Who pushes your buttons..?

This may or may not be what you think it is…

We recently started using click tracks and loops with our worship team, and let me say so far it’s been an “adventure”! I just switched to Mac from PC, though, and purchased Ableton Live. I’ve tried it out a few times, and saw it on display at a workshop recently. Looks like it will make things much easier!

But, my question – who is the one in your team who starts the click track from the computer. Is it you as the worship leader? The drummer? Someone else?

I’d love to get this poll out there and hear your responses!

Who pushes your buttons!?

I’d also love to hear how you incorporate click tracks/loops in worship! Do you use just a click (not linked to any specific arrangement), loops or both?

Thanks!
Barry

Sunday Recap – July 24, 2011

Contemporary Services

The team that led the worship this morning did a great job, and I wasn’t involved one bit! I attended the National Worship Leader Conference all this past week in Kansas City, along with 7 others from our church. It was a wonderful week (but that’s for another blog post…)  It was a smaller team, with keyboard, drums, bass and three singers, but each person did a tremendous job, and pulled together to present a very solid offering of worship this morning! None of the songs were new, all familiar to our church, which was a nice change of pace. You can watch the video of this service and also see the Planning Center details.

Cafe Connection 

I led in this service this morning, since all the other worship leaders in here were at the conference this past week.  Again, it was a small team – just Jake on the bass/guitar and I was on keys. It was nice to lead, though, especially after being energized and refreshed all week at the conference. You can see the Planning Center details for this service.

Traditional Service

  • God, Our Father, We Adore Thee
  • Immortal, Invisible
  • I Must Tell Jesus
  • In The Garden
  • I Believe in A Hill Called Mt. Calvary
  • Trusting Jesus
Randy led the team today, and they did a great job!  You can watch the video and see the Planning Center details for this service.
Thanks to all the teams who worked so hard to prepare this week’s music while I was gone! Great job! This post is part of the Sunday Setlist blog carnival at The Worship Community.

Sunday Recap – July 17, 2011

Contemporary Services

  • “All My Fountains” (Chris Tomlin, Daniel Carson, Christy Nockels, Nathan Nockels)
  • “Glorified” (Jared Anderson)
  • “Forever Reign” (Jason Ingram, Reuben Morgan)
  • “Everyday” (Joel Houston)

Well, this was the week! We’ve been building up to this week for quite a while, talking about it, preparing for it, anticipating it, and it went great! This was the day we did “All My Fountains” for the first time! Do you ever use anticipation as a tool to build momentum and energy? Everyone practicing something, looking forward to it, getting excited about it? That’s what happened with this song. I’ve known for about a month that we were going to do this song on this day. The guitars worked out which key it would work in (non Tomlin-sphere) (we ended up doing it in the key of B), we practiced the clapping, worked out the harmonies, and more. Zack and Marv did great on the guitar parts! The whole band did awesome, and the singers nailed the vocals and clapping! I didn’t play keyboard on this one hardly at all, which was a nice change.  I’d post a video, but I’m here in Kansas City at the National Worship Leader Conference this week, so every second is planned out. I’ll have to se if I can find some time to edit the video and get it up here this week sometime. The rest of the songs were familiar.

Cafe Connection Service

  • “Now That You’re Near” (Marty Sampson)
  • “Glorified” (Jared Anderson)
  • “Forever Reign” (Jason Ingram, Reuben Morgan)
  • “Everyday” (Joel Houston)
I led the team in the Cafe today, with Zack on percussion, Jake on bass/ukelele and Sue on vocals.  It was a lot of fun! I love playing in the Cafe! (Except I really need to get a second keyboard so I don’t have to haul it between the Cafe and sanctuary for each service!)

Traditional Service

  • “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name”
  • “The Solid Rock”
  • “At The Cross”
  • “O That Will Be Glory”
Rob led the team in here today, and I always love how creative he is with the transitions! It adds an extra punch! The team did great, from what I heard.
Sorry for the shorter post this week without links, videos, etc.   I’m looking forward to a great week here at the conference, and I’m sure I’m blog more about it throughout the week.
This post is part of the Sunday Setlists blog carnival at The Worship Community.

Sunday Recap – July 10, 2011

Contemporary Services

Our children’s pastor, Jamie Lane, spoke today about falling in love again with the Bible. He did a great job with a great message!  The Worship Choir sang today along with with the worship team, which always adds some extra energy. The whole team did a fantastic job today!
“Here For You” was a great way to start our service, and really set the tone for worship.  People are getting very familiar with “Always” now, so it was great to hear people singing out strong today!
We introduced “Your Great Name” today, a new song by Michael Neale and Krissy Nordhoff.  What a powerful, worship-inspiring song! Even at the first hearing for many, people were fully engaged in worship today during it.  We started with Sheri on the solo (Zack was doing some really neat things on the electric guitar at the start, too!), then I joined her on the chorus for a duet. The rest of the group came in on the 2nd verse, and it built to the end. There’s a few versions of this song out there, but by far my favorite was the one one “Shine Out – Live from the People’s Church”.  You can watch this song from our service today below.
You can also see the Planning Center details for this service, and also watch the video of the entire service.

Cafe Connection Service

Marv led the team this week in the Cafe, and from what I heard, everything went great.  We even added a new tech guy today – Chris! Thanks for helping out! You can see the Planning Center details for this service.

Traditional Service

  • “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee”
  • “Our Great Savior”
  • “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling”
  • “O Jesus, I Have Promised”
  • “Speak, O Lord” (Keith and Kristyn Getty)
  • “More About Jesus”
The team did a great job in this service today! You can see the Planning Center details and watch the video.
This post is part of the Sunday Setlists blog carnival at The Worship Community, where you can read other recaps of worship services around the country and beyond. Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear some highlights from your service!

Sunday Recap – July 3, 2011

Contemporary Services

We had a guest speaker today, a missionary to the Philippines, who gave a great message on “The Mission of God”. This post is part of the Sunday Setlist blog carnival at The Worship Community.
I’d like to say everything went great this morning, but we definitely had our mishaps today! The band and singers did a great job, but right from the beginning I felt like I was off the mark. First, I messed up the order of service when I started the service with our first song, instead of letting the other pastor start with the welcome, sending the other pastors scrambling to readjust the service order on the fly.  “God is With Us Now” and “Always” went fine, both great songs!
We have been experimenting with click tracks, and we had a couple that we were going to try today. Most of the click tracks/loops I’ve been using have come from Praise Charts, so the click/loop goes exactly with their arrangements, which works great since the majority of our lead sheets come from there. It has definitely been a learning experience! I guess we need days like this to help us learn from our mistakes.  During “The Power of the Cross”, I missed a couple of beats in the turnaround back to verse 2 (those dreadful 2/4 measures!), so we were off by two beats from the loop. I stopped the click in the middle of the song, but only after fumbling around trying to move the cursor with the trackpad on my laptop over to the right button. I discovered only after the service that pressing the space bar does the same thing. We finished the song fine, but I’ sure it was very distracting. In the next service I thought for sure we would conquer it – no problem! Well, during that same song in the next service, the battery died in my in-ear pack, so I lost the click and everything else! I had to whip out the earbuds, stop the click and play the rest with just the house sound.  To top it off, when I listened back to the recording of the live-stream, to my horror, I heard the click coming through the live stream! Whoops! Wow – what else could go wrong!  It’s really too bad, too, because that was the first time we’ve done that song here, and I was really looking forward to it. Both times today, there were issues.
So, a lot of mistakes today, but I sure learned a lot, and won’t repeat any of them (hopefully…)! As I told the team as we prayed for the second service, “We’ve had smoother…”, but also how good it is know that eve when we mess up, God can still use us! Who knows how God chose to use my bad day to bless someone else! You can catch it all on the video… ( I debated whether to even put it up or not, but, I gotta keep it real, right…) You can also see the Planning Center details for this service.

Cafe Connection Service

Zack led the team in this service today, and from what he said things went great – no missed repeats, he said!  It was great to have Zack, Jake and Brenda all back today after being gone for a couple weeks! You can see the Planning Center details for this service.

Traditional Service

  • “The Star Spangled Banner” (both verses)
  • “America, The Beautiful”
  • “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”
  • “Hallelujah, What A Savior”
  • “Lead Me To Calvary”
As you can see, we took some time to celebrate the 4th of July in this service!  You can watch the video of this service and also see the Planning Center details.

Sunday Recap – June 26, 2011

Thanks for taking the time to read this recap from our services here at Bethel Baptist Church in Janesville, WI this morning!  We had a great morning of worship here today! This post is part of the Sunday Setlist blog carnival at The Worship Community.

Contemporary Services

We continued our series “Fact or Fiction: How Do We Know the Bible Is True?” with a message on “The Unity of the Bible” by Pastor  Tim.  We had some pretty familiar songs on the list today, which was nice for the team, and the congregation as they were able to sing out strong! You can watch the video of this service, and see the Planning Center details.

“Love the Lord” (Lincoln Brewster)

“Holy Is the Lord” (Chris Tomlin)

“Your Name” (Paul Baloche and Glenn Packiam)

“Hope of the Nations” (Brian Doerksen)
  – It’s been a long time since we’ve pulled this one out, but it tied in nicely with the close of the service. We missed the rock organ sound today on this one especially, since we were down a couple players this morning. But, the team did a great job on this one!

Cafe Connection Service

I led the team in the Cafe this morning, which was just Chris on percussion, Georgine (and Larry from the back) on vocals, and I led from the keyboard.  Whenever I lead in the Cafe, I try to keep the same songs as the Contemporary if possible, just to make it easier for the team.  It’s not always possible with such a different groups of instruments, but today it was, so the songs for this service were the same as the Contemporary. You can see the Planning Center details for this service.

Traditional Service

Randy led the team this morning in this service since I was leading in the Cafe. You can watch the video for this service, and see the Planning Center details.

“Come, Christians Join to Sing”
“My Hope Is In the Lord”
“I Love to Tell the Story”
“Open My Eyes That I May See”
“Trust and Obey”

“All My Fountains” Video

I just found a video of one of my favorite songs right now – “All My Fountains”, one of the new songs from Passion’s “Here For You” CD.  We haven’t done it yet here at Bethel, but I’m working it out now to be done soon.  Looks like from the video we’ll need at least 2 acoustics, maybe more. There’s so much going on!

First, here’s the music video from Passion:

I love how the drummer starts out on the cajon, and then during the breakdown, runs back to the full set and finished the song there!  It’s pretty obvious that there’s using some kind of a track, since there’s so many layers of sound.  I found a click track that goes along with this song at Praise Charts, so we’ll probably start with that and see how it works.

Another video that may help is the New Song Cafe video, where Tomlin and others explain how they play each part.   I’m also trying to decide which key we’ll do it in. I normally have to lower any Tomlin song about a 4th or 5th.  I’m thinking A or G could work.

Have any of you tried this one? I’d love to hear your stories!

Sunday Recap – Father’s Day, June 19th, 2011

Father’s Day at Bethel! Our special festivities for Dads included a special countdown video with some great quotes about Dads; Barry Dean, a father of 8, sing “I Want To Be Just Like You” (Phillips, Craig & Dean) with the band; and of course handing out some goodies to Dads as they left. This post is part of the Sunday Setlists blog carnival at The Worship Community.

Contemporary Service

For the second week in a row, we had a new drummer play with the team today. Mark did a great job! We were also missing the bass guitar and electric guitar today, so we really had a whole different sound today.  You can watch the video of our service, and see the Planning Center details.

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

“Only A God Like You” (Tommy Walker)

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

“I Want To Be Just Like You” (Phillips, Craig and Dean)
– We did this song as a special for Father’s Day today. Barry Dean took the lead on this one, and Marv and I threw in some PCD style background vocals on it as well. It was fun!

“You, You Are God” (Walker Beach)

Cafe Connection

Marv led the team today in the Cafe, along with his wife Susie on vocals, and Chris on percussion. It was a smaller team here this morning, too, but they still sounded great! You can see the Planning Center details for this service.

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

“Always” (Kristian Stanfill)

“Mighty To Save” (Ben Fielding and Reuben Morgan)

“Victory” (Cody Carnes)

Traditional Service

We had a full team in this service this morning with 4 singers, piano and keyboard.  Barry also sang his special in this service, but just with piano. You can see the video and also the Planning Center details.

“Come, Thou Almighty King”

“God of Grace and God Of Glory”

“Rise Up, O Church of God”

“Wonderful Words of Life”

“I Am Thine, O Lord”

Sunday Recap – June 12th, 2011

What a wonderful morning of worship at Bethel! Pastor Tim continued his series on “How Do We Know the Bible is True?”, we introduced a great new song by Kristian Stanfill and aside from a broken guitar string in the Cafe (sorry, Zack!), everything went great! Pastor Tim also included a clip from the Crazy Love study by Francis Chan – man, he can communicate! We also recognized our amazing high school graduates this morning! This post is part of the Sunday Setlists blog carnival at The Worship Community.

 

Contemporary Services

Today we had the Worship Choir sing along with the team, and that always adds another level of energy that seems to spur on the congregation in worship. We also had Brandon Hughes on the drums for the first time today, and he did a great job! All  of our regular drummers weren’t available, and Brandon has been playing for the youth worship band. He did an excellent job – and he even said he was willing to do it again sometime!! Score! You can watch the video of the service and see the Planning Center details.

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

– We used Paul Baloche’s version today again, and I have to say I think I like it even better than the original! The flow of this arrangement seems to work better, and easier to sing.

“Everlasting God” (Lincoln Brewster)

– I wanted to go with pretty standard songs this week, since we had a new drummer, so I pulled out some favorites. The congregation seemed to really sing out today! It was great!

“Always” (Kristian Stanfill)

– This was our new song for today, and it comes from Kristian Stanfill as heard on both the new Passion CD and also his own release.  I’ve been playing before the service as part of the prelude, so people had heard it before.  It’s really a powerful song based that celebrates who God is as our Helper.  I had someone read part of Psalm 121 before we did it. If you’re not familiar with it – check it out!

“How He Loves” (John Mark McMillan)

– Such a powerful song!

“Lord Reign In Me” (Brenton Brown)

– It has been a long time since we used this one on Sunday morning! But, it seemed to fit with Pastor Tim’s message, and it is a great song! I’ve taken this song faster, but we slowed it down today, and it seemed to work great!

 

Cafe Connection Service

Zack led the team in the Cafe today, which consisted of Zack on guitar, Mari singing, Jake on bass and Chris on percussion.  Zack’s picks were great, and the crowd was a lot bigger than normal. Seems like the summer trend to “come early, so you can have the whole day” is here. Great for the Cafe! You can see the Planning Center details for this service.

“Awesome is the Lord Most High” (Jon Abel, Chris Tomlin)

“As It Is In Heaven” (Matt Maher, Ed Cash)

– A  great song based on the Lord’s Prayer from Matt Maher!

“How Can I Keep From Singing” (Chris Tomlin)

“How Great Is The Love” (Paul Baloche and Meridith Andrews)

 

Traditional Service

I had to do a quick re-planning of this service after our rehearsal Thursday when we added some special music from a special guest who was visiting. Linda Mentik is a wonderful soprano singer who used to attend Bethel and help to lead this Traditional service. She is blind, so she uses this neat little machine to help her with the lyrics.  She did a great job! You can watch the video of this service and see the Planning Center details.

“All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name”

“Crown Him King of Kings”

“Crown Him With Many Crowns”

“God Has Spoken By His Prophets”

“Standing On The Promises”

Sunday Recap – June 5th, 2011

We had a wonderful morning of worship at Bethel today! Pastor Tim started a new series on “How Can I Know The Bible is True”, introduced a great new song by Keith and Kristyn Getty, and celebrated communion. This post is part of the Sunday Setlist at The Worship Community, where you can read other worship recaps from around the country.

Contemporary Services

We had a smaller team than usual today, but they did a great job! This was also our second week in the process of using click tracks.  We rehearsed with two clicks on Thursday night, but didn’t end up using either one this morning. So far, I’ve been using the click tracks/loops from Praise Charts, which are good, but since it’s designed to go along with the arrangements from Praise Charts, you’re really locked in to doing it one way.  Even though the team did a great job rehearsing it with the click, I didn’t use it because I thought I may need to shorten the song.  I need to find a solution to this! Any thoughts? We’ll just keep practicing!  I did hear one positive comment, though, today that I wasn’t expecting! Our drummer said he was kind of disappointed, because he was looking forward to playing with the click! After only 1 week! You can see the Planning Center details and watch the video of this service.

“God Is With Us Now” (Walker Beach)
– We introduced this song last week, and though I normally don’t follow a strict pattern of using a new song a few weeks in a row to teach it, I did today.  It actually worked great, since the band was pretty much the same as last week. It’s a great song, and the congregation seemed to sing it out much stronger today!

“Speak, O Lord” (Keith Getty and Stuart Townend)
– This was a brand new song we introduced today.  I sent out a tweet earlier this week asking for song ideas on the topic of God’s Word.  Someone suggested this song, and it was a perfect way to start out our series! Sheri did a great job on the solo, along with the rest of the team.  If you’re looking for a modern hymn on the topic of God’s Word, check this one out! In watching videos about the song this week, the writers were looking for a song to be used just before the message as a prayer for the Lord to speak to us through His Word. Good stuff!

“The Stand” (Joel Houston)
– It’s been a while since we’ve done this one, and I think that’s a good thing! This song is so powerful, and since it’s been a while, people were so ready to just sing it out strong when we got to that soaring chorus! “So I’ll stand, with arms high and heart abandoned, in awe of the One who gave it all.” It was right after the message and just before Communion. Very powerful to look out and see people expressing with their bodies what they were singing with their voices!

“You Are My King” (Billy Foote)
– One of our favorites around here!

“Beautiful the Blood” (Steve Fee & Louie Giglio)
– This Fee song has such powerful imagery in the lyrics, and it fit great as we were passing out the cup during communion.

Cafe Connection Service

Zack led the team today in the Cafe, and once again did a great job, along with the rest of the team! You can see the Planning Center details for this service.

“Where The Spirit of the Lord Is” (Christy Nockels, Nathan Nockels and Chris Tomlin)

“Happy Day” (Ben Cantelon and Tim Hughes)

“Carried To The Table” (Marc Byrd, Steve Hindalong and Leeland Mooring)

“God Of This City”  (Bluetree)

Traditional Service

The team in this service also did a fine job today! We also introduced the new Getty song in this service. You can see the Planning Center details and watch the video of this service.

“We Come, O Christ, To You”

“How Firm a Foundation”

“Speak, O Lord” (Keith Getty and Stuart Townend)
– We introduced this song here, too, although we used the used the four part harmony hymn arrangement, instead of just the 2 pt with band version we did in the other services.

“Near the Cross”

“Lamb of God” (Twila Paris)