Suffer Together

Today at Grace we featured a song called "Suffer Together." The song was written, played, and sang by Mandi Eldredge, a high school student at our church. This was her first crack at writing a song, and I think it is a pretty good one. It fit the message/theme of the service perfectly, so we plugged it in.

Mandi is also one of my guitar students. She brought the song to one of her lessons a couple of months ago, and we started working on it. We changed a few words, changed the phrasing of the melody, changed the chord progression here and there, and tweaked it a couple of other ways. Songs are rarely finished first after being written. At least the good ones aren't. They usually need room/time to grow and transform. Like many things in life, they need a partner that can help in the maturing process. Someone who can strip away the fluff and make it as good as possible. Here are the lyrics:


Verse 1:
We put on fake smiles to cover up our pain.
We don’t want the world to see our shame.
We build up our walls to keep our hearts safe,
But all we end up doing is heaping on the pain.

Chorus:
Let’s suffer together
and take down our masks.
We don’t have it all together.
Please, let’s drop the act.

Verse 2:
We talk about our friends when they’re not around.
Look how bad they cover what we have learned to drown.
Two people are better off than one,
for they can help each other until the battle’s won.

Chorus

Bridge:
We all go through the same things. We all wear the same chains.
We all go through the same things. We all wear the same chains.

Chorus: just guitar
Chorus: full band
Outro:
Let’s suffer…………together.

not your typical Bible on tape

The Complete Bible Experience due out in November, just in time for Christmas!

Ugandan Orphans Choir video

Jay Sellers Worship Confessional

Mark Labberton on Baptism

Baptism is a mark of our new identity, based not on the power of tribe or family, education or status, race or gender, but on the power of God's promises. This is the gift of an identity that bears the marks of God's saving power. Infant baptism especially conveys this - emphasizing that before we have the power to do anything, God's power is for us. Similarly, in adult baptism we enter into the death and resurrection of the One who alone has power to triumph over sin and death. God's power, evident in baptism, is the power both to promise and to be faithful, to create and re-create, to name and rename, to die and to rise.

The Dangerous Act of Worship p. 120

intern blog

I have a couple of interns for the Worship Ministry at church this summer.

One of the things I'm teaching my interns about is blogging. I've created a blog just for them to interact with and leave comments on.

GraceIntern.blogspot.com

Hopefully I can inspire them to create their own blogs. If nothing else, I want to show them the potential blogs have for creating conversation, communication, and transparency.

Eight Principles of Public Scripture Reading

These are some notes from my "Worship Leadership" class that I took in seminary:

1. Read at a pace that will help the hearer to grasp the message of the passage.

2. Practice the reading aloud until you have eliminated the "stumbling" from your delivery.

3. Make a conscious effort to help the hearer catch the proper emphases in the passage.

4. Learn to use the pause effectively.

5. Be convinced of the importance, relevance, and value of the passage for yourself and for the congregation.

6. Read with sincerity.

7. Make a conscious effort to complement the beauty of the passage by reading with appropriate tonal shading.

8. Reflect the emotion inherent in the passage.

Little Girl & Psalm 23

Communion Service

We had a neat, experimental Communion service today at Grace. We only had 1 service [instead of 3] with the whole church family gathered in 1 room, seated around tables. The theme of the service was "3 Tables of the Bible." We celebrated [1] a portion of the Passover meal, [2] the Lord's Supper, and [3] looked forward to the marriage supper of the Bride & Groom.

Some pictures:







































A big thanks to all who helped make it happen. Here was the order of the service:

I. Gathering of God's People
-"We Are Called to Be God's People" [NETTLETON]
-Welcome

II. Passover Table
-"Passover Us" by Andrew Peterson
-Scripture Reading: Exodus 12:1-15, 21-30
-Message
-Unleavened bread & bitter herb elements

III. Lord's Supper Table
-Medley of "There is a Fountain, What Wondrous Love Is This, and The Old Rugged Cross"
-Scripture Reading: Matthew 26:17-30
-Message
-Bread and wine element

IV. Marriage Supper Table
-"How Beautiful" by Twila Paris
-Scripture Reading: Revelation 19:7-9
-Message
-Unity candle element

V. Sending of God's People
-Benediction: Hebrews 13:20-21

An outsiders take on a mega-church service

From Rev Magazine in an article by Sally Morgenthaler:

The [worship team] was young and pretty, dressed in the kind of quality-cotton-punk clothing one buys at the Gap. ‘Lift up your hands, open the door,’ crooned the
lead singer, an inoffensive tenor. Male singers at [this] and other megachurches are almost always tenors, their voices clean and indistinguishable, R&B-inflected one moment, New Country the next, with a little bit of early ‘90s grunge at the beginning and the end.

They sound like they’re singing in beer commercials, and perhaps this is not coincidental. The worship style is a kind of musical correlate to (their pastor’s) free market theology: designed for total accessibility, with the illusion of choice between strikingly similar brands. (He prefers the term flavors, and often uses Baskin-Robbins as a metaphor when explaining his views.) The drummers all
stick to soft cymbals and beats anyone can handle; the guitarists deploy effects like artillery but condense them, so the highs and lows never stretch too wide. Lyrics tend to be rhythmic and pronunciation perfect, the better to sing along with when
the words are projected onto movie screens. Breathy or wailing, vocalists drench their lines with emotion, but only within strict confines. There are no sad songs in a megachurch, and there are no angry songs. There are songs about desperation, but none about despair; songs convey longing only if it has already been fulfilled.

what we know

Here are the details about our son Tegene:

he is six months old

he was found outside a music school in Addis Ababa

he was found with another baby boy

when they found him, they think he was about 1 month old

they originally thought he and the other boy were twins, but after some testing it turns out they weren't related

we'll be traveling to Ethiopia in mid-May to pick him up

I don't know how to pronounce his name

We had a great Good Friday service at Grace. It was very reflective, and all the readings were taken from the ReJesus website. It was well attended and we asked people as they entered the sanctuary to be in prayerful silence. It was cool to walk in the sanctuary full of people, and it be dead quiet.




























I used mostly hymns for this service: Beneath the Cross of Jesus, Were You There?, and When I Survey [with the Tomlin chorus]. They were the perfect fit.

It also snowed today. April 7. Snow. Just so you know I'm not making it up:















It is hard to see, but trust me, it is there. Nothing stuck to the ground, but still.

Len Sweet quote

from "The Gospel According to Starbucks"

Christian faith is designed to be lived experiences of beauty, not well-structured thought experiments.

To see how far we have traveled down the rational path, look at your church. Don't focus on what it believes or its official statement of faith; rather, consider how much time your church expends in creating beauty. What does it do to develop embodied practices and multisensory experiences? For most of Christian history, the church was the major patron of the arts. But today, what role does art and poetry have in your worship? What works of art function as works of devotion in your spiritual life, enriching your home life and the life of your church?

I'm proud to say:

Grace has visual art hanging throughout the buildings made by our very own artists

Grace featured a group of very talented dancers in our Palm Sunday services

Grace is featuring a humorous drama presentation in all of our Easter services this Sunday

every week Grace has some of the greatest volunteers offering their talents in creating beautiful music in worship

Way to go Grace!

A Prayer for Easter preparation

Father, quiet our hearts and still our souls.
We have done our best to prepare for this weekend.
We ask now that you do what only you can do.
Prepare the hearts of those that you have called to hear your message.
Remove anything that might distract them or keep them away.
Pour your Spirit out on our time of worship together.
Speak through what we have prepared.
Make any changes you deem necessary.
Help us to worship in Spirit and Truth.
Accomplish all that you have in mind this weekend.
We place our efforts before you now and leave them at your throne.
Only You can change lives.
Grant us the joy of seeing your hand at work.
All this we pray humbly in the name of your son Jesus,
whose death we remember with reverence,
and whose resurrection we celebrate with joy.

Amen.

God of ?

This is a video I made for our a.k.a.: GOD series at Grace. We're asking the congregation this Sunday to ponder who God has revealed Himself to be to them.

Worship, take 4

Next installment in my rambling attempt at defining my philosophy of worship. Again, I don't claim to have it all figured out.

4. Worship should employ a wide range of styles.

There are as many styles of worship as there are tastes of music. Since we are the church [in a catholic sense - the universal church] we should use as many styles of music/art that we can. Of course this is all relative to the demographic of each congregation. If a congregation is primarily made up of X people [X = African, Korean, Native American, gangstas, cowboys, etc.] and serves a community that is primarily made up of X people, then X style of music/art should be used.

But we are still a universal body of Believers. And something/sometime in worship should speak to and prepare the worshiper for that day when all tongues will be united in one song. What will the style of the song be? What language will it be in? We don't really know [and perhaps it doesn't matter], but we should be preparing ourselves for just about anything as we approach that day.

The church is not only made up of our brothers and sisters across the globe, but also across time. We need to be historically connected with our brothers and sisters who served God to insure that the message of Christ made it to us. We can do this by singing the songs they wrote and preserving the art they produced in service to God.

In my opinion this is one of the reasons why the church is in such sad shape today [from a contemporary/American perspective]. Good chunks of the church have failed to recognize and celebrate their past. Sacred liturgies, prayers, songs, rituals, calendars/seasons, creeds, etc. have been abandoned. We have dissected ourselves from the root from which we grew. We can learn something from those who walked before us. They worshiped the same God we do, they confessed the same faith, and they struggled the same struggles we do. And their songs/art are expressions of what they felt walking on the same path we find ourselves walking on.

review of contemporary services at Grace, 3/11

God of All [Twila Paris, with an added bridge of the Doxology], sung by Deana Shirley

Welcome/Baptism

Scripture Reading - Psalm 100 [read in unison]

Worship Set: Holy Is the Lord [Tomlin], Beautiful One [Hughes], Thou Lovely Source of True Delight [Steele, ala Jars of Clay], Lord Most High [Sadler/?]

Prayer

Message: Names of God

Response

Offering/Announcements

Worship, take 3

Our son will soon be saying,















"Welcome to my crib."
The only problem - we bought it from someone on Craigslist pre-assembled...we can't fit it thru the nursery door.

3. Worship should seek diversity and encourage it.

God is diverse in his tastes. He loves spicy Latin worship. He loves chicken fried Southern worship. He loves fancy-shmancy upper class worship. And the diversity represented in the world also represents the diversity of worship styles and forms. Biblical case for God's love of a diversity of styles of worship:

Acts 2:1-12

The majority of participants in the Pentecost experience could have communicated in and understood Greek. But, God wanted them to hear the words in their own language. God wants to speak and communicate with us in our most native and heart-felt tongues. He wants us not only to hear and understand, but to feel and know. And I think just as God spoke through them in a variety of languages, God desires to be spoken to and worshiped through a variety of languages both verbally and musically/stylisticly.

Don't forget though that worship is not dependent on style. We should be able to reach a place of authentic worship despite the style of music/form being used. If you say that you can't worship without a certain style/form, then you're really confessing to the weakest type of spirituality...one that is completely limited to our own desires.

A diversity of styles should be encouraged in worship in order to teach people to adapt in worship. What if we were all forced to worship in a culture other than our own? Would you be lost spiritually, not able to find a way to connect with God? Or would you be able to adapt?

Worship, take 2

The next installment in my rambling doctrine of worship. Again, not the full breadth of everything I believe, but a snippet of it. Also, I don't claim to have it all figured out.

2. Worship should seek to glorify God - not us.

Worship that glorifies us sounds like this:

The worship was ok today, but I wasn't really into that one song.

What was up with that guitar today, it was way too much.

The message was good, but the pastor's shirt wasn't really workin for him.

The style of the music just wasn't what I like, I wish they did more _______ [your prefered style].

Worship that seeks to glorify God gets past all the trappings of our human nature. Instead of centering on what the worship does for us, we think about what we offer to God. When the main concern of services/gatherings of worship is "what did I get out of it?" or "what did I like about it?" we become the focus of our worship. The point of the service is to please ME.

Worship that seeks to glorify God, seeks to please Him. His pleasure is the primary focus of the worshiper. The point of the worship experience isn't for me to get fed/hyped/filled/pleased. The point of the worship experience is for God to receive a sacrifice that pleases Him. What pleases God?

humility - see Psalm 51:17

love - see Luke 10:27

justice - see Amos 5:21-24

caring for the least of these - see Matthew 25:44-46

Some practical steps toward seeking to glorify God in your worship:

spend time in prayer before entering any worship experience...ask God to set the eyes of your heart only on Him

don't sing the words to every song in corporate worship...read/reflect/pray through what you're actually saying to/about God

frequently worship God in styles of music/liturgy that you're not familiar with...the less one-dimensional we are, the better

congratulations

to myself!

I've been accepted into the Doctor of Worship Studies program at IWS! I'll be heading to Florida for sure this June! As long as I'm not already in Africa.

My profs for the first course are:
Andrew Hill
Lester Ruth

The reading load is staggering! I'm going to be buying nothing but books now.

Required reading: First 2 volumes of the Complete Library for Christian Worship

Optional reading: 2000 pages from a list of 20 books to chose from

Yikes.

Chick-fil-A interview

This is a video I made that will be used as part of our weekend services. We are talking about Sabbath, and the need for balance in our lives compared to the 24/7 culture we live in. We thought it would be interesting to get Chick-fil-A's take on it from the business world.



The video was made on my imac. I composed the background music in Garage Band.