I had the chance to review the new album coming out from worship leader Brian Doerksen recently for the All About Worship website. It’s really a great album, and it also comes with a powerful DVD with faith stories and behind-the-scene footage.
Here’s just a short exceprt from my review:
“I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the songs on this unique worship project, and there were several standouts. The title song “Welcome to the Place of Level Ground”, is one that Brian co-wrote with Paul Baloche. I love the contemporary, Celtic-sounding intro to this song, especially as it builds into the opening verse of this song. The lyrics on the verses lay out our need for a Savior, then the pre-chorus and chorus celebrate Jesus, our God of grace. It’s a perfect setup for the entire album, putting the focus on our need for mercy.”
We had a wonderful morning of worship this morning at Bethel! We introduced “I Will Follow” in the Contemporary Services, and Pastor Jamie did an excellent job bringing a message on “A Call To Action” in Pastor Tim’s absence. This post is part of the Sunday Setlists blog carnival at The Worship Community, where you can read recaps of other worship services around the country.
Contemporary Service
Aside from a few issues with our cameras acting up, things went great in these services today! Our whole team did a fantastic job, and there was an extra sense of anticipation and excitement about worship today! I love it when God’s presence is so evident, and today that was the case.
We tried one other new thing today. Usually one of the other pastors comes up to pray for the offering, and then we either sing, or do something else during the offering. I’ve always felt that breaks up the music time of the service, so today, I just prayed for the offering in between two songs and went right into the next song. Along with saving a few minutes in the service, it also seemed to flow very naturally. How do you handle the offering in your services?
You can watch the video of this service and see the Planning Center details.
“More Than Amazing” (Lincoln Brewster and Mia Fieldes)
– What a great song! If you’re not familiar with this one from Lincoln’s latest CD, check it out! So many powerful truths of who Jesus is on the verses, then just a simple response on the chorus – “You are amazing, more than amazing, forever our God, You are amazing!” The bridge sneaks in a reference back to the familiar hymn – “Oh, how marvelous, oh how wonderful…”
“I Will Follow” (Jason Ingram, Reuben Morgan, and Chris Tomlin)
– This was the first time I have led this song in the Contemporary, and I thought it went well! It fit great with today’s theme, and the team pulled it off! Go rock organ – thanks, Jan!
“Mighty To Save” (Ben Fielding and Reuben Morgan)
– Bekah did a super job on the first verse solo today, and that just set the tone for the whole song. People really engaged on this song today, and it was so cool to see people responding to the message with such excitement!
Cafe Connection Service
It’s been a while, but I led in this service this morning. We had a much smaller team, of course, but we did the same songs as in the Contemporary with keyboard, percussion, guitar/ukulele/mandolin/acoustic bass (all one guy!), and vocals. I had a bit of a stressful morning during this time, because our camera guy for the Traditional Service wasn’t there, so I had to run from leading in the Cafe over to the sanctuary to run cameras for the message, and back to the Cafe to lead the last song! I made it, though!
Our drummer, Elias, made a great suggestion about this service! I have wanted to try to incorporate loops into our team, and he pointed out that this service would be a great place to try it out! He’s right! We’ll try just about anything in this service (as you’ve noticed from the previous videos…). I have my homework, though, because we really have not done much with tracks and loops – the most we’ve done is play along to an I-Worship video. You can see the Planning Center details for this service.
Randy led the team in this service today. Thanks, Randy! From what I heard the whole team did a fine job, and things went well. You can watch the video and see the Planning Center details for this service.
“I Will Sing Of My Redeemer”
“All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name”
“Rejoice the Lord is King”
“Heaven Came Down”
“Let Your Heart Be Broken”
“Send the Light”
I’m sorry this is so late this week, but we’ve been on vacation this week, and I’m just getting a chance to enter this now. We had an eventful morning, beginning right away at 6:00 a.m., when I arrived and checked our WorshipStream site, which I always do, just to make sure everything looks good. Well, this morning, instead of seeing our WorshipStream site, there was a big error message! But, as my experience has been, they were right on top of it, and the site was back up in time for our first service (with only seconds to spare, but it was up!). Another highlight was introducing “Here For You”, a new song from the latest Passion album. This recap is part of the Sunday Setlists blog carnival at The Worship Community.
Contemporary Service
Pastor Tim continued his walk through Romans, with a message from Romans 3-4 called “How Good Do I Need To Be To Get To Heaven?” It’s nice to have some really good, strong solid themes to work around in this series! The video of the service didn’t turn out this week, but you can see the Planning Center details for this service.
“Here For You” (Matt Maher, Matt Redman, Jesse Reeves, Tim Wanstall)
– This is a new song from the new Here For You album from Passion. It’s a great call to worship, and it was a great way to start the service! The original is in Db, but we did it in Bb. It gets kind of low on the first verse, but we just changed the last note in the verse and the rest of the song was fine! If you’re not familiar with this one yet, check it out!
“My Savior Lives” (Jon Egan and Glenn Packiam)
– One of our church’s and team’s favorites!
“Majesty (Here I Am)” (Stuart Garrard and Martin Smith)
– This is a classic, but one we haven’t done for a while. Eric did a great job on the first verse, and I sat down this week and figured out the little lick on the instrumental, which I played on the keyboard.
“Your Grace Is Enough” (Matt Maher)
– This was a nice way to close out the service following the message on God’s grace!
Cafe Connection Service
Zack led the the team this week in the Cafe, and I love the flavor that this service is taking on! There’s a lot of freedom and creativity, and each week is filled with surprises! We’re involving more people in different ways than we ever did before we added this service, and it gives people the chance to serve in unique and creative ways!
You may have seen the video I included last week where we did some experimenting with the percussion. Well, this week Jake brought out a new toy, with the tambourine on a high hat stand, which he played at the same time as the mandolin. We also were short one singer this week, so Adam, who also leads in the Cafe but was on Sound this week, played the cajon and sang from the back this week and mixed himself in to the main mix. I thought it sounded great – you can get a little glimpse in the video below. You can also see the Planning Center details for this service.
This service had a stressful start, but once we got going, everything was fine. Our Worship Stream site was down until about 5 seconds before we started, so I made it to the piano literally with 1 second on our countdown to spare. Whew! Thanks to the team for still making it a seamless morning! You can see the Planning Center details for this service.
“Majesty” (Jack Hayford)
“O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing”
“Grace Greater Than Our Sin”
“Grace Alone” (Scott Wesley Brown and Jeff Nelson)
– This was a song that I thought fit so well with the theme, although people weren’t familiar with it. We did it more as a special during the offering. Great job Rick and Howard on the solos!
It was another full morning at Bethel yesterday, with a new song in the Cafe and Contemporary, the Worship Choir, and the first use of the ukulele ever! We continued our series through Romans, with the main question today being “Does God Gives Up on People?” from Romans 2. This post is part of the Sunday Setlist blog carnival at The Worship Community.
Contemporary Service
We had the Worship Choir sing along with the team this week, and we also introduced a new song – “All To Us” by Chris Tomlin. We had a little trouble getting up on the platform in time after our prayer time before the service. The countdown reached zero just as we were getting up on the platform – Ooops! But, everyone did a great job – Jake on bass; Zack on electric; Marv on guitar; Adam on keyboard; Christina on drums; Susan, Susie and Michael on vocals with the choir; plus the incredible tech team of Katy, Adam and Florian! You can watch the video of this service and also see the Planning Center details.
“All To Us” (Matt Maher, Matt Redman, Jesse Reeves and Chris Tomlin)
– We introduced this song from Chris Tomlin today with the team and choir. I would call this song a modern-day hymn. Don’t let the title throw you off, like it did me! This song has a great message, and its focus is all on God!
Adam led the team this week in the Cafe, along with a great team of Zack on percussion, Jake on acoustic bass and ukulele (yes!) and Sue on vocals. They introduced a new song called “Lift High” by Fee. For our percussion we have a set of congas , some shakers, and a cajon (box). Well, Jake and Zack have rigged up a way for Zack to play them all at the same time! You’ll have to watch the little video below to see how they were able to do that! Pretty ingenious if you ask me. You can also see the Planning Center details for this service.
– Here’s a little video first showing Zack and Jake’s creation of using a kick drum with a cajon so Zack can play both the cajon and congas at the same time, then how we put it to use on “Praise Adonai”
This service isn’t a blended service usually, but today I included the song “In Christ Alone” by Keith and Kristyn Getty, and it seemed to go over very well! Jana did a great job playing the pan flute part on the keyboard, and the singers sounded great. You can see the Planning Center details for this service.
I read a fascinating article today called “6 Biblical Principles for Corporate Worship” by Mark Driscoll. In it Mark lays out 6 priniples from Scripture for describing what corporate worship should look like. I’d like you to read the full article, then jump back here for discussion. Basically, he says corporate worship should be: God-centered, intelligible, seeker-sensible, unselfish, orderly and missional.
I found it interesting how Mark differentiated between seeker-sensitive and seeker-sensible in #3. Also, I wonder what you think about his description of unselfish worship in #4? He speaks in general terms there, but what would that look like practically? #6 was also interesting – are we using certain elements in our worship because they “contribute to informing faithful worship of God” or are they “perpetuating a dated form that is no longer best for ministry”? Good question.
Anyway, I agreed with some of what he said, but I’d love to hear your thoughts! How would you describe your worship service in light of these principles?
What a powerful morning of worship today! It was another full morning, with 4 services, communion and a New Attenders meal to top it off!. We introduced the Paul Baloche version of “Today Is The Day”, which went really well! This post is part of the Sunday Setlist blog carnival at The Worship Community, where worship leaders share their recaps from today’s worship services.
Contemporary Services
Pastor Tim began a new series on Romans today, with the first message coming from Romans 1, “Is God Fair?” It was a great message, and a great start to this new series. Everything went smoothly today, with the exception of a few minor things, which I’ve pointed out below. You can watch the video of this service and also see the Planning Center details.
“Today is The Day” (Lincoln Brewster and Paul Baloche)
– As you probably know, this song made popular by Lincoln Brewster, was actually a co-write with Paul Baloche. We’ve been doing Brewster’s version since it came out, so our congregation knows this song. But, after hearing Paul Baloche and his band do his version at a recent workshop, I remembered how much I liked the feel of his arrangement. So, we worked it up this week, and it went really well this morning! I love the guitar lick you hear at the start, and with the few small changes in the vocal harmonies and chord patterns, it has a whole new feel to it!
“All The Earth” (Wayne Huirua, Andrew Ulugia, Jack Hayford)
– This is an older Parachute Band song from their Amazing project. We did the newer version with the additional second verse. The harmonies on the tag in the this version sound amazing!
“Worthy is The Lamb” (Darlene Zschech)
– Another song from down under this morning, this one’s one of our favorites here. Brenda did a great job on the opening solo, and it’s such a powerful reminder of what Christ did for us on the cross.
“Jesus Paid It All (Alvina Hall, Alex Nifong)
– This is the version from the Passion album Everything Glorious. It starts with the traditional hymn, then adds the new chorus on the end. Well, we rehearsed the whole song, but with the timing of how communion worked, we didn’t get to the new part of the song! We had a little trouble starting this one at the 9:30 service; not quite sure what happened, but we weren’t together, and it was one of those – OK, start singing now, and we’ll catch up, near train-wreck moments. Ooops! It went much better at 11:00.
Cafe Connection Service
Zack led the team today in the Cafe, along with Bekah on vocals and Jake on everything else (acoustic bass, mandolin, even pan flute today, almost….) Thanks to Susan for filling in on the Easy Worship, and Justin for doing sound today! And of course to the great Connecting Team – Patti and all – thanks for making that service so special!! You can see the Planning Center details for this service.
I led the team today in this service from the piano. In addition to the hymns, I also played a piano offertory – piano arrangement of “I Need Thee Every Hour/What A Friend We Have In Jesus”. You can see the Planning Center details for this service.
We had a great morning of worship at Bethel today, with the introduction of “I Will Follow”, 2 powerful testimonies on tithing, and the first time we have tried co-leading in our Contemporary Services! This post is part of the Sunday Setlists area of The Worship Community, where worship leaders from around the country share their setlists from this past Sunday.
Contemporary Worship Services
We had a few things that were out of the ordinary today, and it made for a really great morning! First, Brian, who played guitar with our team for several years up until a few years ago, was back for a return visit! It was great to have him play with the team again, and it felt just like old times!
Also, we tried something that Paul Baloche suggested last weekend at the Leadworship Workshop in Minneapolis. He was talking about bringing up young worship leaders, and he described how he often co-leads with them, where he would lead some of the songs in the set, and someone else would lead the others. Zack Burtness is one of our tremendous young worship leaders, and he’s already led in the Cafe, but not in the main Contemporary Service. This morning we co-led, where I led the first, and last two songs, and Zack led the middle 3 songs. It was great! You can see the video of this service, and the Planning Center details.
“Rising” (Paul Baloche and Matt Redman)
– This song is a great opener, and one I like to use quite often. However, today I learned a good lesson! I had meant to look up the Psalm ahead of time, but forgot. What do you suppose our senior pastor did today – asked me what Psalm it came from in the service! Whoops! I thought it was somewhere in the 110s, but wasn’t sure. I made an official-sounding guess and said 119. Well, after checking it out in my office after the service, I found out it was actually 113. Oh well, I got it right for the next service! LOL!
“Everlasting God” (Brenton Brown)
– This song was after the Meet/Greet time, and it was this middle set that Zack led. He did a great job preparing the intros, and getting us going on this one. We typically do the Lincoln Brewster version when Zack is on electric. But, since he was leading from the acoustic today, we did the original Brenton Brown version. It was a nice change.
“The Heart of Worship” (Matt Redman)/“Hear Us From Heaven” (Jared Anderson)
– This mash-up was Zack’s idea and it came together beautifully! We started off this medley with Zack doing a solo with guitar on the verse, then I joined in with an electric piano sound. We went all the way through that song, in D. At the end, Zack planned the transition into the next song with a chord progression of G – D – Bm – Asus, then right into the chorus of “Hear Us From Heaven” in D. We sang just the chorus of that song twice, then ended with the chorus of “Heart of Worship”. Great job, Zack, coming up with that!
Adam led the team in this service today, and he introduced the new Chris Tomlin song, “I Will Follow”. Adam led from guitar, with Susan on vocals, Zack on percussion and Jake on mandolin. You can see the Planning Center details for this service.
I led the team in this service this morning, and they did a great job! I led from the piano, Jen was on the keys, and Pennie, Barb, Howard and Randy were on vocals. Along with the hymns, I also played a piano offertory, an arrangement of “Close To Thee”. You can see the Planning Center details for this service.
“Come Thou Almighty King”
“How Great Thou Art”
“‘Tis So Sweet To Trust In Jesus”
“Leaning on the Everlasting Arms”
“Trust and Obey”
“To God Be The Glory”
This past weekend, I had the privilege, along with 9 others from our worship ministry, to attend the Leadworship Workshop in Minneapolis, led by Paul Baloche and his band, along with Jared Anderson. It was a wonderful time of refreshment, training, refocusing and encouragement for our whole team! I plan to post a few different entries here with thoughts from the conference, but what probably had the biggest impact on me was the session on worship leading with Paul Baloche.
Open sound check on Friday
One of the main lessons that came through in this session was that we can’t lead others into something that we’re not practicing ourselves. This simple thought has so many implications. Our ministry to others really begins with our ministry to the Lord. Paul started by bringing 1 Chronicles 25:6-7 to our attention, which describes those who were leading the singing in the house of the Lord as being “trained and skilled in music for the Lord”. He encouraged us to truly work at being trained and skilled on our instrument, challenging us to set aside 20 minutes a day to practice our primary instrument, with a metronome. Also, he challenged us to learn and memorize the top 20 songs of your church, so they are at your disposal. That way, if you’re in the middle of leading a set and the thought comes to you that you would like to do a song, you’re not stuck if the music is back in your office!
In addition to the practical musical training, we also need to work at developing our ministry “for the Lord”. Paul described our role as a worship leader as focusing on three areas – the priestly, prophetic and pastoral. In 1 Chronicles 16:4, those who were charged with leading the music were given a job description – to “extol, thank and praise the Lord” in His presence before the ark of the Lord. Our role begins as priestly, offering praises to the Lord. As important as this is, it’s probably our most neglected. But, if we don’t minister to the Lord in private, it will feel fake when we try to do it in public.
To build up our comfort level, and familiarity with ministering to the Lord, Paul recommended spending a focused time with the Lord on a regular basis. Worship works best when Sunday morning is just doing publicly what we’ve been doing privately on our own. I’ve heard this before, but I guess it just hit home when I could see Paul’s heartfelt desire for each of us there to really put this into practice. He was so passionate in his desire for us to understand how important it is to take the time to do this. He described how he goes into the sanctuary alone, when no one else is around armed with a list of familiar songs in similar keys and the Psalms. He just starts to sing out songs to Him in prayer, praying the lyrics of the songs, and singing through the Psalms, just making up melodies as he goes. It’s a time to forget about yourself, your ego, and just be yourself, singing and speaking your prayers to Him. As we do that, little melodies will come, we’ll be getting the Word of God in our heads, and get comfortable playing, singing and speaking at the same time. Sometimes, he said, we’ll sense His presence as we do this, and sometime it may feel mechanical. That doesn’t matter, though; just the act of showing up speaks to Him. Then, as we continue to do this from week to week, pretty soon on a Sunday morning, things start popping out of our mouth, and we wonder – where did that come from!? Phrases we say in our private worship, phrases from the Psalms, the cries of our heart, will flow freely from our hearts and out of our mouths. If we put these things into our hearts, the Holy Spirit can pull it out. He challenged each of us to make an appointment with the Lord, and to start doing this on a regular basis.
Along with our priestly role of ministering to the Lord, we also have a pastoral role of ministering to those around us. God wants us to be people who love His people first, then use music as a tool to accomplish that. We’re there as pastors with instruments in our hands. Everything we do should go through this pastoral filter – “Will this help other people worship?” Our goal is to help them worship, not show off our own skills. Do you have a love for the people in your church? Not just those in the worship ministry, but the ones you look out at on a Sunday morning from the stage? As we spend time with the Lord, we need to pray for God to give us a heart for those who we serve, to break our hearts for what breaks His. In our private times with Him, as we pray and sing to the Lord, we’re also praying for God to break our hearts for the people we are leading in worship. Picture the people who sit on the right in the 3rd row, the teenager in back with his arms crossed, the couple going through marriage problems. Then, as we do this week to week, God will honor that, and over time it will look the same on the outside, but everything is different. We see people differently; we see them as people who need the Lord, not just the people who complain about the music being too loud, or the songs we choose.
This was a challenging reminder to make sure we are spending the time needed for the Lord to build up in us the tools we need to be effective in what He’s called us to do. “We need to bake the cake before we add the frosting.” In other words, the songs are the frosting. Our ministry can’t be all about the frosting. For one thing, it tastes good at first, but then if that’s all you eat, it gets kind of sickening! We bake the cake when we spend time with the Lord. That’s when we get grounded and filled up with what really matters. Once that is solid, then we’re ready to add all the good, tasty frosting (chocolate, please!) as we learn new songs, practice, prepare and lead from week to week.
We had a wonderful morning of worship at Bethel, even though we had a bit of a surprise! Our Sr. Pastor found out just this morning that the guest speaker planned for today was sick, so he had to pull out a message from last year. He did a great job! Also, a group from our worship ministry attended the Paul Baloche Leadworship Workshop in Minneapolis this past weekend, so we came back energized and refreshed! This post is part of the Sunday Setlists area of The Worship Community.
Contemporary Service
Our stage arrangement has been the same for a while now, so I thought I would change things up a bit. I moved the drums from the back corner to the back middle, moved the bass and 2nd keyboard around, and just shifted some things. It wasn’t a huge change, but it made a big difference today, I thought! The only downside, we found out today, was that with the spotlights on, there was a big glare coming from the drum shield, which is not directly behind the pulpit. Our songs were planned to fit in with our guest speaker’s message today, so they really had nothing to do with the message given today. But, as usual, God worked things out so the final song followed up the message perfectly! You can see the video and the Planning Center details for this service.
If you haven’t heard yet, there’s a new player entering the game soon in the world of presentation software for churches! The makers of Proclaim Church Presentation Software are celebrating the upcoming release by offering a huge giveaway!! I’m looking forward to seeing what this new program is all about, and I’m excited to be able to let you guys know about this cool giveaway! Check it out below!
Worship leaders: you don’t need crazy-good luck to win!
Have you ever entered a contest to then discover that only one in a million will win? Proclaim Church Presentation Software is breaking all the rules with the Great Worship Resource Giveaway. To celebrate its coming launch into the church presentation market, Proclaim has partnered with today’s top worship resource companies to give away over $25,000 in prizes to more than 100 winners.
And because worship leaders belong to such a specific group, the chances of winning are huge!
“We put together a giveaway that will help worship leaders everywhere,” said New Media Executive Director Matt Peterson. “Proclaim is all about creating better worship services. Shouldn’t the giveaway do the same thing?”
The prizes all center around one thing—creating powerful worship services. Prizes include things like a new and professionally church created website, hosted free for a year, a year of expert video and audio podcasting, $100s in gift cards for worship music, subscriptions to the top worship planning site, membership to top worship media sites, downloadable music lessons, an acoustic guitar, tickets to some of the premier worship leader and music conference, and much more!
To enter watch the video at http://proclaimonline.com and at the end there is a list of ways to enter the giveaway. There are several one-time ways to enter and a coupleways to enter every day!
Barry Westman 