ministry life and then death at age 29, was a powerful challenge to not waste your life.  His words are often-quoted now in sermons and other areas, thanks to a friend of his who wrote down his memoirs.

 

“Leading Family Worship” – JOEL BEEKE

I was really looking forward to this session, because I have been wanting to start to incorporate family devotions into our routine. I have been feeling bad that I don’t have a regular habit of doing that with the kids.  This was a very convicting and encouraging session, led by Joel Beeke.  He laid out a plan for fathers to lead a family worship time that consists of daily instruction in the Word of God, daily prayer to the throne of God, and daily singing praise to God.  His plan was very detailed, and his passion for it was very appealing, most of it coming right from his book by the same name.  He described our duty to do this, ways to implement it, debunked several objections to doing it, and provided motivations for doing it.  I don’t think I’ll be able to implement all of his ideas right away, but it got me thinking, and I need to begin to do some kind of regular family worship time.

 

It was a great day, and don’t forget – you can listen to all of these sessions online at the Desiring God website.  They are also sending out the final sessions tomorrow to their livestream.  One more day to go!

The Powerful Life of the Praying Pastor – Day One

This week, I have the privilege of being here in Minneapolis at the Desiring God conference for pastors, led by John Piper.  The theme this year is “The Powerful Life of the Praying Pastor”, with an emphasis on prayer.  I’m here with all the pastors from our church, along with about 1,800 other pastors from around the country.

We had a long drive here today from Janesvile, WI, especially as the snow was starting to fall in what they’re saying could be one of the biggest blizzards in years!  But, we made it here safely, and in plenty of time for the first session tonight.

The conference kicked off with a time of worship led by the team from Bethlehem Baptist Church, Piper’s church here in Minneapolis.  The group of pastors, mostly men, sang with full voices on the familiar songs and hymns that were chosen, reminding me of Promisekeepers event from years ago!

The speaker for Session One was Joel Beeke, and he spoke on “Cultivating Private Prayer as a Pastor”. Joel is the president and professor of systematic theology and homiletics at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, and pastor of Heritage Netherlands Congregation in Grand Rapids, MI.

Beeke’s opening message on prayer was so good! He challenged us to not fall into the trap of prayerless praying, but the need to live a life of private prayerful praying.  He challenged us with stories of the prayer life of several heroes of the faith like Martin Luther, John Calvin and others.  They devoted so much time to private, powerful prayer and to their own personal time with the Lord.  Today, many people see prayer as an appendix or interruption to our work as a pastor, rather than the foundation. He said the goal isn’t necessarily longer times of prayer, but quality times of prayer. One thing he said that really stuck out was “if we don’t draw near to him in private, when we pray in public, we’ll be lacking in content, heart and passion.”  That’s so true!

If we’re to live a life of private, prayerful praying we need to take hold of ourselves and take hold of God.  To take hold of ourselves, we need to remember the value of prayer, maintain the priority of prayer, pray with sincerity, cultivate a continual spirit of prayer, work towards organization in our prayers, read the Bible for prayer and keep a balance in our prayers.  To take hold of God, we need to plead God’s promises in prayer, cling to the glorious Trinity in prayer and believe that God answers prayer.

He expounded on each of those items with some practical tips in each area.  He said we should never engage in any activity in ministry without praying first.  We need to put prayer first in our priority list, and plan prayer into your schedule throughout the day.  Also, whenever you have the least impulse to pray, then pray right then.  As you read the Bible, pray God’s Word back to Him.

I’m looking forward to hearing John Piper and Francis Chan speak tomorrow, along with others. You can actually watch along from wherever you are on the livestream from the conference tomorrow!   I’ll try to post again tomorrow night with a recap.

 

Sunday Recap – January 30th, 2011

We had a great morning of worship at Bethel today, even though it began with a scare. We’re still in our 30 day trial period with WorshipStream, a service we’re evaluating to host our livestream. So I came in to my office this morning at 6:00 a.m., and thought I would just check out the site to make sure it was working. Well, I get the dreaded Error 404 message – site not found.  Scrambling, I sent an email to my rep at WorshipStream, and sent out a general tweet to @worshipstream, not sure what kind of response I would get, if any, in time for our first service at 8:00.  Well, even though this is the second time this has happened in our 30 day trial so far, I do have to say that within a few minutes I received a tweet back from someone there saying they were working on it, and by 7:00 we were back in business.  Would that have happened if I had a problem with our Livestream site? I don’t think so… So, the customer service has been great, so far!

We had a unique service this morning with two baby dedications. It happened to be our Youth Pastor and the Children’s Pastor, who each had a new baby within a couple days of each other! So, it was a bit less music this morning to accommodate that, but it all went well.  It was an extra special day, too, because it’s my wife’s birthday today! Happy Birthday, Tina!

This  post is part of the Sunday Setlist blog, at The Worship Community, where worship leaders share their setlists from today’s worship service.

Contemporary Service

“Today Is The Day” (Lincoln Brewster and Paul Baloche)

“Glorious One” (Steve Fee)

“From the Inside Out” (Joel Houston)

“A New Hallelujah” (Michel W. Smith and Paul Baloche)

You can watch the video of this service below, and also see the Planning Center details.

Cafe Connection

Adam led the team this  morning, which was Adam on guitar, Zack on percussion vocals, Susan on vocals and Jake on mandolin! It was the first time we added the mandolin in this service and Jake did a great job!

“Unchanging” (Chris Tomlin)

“God of Wonders” (Marc B yrd and Steve Hingalong)

“To The Ends of the Earth” (Joel Houston and Marty Sampson)

You can see the Planning Center details for this service.

Traditional Service

Rob led the team in here, with Janet on the piano (thanks for filling in, Jan!), and Darcy and Randy on vocals. Great job, guys!

“I Sing the Mighty Power of God”
“The Love of God”
“Blessed Assurance”
“All That Thrills My Soul”

You can see the video of this service and the Planning Center details.

Coming soon – WorshipDevotional.com!!

I’m really looking forward to the launch of this new website from the folks at All About Worship called  WorshipDevotional.com!  This site will be a great resource for worship teams, where you can download free devotionals written for worship leaders and teams. The devotionals are designed for worship teams to be able to go through each week together in about a 15 minute time during their rehearsal gathering.  They will be written by well-known worship leaders such as Tommy Walker, Kathryn Scott, Dave Fitzgerald, Dwayne Moore, Rich Kirkpatrick and others.

Watch these promo videos about this new site, then head over to www.worshipdevotional.com and sign up to receive the first volume when it’s released in March!

Sunday Recap – January 23, 2011

It was an eventful morning at Bethel today, with things getting off to a rocky start, but ending up to be another great morning of worship!  This was Bethel’s week to host the men’s shelter, and with the guys eating breakfast and heading out this morning, our Cafe setup this morning was quite hectic.  Everything was ready just in time, but with all the sound system, food prep and room setup issues today, it was close.

It was also the second Sunday in our 30 day trial of using Worship Stream to host our online live stream of our services. There were mixed reviews today from viewers about the quality of the stream.  Another notable event today was that it was Chris Shutlz’s first time singing on the Cafe team, and Aaron Cornelio’s first time playing guitar in the band. Both of these guys are in high school, so it’s exciting to see more of the youth get involved in worship.

This post is part of the Sunday Setlists page at The Worship Community, where worship leaders share about their worship experiences from today.

 

Contemporary Services

“Glorified” (Jared Anderson)

“Glory To God Forever” (Steve Fee and Vicky Beeching)

“Forever Reign” (Jason Ingram and Reuben Morgan)

“Yesterday, Today and Forever” (Vicky Beeching)
– This was a new song for us today.  It’s not a new song, but it’s one that I’ve wanted to do for a while. It really fit our theme today of the faithfulness of God.  We did it as a special, and Bekah, Sue and Marv really nailed the vocals, and the band did a great job!  Really a powerful song, and it sticks with you! I’ve been humming it all week!

“You Never Let Go” (Matt Redman and Beth Redman)

You can watch the video of this service, and see the Planning Center details.

 

Cafe Connection

Zack led the team on guitar in the Cafe this morning, along with Jake on the acoustic bass and mandolin, and Chris Schutlz on vocals and cajon.  I wish I could have heard the group this morning, but I got to hear them in practice Thursday, and they sounded great!

“You Never Let Go” (Matt and Beth Redman)

“Glory In The Highest” (Chris Tomlin and Matt Redman)

“Now That You’re Near” (Marty Sampson)

“Forever” (Chris Tomlin)

You can see the Planning Center details for this service.

 

Traditional Service

“Come, Christians, Join to Sing”
“Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah”
“God Leads Us Along”
“Surely Goodness and Mercy”
“Day By Day”
“Great Is Thy Faithfulness”

You can see the Planning Center details for this service.