June 2007

series: role models

“friend of god” by michael gungor and israel houghton (hodge-podge arrangement from various recordings)
“let the praises ring” by lincoln brewster (all to you…live)
“the time has come” by hillsong united (united we stand)
*new song - “glorious one” by steve fee (north point live)

i gave a couple of minutes worth of thoughts on lifting hands in worship. 1. as surrender - giving control over to god. 2. as a child reaching up to father, wanting to be held. this second one has more meaning to me now that i’m a father. made sure to say that crosspointe is a place of freedom to express your heart to god through whatever outward means seem appropriate to you. on the flip side, we never want anyone to feel coerced into any particular outward expression. what matters is the heart - opening yourself up to god and responding to his lead.

jonathan wrapped up the “role model” series with a message about authority. referred to saul, david and absalom and the different ways they dealt with authority. also challenged us hard with paul’s words in romans 13 about every authority being instituted by god. ouch. tough questions necessarily follow that! i’m sure it is inspiring some interesting discussion today. i know it did in our house.

at crosspointe, we’re realizing more and more the value of performing current mainstream music in our services. we’ve found that it lends us credibility with our guests who are drawn to god but not yet to the church, or are returning to church for one more shot years after they left because it was irrelevant to their lives.

we’re extremely careful to pick the right song for the right moment, and to support it with media that helps to clarify the meaning of the song. the rest of the service, including the message sometimes gives a new context for the song.

sometimes it causes people to listen to a song again for the first time. “i’ve never listened to that song that way” is a common reaction that we get.

anyway, recently i’ve found a site called www.songmeanings.net. people post song lyrics (just about any artist and song you can think of). the really interesting part is that it’s kind of a blog format, so people then comment on the lyrics, giving their particular take on what the song means to them. people tend to guess what the songwriter is trying to say. it makes for some very interesting debates sometimes. good reading.

here’s where it ties into worship ministry. i’ve found it extremely helpful to get a sense for what the public thinks about a particular song that we’re considering for use in our services. what does the song already convey to the average person?

this then helps us think through what visuals to attach with the song to frame it, or sometimes reframe it.

i had the opportunity yesterday to take a worship band from crosspointe to a sister church across town to lead worship. true north church was planted in march by a good friend of mine and former associate here at crosspointe, jon mcclarnon. i love keeping up with true north and with jon’s thoughts as he rides out this adventure by regularly checking in at his blog.

it was a great morning. we started at 8am unloading sound, video and lighting equipment from the truck. we set up the stage, which the theater has graciously allowed them to store under the movie screen. jason, mike, john, and stuart were there to lead the tech side of things. it took me back to my two years of church-in-a-box before crosspointe moved into our current facility (although there were 6 years of it all together). ahhhhh….the good ol’ days!

anyway, even though it’s a new church and i was a guest worship leader, leading with jon was comfortably familiar. we worked together for five years.

the band did great. i was glad to be able to bring a crew from crosspointe with me.

setlist:
Opener - “Theme from ‘The Greatest American Hero’”
“Not To Us” Chris Tomlin (Not To Us)
“All Because Of Jesus” Steve Fee (Burn For You)
“Jesus Paid It All” Kristian Stanfill (Passion ‘06 - Everything Glorious)
“You Never Let Go” Matt Redman (Passion ‘06 - Everything Glorious)

jon was wrapping up a series called “heroes,” in which they’ve been taking a look at the life of joseph from genesis. yesterday’s message was “real heroes refuse to get even.” good stuff.

happy Father’s Day!

today, in honor of dads, we grilled hotdogs for everyone. nothing like a bit of man food early on a sunday morning!

chris led worship. he always does such a great job! so glad to have him on the team…

setlist:
“You Are Good” Lincoln Brewster (All To You…Live)
“Love The Lord” Lincoln Brewster (All To You…Live)
“Not To Us” Chris Tomlin (Not To Us)
“Mighty To Save” Hillsong (Mighty To Save)
“Enough” Chris Tomlin (Not To Us)

i took a band from crosspointe to lead at a sister church plant across town called True North Church. the lead pastor, jon mcclarnon, is a good friend of mine and former associate at crosspointe. more on that a little later….

just got back tonight from a week of helping to lead worship for a youth conference on the campus of liberty university in lynchburg, virginia.

i played keys in the house band supporting several gifted worship leaders - nathan, chris and kevin.

the band was formed last summer for the same event. a great group of guys. dale baker on drums, jamie mcfarlane on bass, george bonner on electric guitar, and new this year, david dollar on electric guitar.

it was a fun week with lots of music, lots of laughter, lots of bad camp food and late night hangs at ruby tuesdays or buffalo wild wings.

musical highlight: “jesus paid it all” led by nathan at one of the late night ministry times. incredibly high energy and heartfelt passion being poured out. it’s incredible when everything comes together, on stage and off, the whole room pouring hearts out to god.

best fictitional metal band name: “ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage…….TestosterTone!” (coined by dale on the ride home)

best inside joke: falwell university!

i’ve found that having our drummers play to a click track has greatly increased the quality of our worship music experiences. and it’s not just for novice drummers, either, because it’s not solely about keeping the drummer on track. it allows everyone to relax and lay into the groove better.

and our in-ear monitor system (we use the aviom system) allows us to all have the click track and each of us can set the level independently. this means that we’re not tied to having the drummer starting every song and playing through the entirety of every song. for example, if it’s just an acoustic guitar intro, the guitar player can stay on tempo by playing to the click as well.

it may seem like a drawback to spontaneity or freedom, but i haven’t found that to be the case. it’s an art form, and there is a bit of learning curve for the drummer to get comfortable with managing it - starts, stops, song transitions, etc. but once you get used to it, i’ve found it very helpful.

there are certain times where it seems inappropriate to jump right into a song at tempo, so my drummers and i have had to learn how to manage those situations. just this past week, one transition from a prayer into the next song felt a little too abrupt. so we made a change. i started the chorus of the song with just vocal and acoustic - out of time. once i got going and starting getting closer to full tempo, scott (the drummer) chose a downbeat between vocal phrases and brought in the click. since it was between vocal phrases, it was easier for me to make the slight adjustment to get on tempo. unnoticable to the congregation, but we were able to play the rest of the song exactly at the right tempo and feel, but still had the freedom to start the song more reflectively, out of time.

there are several electronic metronome models that work well in this application. here are two that we use:
1. Boss DB-88
2. Tama Rhythm Watch RW-105

these units allow you to pre-program tempos for each song in order. with one button you can progress to the next song, allowing for quick transitions. you can also choose how much subdivision you want on the fly (quarter notes, eighth notes, sixteenth notes, etc.).

anyone else using click track in live situations? how has your experience been?

brian regan premiered a new standup comedy special on comedy central tonight. not his best work, i have to say, but i still love him. very funny. creative. every time i’ve seen him live he has lots of new material.

after watching the special tonight, i decided to look for some bootleg material on youtube. here’s what i found.

after a brief, awkward setup about synonyms - which in itself was funny because he made fun of himself - he delivered the following joke.

“if you were to second guess your decision to book some time to visit an indian community, that would be a reservation reservation reservation.”

brilliant, i tell you!

i think those are actually homonyms, but who’s counting?

first message in new series: role models

setlist:
“beautiful news” matt redman
“the time has come” hillsong united *new song
“jesus paid it all” kristian stanfill
“all because of jesus” steve fee

extended experimental message illustration: steve taught someone how to play a simple bass guitar riff and they jammed with the band on the chili pepper’s cover of “higher ground” by stevie wonder. the idea is that rules and guidelines don’t limit our freedom, but rather they set us free to play the music that’s inside of us.

it was a fun day.

c.c. and i had a long overdue date night last night. i would write more about it here, but she does such a good job on her blog, i thought i’d just link to her post.

i’ve made many mistakes in my time as a worship leader. one that i’ve realized recently is that i’ve often under-prepared the sound engineer. when i think about that it’s crazy! the sound engineer is the final determination of whether or not our music and message is clear and engaging to those we’re trying to lead.

too often i’ve neglected to give the sound engineer ample notice on new songs coming up. we send demo recordings to our musicians, why not include the sound engineer? we each have responsibility for one part, while the sound engineer has to have his ears and hands on every part. there are countless musical decisions that a sound engineer has to make on the fly.

we’re blessed at crosspointe to have don smith. he’s a fantastic leader, and he balances the technical with the artistic better than anyone i’ve had the privilege to work with. as a sound engineer, don is every bit as much part of the band as any of us are. why have i not seen this before? don gives each instrumentalist and singer feedback at times. i trust him because i know that we have the same end goal in mind.

as much as possible, i try to make sure that don and i carve out time to sit down together and listen to music. we analyze each section of a song, offering our opinions on which parts are signature to the song and need to be prominent in the mix. what instrument is driving the rhythm? where are the interesting counter melodies?

as a worship leader, it’s vitally important that you have a good relationship with your sound engineer. you MUST trust each other, and you MUST have good, open, dialogue about your vision for each element of the service and how they flow together to create the right environment for an engaging, inspiring worship experience.

i walked into parenthood looking forward to the milestone moments in the father-daughter relationship. thankfully, most of those happen a little later in life - i’m far from ready for the daddy-daughter dances and the prom and such.

but i’ve already been pleasantly surprised by the simpler things. how could i have foreseen the simple joys of fatherhood? this afternoon, for example, sharing grapes with my sweet little daughter. the whole grapes are still a bit too much food at one time, so with each grape i bite off half and then give her the rest.

it does good to my soul to feed my daughter. she’s an amazing gift, beyond anything i deserve. it’s a privilege to put food in her mouth, knowing that god has entrusted her into our care.

i’m very thankful.

Series: Love Affair
Message: Lifelong Commitment

Worship set:
“All Over The World” Matt Redman
“Sing To The King” Billy Foote
“Majestic” Lincoln Brewster

Special music:
“Water Runs Dry” Boys II Men (uh huh, that’s the one!)
“I’ll Stand By You” Pretenders, as covered by Carrie Underwood

today was a good day. we actually don’t typically do a lot of “performed” music. our standard service is more heavy on the “participational” worship music. but we just had two songs that really served to sandwich the message well.

the boys ii men song was definitely a stretch for us stylistically, but it came off pretty well actually. acoustic guitar, bass, stripped down drumset and 4 voices. we took a risk, but people apparently appreciated it.

the carrie underwood song is a new highlight of my time at crosspointe. the soloist, heather, “blew it out the box” if you know what i’m saying. frank played dobro - the boy can play. and we had a guest violin player, frances, a schoolmate of one of our staff members girls. she flat out RAWKED! i was blown away. beautiful. first service, i actually choked back a tear as she played the big run at the end of the solo. every once in awhile when the technical and the emotional aspects of music come together in someone’s performance, it gets me. like food for the soul.

got a rehearsal today for a gig coming up in a few weeks. once again this year supporting nathan fancher, leading worship for WarCry, the annual GCI youth conference. pretty much the same band as last year plus another guitar player. i’m excited to play music and hang out with nate, dale, jamie, george and david again.

another exciting thing, i bought a new keyboard for crosspointe which i’ll be able to take on the gig with me. it’s a nord electro2. great for just about any vintage keyboard you could want. hammond b-3, wurlitzer, fender rhodes, yamaha cp80, suitcase piano, clavinet. sweet.