Healing to do healer…

I still distinctly remember how i felt when I first heard the song “Healer” by Mike Guglielmucci, I also (VERY distinctly) remember how disgusted I felt when I heard the truth behind the story. But, as Pick has pointed out to me on more than one occasion (mainly when I’m arguing about doing a performance song) is that Truth is truth, whether it’s coming from an old hymn or a Train song. And after a bit of consideration I’ve come to accept that regardless of the means of promoting the song, there is strong truth to it, and it’s an amazing worship song.

However, with far better words and scriptural backing allow me to share with you an email I received from one of our band members about using this song in worship, I’ve left out name references as i didn’t ask this person permission to share this on the blog, but as awesome as this email was I wanted to share it.

Man you sure know how to make a guy think…

When we were talking about this song at practice that night – about how the Hillsong guy Mike whatshisname lived a lie, promoted the song with his fake illness, the unbelieveable audacity of a very well-known Worship Leader to so distort everything related to the situation, I had no desire to ever do the song at all and said so that night. When I saw the Planning Center notification this morning, I “reviewed” the service to see what we were doing. I saw the song listed and the pit of stomach balled up in a humongous knot. I was getting ready to click the “Decline” button when something (had to be God) told me to wait. I then remembered something in Phillippians I had read before in my personal reading etc. Here’s the passage…

Phillipians 1:15-18 (NIV)
15 It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. 16 The latter do so in love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. 17 The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains.[c] 18 But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.

I didn’t remember anything false in the lyrics, but I listened to them again to make sure and yes there is truth in the song.

I went to planning center again and clicked the accept button. I’m just thankful the Lord and the Holy Spirit kept the promise from John 14 about the Comforter (Holy Spirit) being with us to bring to our rememberance everything He has taught us.

The reason I’m spelling all this out for you is in case someone else has doubts about the song feel free to share how God helped me.

Just don’t expect to see the song on my “favorites” playlist

I personally felt “ministered” to by this email and if you’re a worship leader out there, or someone who’s job is to find new worship music and you’ve been struggling with this song as much as I have I hope this helps you out.

God bless,
~Matt

Okay, this might be more like it….

So last weekend (the one before this past one) I had the awesome opportunity to go down to Elevation Church with Ben (Our Kidspoint director) and Chris (Our Foyer team director/coordinator), I met a ton of awesome people, seriously their staff just rocks!

And I had a great time sitting in with their worship team meeting, what do I mean? Well check out these videos done by Wes (their Producer) and you’ll see what I mean.

Set list 08/24/08

Well starting next week I’ll have a little less commentary about our worship songs (unless something strikes me) unless we’re introducing a new song (Oh yeah, we are how about that…), anyway this was Brandon’s last week of leading worship at our Downtown Campus and so I’ll be posting worship sets for both campuses for the time being, but that won’t start until next week. I’m really looking forward to what God’s been doing both at Main Campus and Downtown Campus, it’s been an awesome adventure and it’s going to get even better.

Right, before I jump into the set lists’ wanted to say welcome back to Jeremy (Our admin and worship arts Pastor) who’s been on vacation and wearing other hats for the last three weeks (working with host team, preaching, you know little things like that).

Set List:
Performance Song: Unwritten (Natasha Bedingfield) – When we started there where it all began the premise was simple, The Church didn’t start with hundreds of people it started with Jesus and his disciples, but we wanted to make the point that the story of the church was still going on today, so of course, “The rest is still unwritten.” (At least until we get to Revelations, but that’s another subject matter entirely).

You Are (Todd Fields) – One of my favorite faster paced worship songs, there is so much truth in this song. This one is from the Nothpoint Live Album

Lord of All (Kristian Stanfill) – We did this song for the first time the last time Jeremy lead worship, it’s another awesome song from the Louder than Creation worship album (Northpoint).

God of This City (Andrew McCann, Boyd Aaron, Ian Jordan, Peter Comfort, , Peter Kernaghan, Richard Bleakley… We did the Passion’08 arrangement of the song) – Theme Worship song… kinda funny in the 4 weeks we’ve done this song we haven’t done it the same way once, thought I think this last week (literally, as the series is over) was the most fun I’ve had with it.

Amazing Grace/My Chains are Gone (Traditional/Tomlin) – This followed the “Fix You” video, wanting to add some amazing worship to follow that amazing video.

Other Elements: The Fix You (Coldplay) Video: Josh (Our Downtown campus pastor and video/graphic arts director) designed an AWESOME testimonial video with snippets from letters we’ve received interviews we did and audio clips from the other sermons in this series, the end result was a heart stirring video that I HOPE he puts up for Creative Chaos tomorrow so I can link it.

EDIT: It’s up and available for view HERE

Just an AWESOME worship set, Thank you God for letting me be a part of this movement to reach people far from You.

Band: Jeremy, Ronnie, Steven (Keys this week), Bill, Elizabeth, Me, Vocals: Tammie and Kimberli (Nee-san!)

No gear broke, but I’ve “retired” the JAck Dejohnette sticks I were using a bit to loud when I play aggressive and switched to the Dennis Chamber series.

Set List 08/17/08

I had originally started this setlist post with a bit about being “In the Zone” but I ended up moving that to my personal Blog, sorry!
So to my much joy we opted out of a performance song this week in favor of another worship song! Now don’t get me wrong I enjoy doing the PSs and I think that we do them in a way that really connects people to the message that Pastor brings, but I love to spend time worshiping in music.

Right, I’m already a week behind so here’s the set list:

Enough (The Barlow Girls Rocked out version) – a Classic that we haven’t done in quite some time it was great to bring this one back, and it flowed right into:

Glorious One (Steve Fee) – Normally we use the multitrack for some extra synth loops and what not, but as we had a female lead, the key would have been off so we did this one organically (well, at least click track free) and it rocked!

My Romance (Rick Pino – Jesus Culture Arrangement) – Just as awesome when rocked out as it was acoustic. So glad we did this song.

God of this City (Andrew McCann, Boyd Aaron, Ian Jordan, Peter Comfort, Peter Kernaghan, Richard Bleakley… We did the Passion’08 arrangement of the song) – “Theme” Worship song,

I’ve been really good about NOT breaking sticks lately, so nothing to report here.

Band this week: Tammie (lead), Steven (Acoustic Guitar), Justin (Lead Guitar), Bill (Bass), Dave (Keys), Elizabeth (Percussion), Me (Drums) Vocals were Jessica and Mia

Set List 08/03/08

Well yesterday was a different experience for me…

On occasion we’ll do an “Acoustic” Worship set everyone seems to like them, and it gives set-up & Tear-down teams (not to mention myself) a bit of a break.

The difference is this the first acoustic set that we’ve done where Elizabeth (our percussionist) was here to play. The last two acoustic sets ended with me being a big baby with bruised hands for a week or so. (Our percussionist had been on vacation for BOTH other times). The end result was I got to sit back and relax and enjoy the service… (Everyone in my department is now falling off their chairs and laughing as they all know full and well that I was not sitting back relaxing). Actually I did get to take part in most of the worship, and hear some of Pastor’s message which was a very nice change, but one thing that I was able to do, which is something that I really should be doing more often is that I was able to observe the service. Reid over at North Point’s Music Blog mentions this in his post this week, and I found it informative and convicting… now don’t get me wrong I love to play, but as I found myself evaluating the serivce (And later told Pick about this) I came to the conclusion that I need to be off at the minimum of once (preferably twice, perhaps even more) a month to evaluate worship and what’s going on the stage, as it’s part of my job to protect the environment.

Okay, enough of that, let me get to the worship set:

Setlist:

Everlasting God: (Chris Tomlin) – We normally do the Todd Fields/North Point Arrangement of this song, but as it was an acoustic set, I’m not sure how to label it.

Lift High: (Eddie Kirkland) – As amazing as this song is with the full band, I think it’s everybit as powerful, perhaps more so in an acoustic set.

My Romance: (Rick Pino – Jesus Culture Arrangement) – Generally I try not to introduce more than one song at any given week, but Mia (Who was leading Worship this week) brought this song to me asking if we could do it, after experiencing it on Sunday morning I’m so glad I said yes, this song was annointed!

God of this City: (Andrew McCann, Boyd Aaron, Ian Jordan, Peter Comfort, , Peter Kernaghan, Richard Bleakley… We did the Passion’08 arrangement of the song) Our “theme” worship song for this series.

Worship Team this week was: Mia (Worship Leader), Tammie (BGV), Tim (BGV), Bill (Bass), Justin (Acoustic Guitar), Ronnie (Acoustic Guitar), Dave (Piano) and Elizabeth (Percussion).

Matt’s busted gear list this week: None as I wasn’t playing.

Lessons Learned…

Okay, so this post is going to both the Lifepoint Worship blog, (Check it out if you haven’t yet) and my personal blog (Which again, I would encourage you to checkout if you haven’t seen it yet).

But as this past week we did an acoustic worship set there are few lesson’s I’ve learned as music director that I’d like to pass along to you.

Point number one: It’s really important to be off stage and evaluating worship on a regular basis. (Ironically Reid just talked about this on North Point’s music blog, the same day I talked to Pick about the issue).

Point number two: Acoustic sets, are well recieved by the people attending the service (at least the few we’ve done have been), however, they are much harder on the music team.

Point number three: When you normally have a male worship leader, and switch to a female lead do not forget that every song will need to be re-keyed, and allow lead time for this to happen rather than wait for practice to role around.

We’ve had other churches come to see how we do things at Lifepoint and one person commented that it seemed like we had it all figured out, well we don’t but we’re always learning how to do things better, (hmm this gives me an idea for another post),

Did I mention?

I also contribute to the Lifepoint Worship Blog… okay I actually run the Lifepoint worship blog, mainly as a way to communicate to my team/staff and also to other worship leaders/music directors/etc…

If anyone on the Lifepoint Worship would like to contribute to that blog please let me know. I’d love to hear about worship from your perspectives, for now here’s this past week’s set list.

Wow

Today was amazing.

Despite several technical difficulties, it was still amazing. I’ll be posting notes on worship on the Lifepoint Worship Blog in a little bit, but what a great Sunday, my personal highlights:

Awoke early for the LAST setup at Parkside!

Rehersal (despite some issues with video/loop volume went really smooth.

Played until my arms were numb and I was ready to collapse,

ROCKED OUT for the last week at Parkside, next week we move to CHS.

My Amazing worship team stayed late to help pack up, (Thanks, Ronnie, Anne, Elizabeth, Bill, Jeremy and everyone else).

Had a chance to chat (for a couple minutes anyway) to the new Mrs. Heather Jordan,

Had a great laugh with some friends.

Now chilling to “Hollywood Nocturne” by Brian Setzer Orchestra. (actually listening to the entire album)

Working on catching up on writing a bunch of blog posts.

Worship Set

I’ve really got to back into the habit of posting these, even if it’s just for reference purposes.

First off we had Tammie and Mia (switching off) Leading worship this week, our set list was

Blessed Be Your Name (The tree63 version)
How he loves (Jesus Culture)
You Alone (Jesus Culture)
We Cry Out (Jesus Culture)

How he loves was amazingly done, but I’m not sure if it’s as congregational-y singable as we initially thought. (The Chorus is, the verses are a bit… odd?)

We cry out though was amazing. It was rocking, it was connecting, it started off as a performance song, but half way through became a worship song. I’ve gotten so much positive feedback about this set as a whole!

This Sunday our Downtown Campus Praise team is coming in. They’re got a different vibe than my team does, (I mean they’ll demographic that they’re reaching is different) but I know it’s gonna be an awesome experience. Hopefully I’ll be able to post from Drive, I can’t believe that it’s only… 3 days away!!!!

Oh and I want to try this, it sounds like an awesome worship experience.

Worship Set

I’ve really got to back into the habit of posting these, even if it’s just for reference purposes.

First off we had Tammie and Mia (switching off) Leading worship this week, our set list was

Blessed Be Your Name (The tree63 version)
How he loves (Jesus Culture)
You Alone (Jesus Culture)
We Cry Out (Jesus Culture)

How he loves was amazingly done, but I’m not sure if it’s as congregational-y singable as we initially thought. (The Chorus is, the verses are a bit… odd?)

We cry out though was amazing. It was rocking, it was connecting, it started off as a performance song, but half way through became a worship song. I’ve gotten so much positive feedback about this set as a whole!

This Sunday our Downtown Campus Praise team is coming in. They’re got a different vibe than my team does, (I mean they’ll demographic that they’re reaching is different) but I know it’s gonna be an awesome experience. Hopefully I’ll be able to post from Drive, I can’t believe that it’s only… 3 days away!!!!

Oh and I want to try this, it sounds like an awesome worship experience.