Tel me about the Christmas tunes in YOUR worship sets...

ok, so Thanksgiving Day has officially expired and, especially for those of you who are like me, that means that Christmas tunes are now officially part of our worship sets for the next several weeks. Here's what I'm wondering:

Which Christmas tunes have provided particularly special moments at YOUR church?

East Coast Worship Summit

I'm headed out to the East Coast Worship Summit right now... in fact, I'm stuck in the airport as a result of a flight delay as I type... no better time to blog! :)

So, I get the distinct honor and privilege of leading the morning worship session on Wednesday at the Summit in addition to teaching several workshops all week. I absolutely love leading fellow worship leaders into the presence of God and I humbly pray that the songs we sing will resonate in the hearts of the body of Christ that's attending, that the leaders present experience renewed passion and enthusiasm about their ministries, and that our time together will glorify our Creator above all else.

If you happen to be headed out to Pennsylvania for the Summit, make sure you flag me down sometime during the week and say 'Hey!'... I absolutely love to connect with fellow worship leaders, songwriters and music lovers alike!

worship confessional (5.18.08)

this past weekend was a crazy one... big weekend in the life of our church, honestly. The numbers came in a few weeks ago regarding the financial commitments for our building initiative Love. Loud. and while it was a lot of money--and represented significant sacrifices from many families in our congregation--it fell substantially short of the figure we needed in order to actually build.

We stood tall, though, and Pastor Mike delivered a powerful, compelling message that reminded us all why we're here... to worship our God without condition. That's what we did. We had started each service with a 3-song set, and after Mike's message we played a video and then launched another 3-song set to close the service. Some people were wrecked by the service as a whole, and I honestly think some people were over it once we hit the first song of the second set. Regardless, I have scarcely been more proud of my church... I'm excited to see--and eventually blog about--the eventual victory God has for this little slice of His church called MSC.

The songset for the weekend was:

Meet With Me - Lamont Hiebert

You Never Let Go - Matt & Beth Redman

We Fall Down - Chris Tomlin
__________

The Least I Can Do - M. Roach

Break Through - Tommy Walker

Everlasting God - Brenton Brown/Ken Riley

Worship Confessional (5.11.08)

This past weekend was, of course, Mom's Day. Usually, we get a packed house on Mother's Day weekend, but for whatever reason (maybe the ridiculously dismal weather) we were not only light on attendance, but a bit blah as well. Now, my friend Gary Durbin in Florida points out in his most recent WorshipSource confessional the importance of not measuring worship by the congregation's response, but focusing instead on God's pleasure... good reminder for all of us, I'm sure, and so I'll move on. :)

The last few weeks, I've been doing something a bit unorthodox with my acoustic--and I'm actually kinda likin' it. I've been plugging my acoustic into a Line6 floorboard, bypassing everything but the delay, and then using the built-in wah pedal as well. This past week, I used this on 'Welcome Song' by Pocket Full of Rocks. I use the Edge-inspired dotted quarter delay, and it manifests that tight, even sixteenth delay when I play eighths. The wah allows me to shape the sound a bit, like an envelope filter. It's cool stuff. Anyway, I'm in the process of replacing the church's Line6 with 'real gear' that will serve the same purpose--a Cry Baby and a DD-20. I'll keep you posted!

Here was the setlist for this past weekend:

The Welcome Song - Michael Farren

Filled With Your Glory - Jon/Tim Neufeld

How Can I Keep from Singing - Tomlin and Co.

Spirit Song - John Wimber

feature tune: Thank You Mom by Good Charlotte

ended with: As Long As I Have You - M. Roach

The feature tune was a crazy find... a hidden track from a Good Charlotte record that actually talks about his mom singing songs of praise and teaching him how to love God and such... we were just looking for a simple Mom's day tune and I was elated to find something by Good Charlotte instead of having to veer toward Bette Midler. :)

Until next week!

worship confessional (4.27.08)

Last week, I got the not-as-rare-as-it-used-to-be privilege of coming to my own church as an attender. Ryan, our Associate Music Director, led worship and I was out in the congregation holding my son in my arms and singing to my Creator--my son singing gently in my ear throughout the worship set... it doesn't get a whole lot sweeter than that.

This week was our last weekend of our Love. Loud. initiative-- that is, the last week before the 'celebration' weekend next week, where we bring forth our pledges and finally begin to put flesh to the bone of our last 4 weeks of discussion. We were headed for an uber long service, and so we preemptively cut a tune from the worship set. That always bums me out, but the day felt all kinds of good in spite of that. Here's the setlist we ended up with:

As Long As I Have You - M. Roach
Pleasing - Glenn Packiam
Enough - Tomlin/Giglio
----
feature tune - Take My Life (a la Passion - Tomlin and Co.)
----
Love Loud (tag) - by our own Ryan Redding

The set felt pretty good... I hate having to change guitars quickly in transitions, but it actually worked out ok. I lead from an electric on 'As Long As...' and played acoustic on the other two. Originally, when we were planning on doing 4 tunes, we had the welcome/announcement piece between the first two songs, so I would have had plenty of time for the switch. When we cut the last tune, we felt like a two-song set after the announcements just didn't feel right, so that left us with a quick guitar transition. At any rate, our congregation typically applauds after the uptempo stuff in the set (does your church do that? I know, that's another discussion entirely) so I had a few seconds to grab the guitar and get to the mic, and then I spoke briefly before 'Pleasing.' That's a strong tune, by the way, if you don't do it at your church, you should look at it.

We did 'Take My Life' differently on Saturday than on Sunday... Saturday I played my electric so I could put a dotted eighth delay on it and really get some cool build at the end, but without that sparkle and percussive nature an acoustic provides, something was missing. Both would have been ideal, but when I had to pick one, the acoustic won the day and I asked our electric player to beef his part up a bit with delay and such. 'Take My Life' is a great song... really fun to play, but we've never done it in a worship rotation, always as a special.

Ok, my rant is done I think. I often wonder if anyone cares about my weekly (ok, not exactly weekly) muses--but hey, if not, I'm keepin' a good journal, right? At any rate, next week is big. Mike Lewis (the Jesus Painter) is coming to town, baptisms, confirmations, and we find out just how loud our congregation wants to love... see you then.

nailed to the cross...

Horatio Spafford articulated it so well in the classic Hymn "It Is Well With My Soul" when he penned the beautiful stream-of-conciousness lyric:

My sin--O the bliss of this glorious thought--my sin, not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more... Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul!

At our Good Friday services this past week, those in attendance were invited to put flesh on the bone of that poignant declaration. We were each asked to write a sin on a small piece of paper. Then during a time of worship at the end of the service--which included communion, prayer, singing and the opportunity to give our financial offerings--we were also to come forward and nail our sins to the cross.

We had a large cross--10' x 5'6"--made for the services. Now, we're well aware this wasn't some brilliant idea that no one had ever thought of... we knew it had been done before. In fact, we had done it before. But, for some reason, we'd not realized--at least I'd not realized--the impact it would make... not just on the congregation, but on those presenting as well. During the first service, I was absolutely wrecked by the sound of the hammers. My voice broke along with my heart as I closed my eyes and imagined my Savior on that very cross, having nails driven through him in cacophonous fashion by men, women and children alike. I couldn't help but take some photos afterward, the first of which is the cross from my perspective up on the platform.

selfless...

It's Sunday morning, 6:47a.m. as I begin typing... the rare occasion of having a 10 or 15 minute surplus before I leave for church is at hand, and I thought I'd take advantage by putting some of my thoughts down here. We're rapidly approaching the day on which we celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and the words we sang last night--and will again this morning--are resonating in my mind... "It's all about You, Jesus..."

This has become a staple among the myriad of "worship phrases" that we worship leaders, songwriters and pastors will draw from when appropriate--but it struck me differently for the first time last night. The wonder of God has many layers, and perhaps I stumbled onto one I've never really encountered before last night--at least not in this way. See, I've been spending the last several years being cognizant in my writing and in my leading of pointing to Christ and only to Christ--"It's all about You, Jesus... it's not about me, God, it's all about You..." That really must be the heart of our worship to Him, but as I was bathing in that thought last night in a moment of worship, it struck me that the selfless God we serve suffered through Calvary, died a glorious death on the cross, and rose from the dead all for... us. It's not that I'd never come to that realization before, don't get me wrong. Salvation only exists inside that reality. But it's almost as if the God of all creation was singing back to me last night--not worshiping me at all--but rather a musical whisper... a message from the cross: "It's all about you... that's why I did all of this..."

Wow. The gift of baby Jesus in the manger, humbly entering a world which wouldn't accept Him. The miracles, the parables, the scriptures left behind. The death, the resurrection--all that we celebrate in this season and throughout the year--was God selflessly making it all about us... little, pathetic, sinful, undeserving souls like mine. I don't know about you, but that makes it even easier for me to give every effort to make my worship all about Him.

live video from my recent tour!

Ok, so how fun is this? A friend of mine just told me yesterday that there was a video of me from my recent tour on her myspace profile... I hadn't seen any videos floating around, but when I went and checked it out... sure enough. So thanks Lisa, for showing me! And thanks to Heather in Colorado for shooting and posting a little slice of the tour.

Check it out, tell your friends, blog it, post it, repost it, bulletin it (that's almost as poor a verb as 'Photoshop') and put it on all your profiles! :) Enjoy!

Mark Roach in Concert performing As Long As I Have You

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a great new song...

so... have you ever run across a new song that you were amped about and you just had to tell the world? Worship leaders--you especially? Well, I ran into one such song the other day... it's called "You Gave Your Life Away" by Paul Baloche and Kathryn Scott. Wow.

Now, if you know me at all, you know that I listen and write through a congregational filter of sorts. In other words, I'm constantly looking for--or trying to write--songs that will resonate in a congregational worship setting. So when I stumbled on this song, I was elated to hear each section of the song draw me further into a simple, beautiful moment of worship. We'll be worshiping with this new tune this weekend at MSC, so any of you reading this who will be there will get a chance to enter the throne room with Paul's and Kathryn's words on your lips in our services.

Funny, I was at Saddleback Church this past year at a conference, and I was teaching a session on corporate songwriting. I use Paul's song 'Offering' as an example in my class, because I believe that it's truly an amazing example of artistic worship writing. Anyway, Paul was teaching immediately after me across campus and I wanted to go check out his session--maybe say 'hello' if I could get a chance. He talked about this tune he had just been finishing with Kathryn Scott and sang a bit of the chorus. I loved the little bit that he shared, but had all but forgotten about it until I ran across it the other day.

Paul, if you read this, bro... I want to write with you sometime! You are truly anointed and I'd love to merge our minds and hearts and see if we could come up with a song together that blesses congregations around the world and pleases our Lord and Savior! For now, I thank you--and Kathryn--for coming up with this one!

worshipsource.com

Hey... many of you may have seen that I've been regularly posting a 'weekend services' blog -- a setlist, a run-down of how things went, and maybe some spiritual fodder to go along with...

Well, I'm still doing that, but the long-awaited site worshipsource.com is finally up, and I've moved those particular weekly entries to the 'blog' section on my worshipsource site!

Worshipsource is a very cool site, though still in its infancy, so I hope you check it out. Three of my songs are posted up there, all with multi-page chord charts with capo keys (when applicable) and chord diagrams, and a fourth with charts but no audio. Also, the blog that I just mentioned will be up there weekly as well. Stop by and check it out... www.worshipsource.com/markroach

November 3 & 4, 2007

Worship Setlist:

Beautiful One (Tim Hughes)
May the Words of My Mouth (Tim Hughes)
Amazing (John Newton, John P. Rees, Mark Roach)

I Stand Amazed (Charles Hutchison Gabriel)
Holy Is The Lord (Chris Tomlin)


Hey all... long weekend for us at MSC--the services on Saturday and Sunday were followed by a baptism service Sunday night @6pm. All I can say is... that's why we do what do... what an awesome thing to witness all of those professions of faith.

Well, I'm off tomorrow a.m. to Washington--first night of the tour with Aaron Shust and Building 429. Meredith Andrews (new Word artist, I believe) will be there, too. If we're in your city, drop by and worship with us, and say 'hey'... regardless, watch the blog, 'cause I'm gonna try to keep you all posted throughout the tour.

Many blessings!

Mark



[phil 4.8]

multiplicity.

October 27 & 28, 2007

Worship Setlist:

Blessed Be Your Name (Matt Redman, Beth Redman)
All I Can Do is Surrender (M. Roach)
Let My Words Be Few (Matt Redman, Beth Redman)
How Great is Our God (Chris Tomlin, Jesse Reeves, Ed Cash)

The Noise (Ian Eskelin, Scott Davis, Jesse Daniels)

Forever (Chris Tomlin)


yeah... so as I look at the songs we did this week... I guess it was like 'Passion Weekend' with a gratuitous original thrown in, huh? :) Seriously, I do this from time to time, where I'll lay out the setlist just based on that delicate combination of rotation, vibe and transition and then I'll look back and realize that our whole set was written by Chris Tomlin or Matt Redman--or in this case, both of them. Does anyone else do that? Does anyone else care? I know the typical congregation member probably doesn't even notice, but do other worship leaders out there avoid this when possible? yeah... just totally curious.

It was a good set... so I don't really care. :) ... and I tend to think God wasn't disappointed with my lack of numbers in the songwriter column. I hope he was pleased with our offerings to Him this week. Still... I must admit, I may avoid it in the future (if I actually notice it ahead of time :)

he lost.

October 20 & 21, 2007

Worship Setlist:

You Are Good (Israel Houghton)
Indescribable (Laura Story)
You Are (M. Roach)

Adding to the Noise (Switchfoot)

Breathe (Marie Barnett)


Ok, so this weekend, only our second ever with services on Saturday and Sunday, was full of excitement to say the least... We continued a great series called 'Noise' that just deals with the noise and distractions in our lives. This week's emphasis: filters. We discussed some of the most common audio filters and then really honed in on the notch filter--a filter that identifies an offensive band of frequencies and attenuates it (turns it down) in order to hear the rest of audio undisturbed. Well, come on, it works in theory :)

Anyway, the message and premise were great, but we had our share of attacks this weekend: First of all, the virtually complete loss of our Sr. Pastor's voice. I guess that wasn't enough for Saturday and first service Sunday, 'cause then we had enough tech problems to take plenty of the focus off of the rasp-filled message. The highlight (read: lowlight) to me was during the Switchfoot tune--after forgetting to turn my own volume up, delaying the intro a few bars, I started to sing the first line when I looked at our rear screen (yes, I cheat lyrically by using a rear screen) only to gaze into vast blackness... or at least as much blackness as a low-lit white screen can provide. I believe I actually uttered--ok, blurted--the word "wow" within close enough proximity to my mic that all knew that I was taken completely off guard.

So just in case you other worship leaders out there have ever wondered what would happen if something visually catastrophic were to impede your presentation during a service, I could give a little first-hand testimony of just how not fun it is. Good news: we all survived, the message came through in spite of it all, and ultimately, the enemy lost the fight. :)

October 13 & 14, 2007

Worship Setlist:

Here For the King (Mark White)
Forever (Chris Tomlin)
Change Me (Gary Shoemaker, Rebecca Shoemaker)
The Heart of Worship (Matt Redman)

Still (Christy Nockels, Nathan Nockels)

Enough (Chris Tomlin)


we had an amazing weekend at MSC this last few days. It started with our first ever Saturday night service--ok, so 4:30pm isn't exactly night, but we all still seem to call it that--and it was packed... a family dinner and "Civic Day" event followed, complete with the firetrucks, ambulance, Sheriff's car, safe house, etc... and a helicopter landing on our parking lot. It wasn't punctual, but it got there. My son Conner freaked out--he loved the whole event--and as odd as it may seem, I'd never seen a helicopter land in front of me before either, so it was really cool.

Sunday morning followed, and we had two full services--a nice break from the one-lightly-populated-followed-by-two-full-service we'd been sustaining for the last several months. It was great for my voice, and we all got another hour and a half of sleep or so... win/win.

The message this weekend was [mute] ... the first in our new series entitled 'noise.' Man, it's a pervasive issue in all of our lives, the idea of noise--distractions, temptations, obstuctions, etc.--in our lives. I think it's going to be a really powerful message series and I'm looking forward to doing some cool tunes for it, too...

Well, until next time...

Sunday, Oct. 7th

Worship Setlist:

Everlasting God (Brenton Brown, Ken Riley)
Happy Day (Tim Hughes, Ben Cantelon)
You Never Let Go (Matt Redman, Beth Redman)

All Who Are Thirsty (Brenton Brown, Glen Robertson)
Here I Am, Lord (Dan Schutte)


We wrapped up our series called 'Just Walk Across the Room' yesterday with a message entitled 'The Big Fish'... Nothing spectacular happened from a musical standpoint at the service, but it's always awesome to see God show up in spite of ourselves. I haven't been a very good steward of my own ability to sleep lately, especially on Saturday nights, and I was running on fumes. We worship a Creator far more amazing than I have the capacity to understand, and I think that reality is most potent to me after I walk off of that platform--little, flawed, pathetic man that I am--only able to bring anyone into the throne room by His permission and with the help of His grace...

Ok, that's enough :) Anyway, this Saturday marks our first EVER Saturday 4:30pm service, and following it, a more reasonable 7:45am call time on Sunday a.m. and only two services... My vocal chords will undoubtedly thank me.

Sunday, Sept. 30th

Worship Setlist:

A Thousand Hallelujahs (M. Roach)
Sweet Mercies (David Ruis)
Lord On High (Matt Boswell)
How Can I Keep from Singing (Tomlin/Cash/Redman)

Special Music:

Something to Say (Toad the Wet Sprocket)
Next Thing You Know (Matthew West)

yeah, so worship was great this week. We did something we don't do incredibly often, we had two 'special music' tunes... I despise that term--it makes no sense--and yet I constantly use it for lack of a better term. Any ideas? Let me know! :)

Anyway, we continued our 'Just Walk Across the Room' series with a great message from Pastor Keith about molding our own stories in preparation for the moment that God may want to use it. He kinda called us out on the carpet a bit as Christians. Are we just annoying to the secular culture? Do we even know how not to be? We played a couple clips from 'Planes, Trains & Automobiles' and sang the Toad tune 'Something To Say'... kinda tongue-in-cheek way of saying that we need to make sure we're good stewards of words as Christians.

I wonder, does your church do any 'classics' in terms of 'modern worship' tunes? We did 'Sweet Mercies' this week, and I tell ya... that song just slams. I'd probably never record it myself on a CD, but for Sunday morning... whew... We had a couple veteran vocalists up there (my wife being one of them) and we sang that tune like we weren't planning on stopping. And the band? Our drummer was playing his first service ever with us and he dug into that song like he'd been playing it with us for the last 8 years. I'm telling you, I worry a little bit that we're starting to wear out worship tunes like the radio wears out singles, you know? I know that the best of our worship tunes have some staying power... even after 8 years, there are a couple of songs we do that still open the gates. Good stuff. Hope your church doesn't throw away the good ones, either. Keep singing 'em if they keep working in your congregation.

Looking forward to next week, the last week of 3-service Sundays at MSC. On the 13th of October we begin our new Saturday worship service and move to two services on Sunday.

formulas.

Ok, so I got a question in a blog comment yesterday, and it's actually a question I've gotten several times at conferences and such as well, so I thought it kinda typified blogworthiness. I'm all about the non-words these days, aren't I?

So the question was basically how much do I do my own songs in church--and then how often do I use songs in general... SO... I thought I'd answer that question for any and all who are also curious but also unveil my typical, though inconsistent, strategic, though not always thought through, barely formulaic formulas for worship planning. We all have those, right?

First of all, I share on one condition: if you lead worship or plan worship services and you're reading this, you share, too... in fact, I hope you feel some amount of guilt if you're deciding to read on without any intention of sharing, 'cause that's not part of the deal...

Ok, so I'll start with the two-part question... I usually am pretty intentional about avoiding using more than one of my originals in any given service. I also will frequently have full services without any of my songs--I gots no problems with dat. As for how often I'll use any given song, I think we run about a 10 week rotation in our tunes. Now, we only do 3-4 songs at the beginning of services, and one at the end. The ending tune is usually pulled from the up-tempo portion of a services 2-3 weeks prior, so that tightens the rotation on the fast tunes a bit. Slow tunes really get a long rotation, 'cause we don't do as many in the service. I've been known to go several months without doing a slow tune that is considered in 'regular' rotation. I don't love that, but some tunes just resonate too well to cut, you know? (I'm not talking about mine) :)

When I introduce a brand new tune, I usually try to end the service with it as well, just to really make sure it gets in the ears of the congregation, and then I'll get it back in the rotation sooner, in 4-6 weeks or so... I know some people really hammer new tunes so that the congregation learns them quickly, but I really put the burden on the song selection being incredible congregational. I'm ridiculous about the songs I pick, and I'm just as hard on my own tunes as I am on anyone else's... if they're not really singable, we just plain usually don't do them. Part of that is 'cause we have so many first time visitors every week at our church, too. I want people to be able to sing along in the worship set regardless of whether or not they've heard the songs before.

As for the tunes on Every Reason Why... well, I'll just say that every song on the record has been sung at our church multiple times, including 'Foundations,' which is not a congregational worship tune, but was written for a message of the same title. Not all of the songs are in a current rotation, if you will, but maybe I'll expand on that in another post... this one has become... long.

first time for everything...

ok, so this week I did something I literally haven't done once in the 8 years I've been leading worship at Morning Star Church... I overslept--not just overslept, like a half hour or something, I have done that before--no, I overslept big. Like the King of Glory was Jesus this Sunday and Mark was the king of oversleptedness. Look that one up.

So, yeah, I woke up 3 minutes before the band call on Sunday. I live almost a half hour away from the church. I usually get there about a half hour before the band call. wow. So I wake up (2 hours late!) and call my brand new Associate Music Director, who of course is already at the church like everyone else, and I explain to him that I'm late... and going to be later... and for some reason (probably because I was still 3/4 asleep) I proceeded to talk to him instead of making a b-line for the shower and getting to the church. At any rate, he covered for me big. He was the king of coveruptedness. Won't find that one either.

Thanks, Ryan. huge.

Anyway, in spite of all that, I actually was able to focus on worshiping--even in first service, though I was a bit glazed over--and we had a good Sunday. The message was awesome. We've just started a series called 'Just Walk Across the Room' from Willow and our Pastor really said some stuff this Sunday that I just think the church needs to hear. My biggest worry on a Sunday like that, though--you know, when it starts that way and I'm kinda under a cloud--is that I won't serve my God properly with my offering of worship. I try to pray through that kinda stuff, but we're only human, right? So, I really felt that by the 2nd service (we have three right now) I was able to really hone in and focus. Lord, I do hope and pray you were pleased by our efforts...

Looking forward to next week. The tunelist over to the left there looks really wimpy, but we've actually got a lot of cool music happening... some Toad the Wet Sprocket, which always make my week brighter, some Matthew West, and a reprise of one of the worship tunes... that's why there's only three tunes listed. Anyway, I guess I'll tell you how it went next week!

p.s. I'm a little offended that no one left any comments about my dog... just a little (and so is J.T. )

different perspective...

So this Sunday may have literally been the very first time in eight years that I actually came to my own church for just one service, with my family, mid-morning, parked in the lot while it was full, entered the front doors, etc. It was crazy... crazy cool, though.

I love doing that, to be honest. I love to come to my own church, sit in the congregation and just take it in, you know? It's an entirely different worship experience than the one I have while on the platform myself. different. not better. but I love it. Anyway, nothing else of any major significance happened at the service, so this will pretty much conclude the weekend service blog for me this week. Sorry I missed you all last week, by the way, I just altogether... didn't blog about last week's services. It wasn't that they weren't blog-worthy or anything, I just... didn't. That'll happen from time to time, but I'll try to be consistent with this.

If you comment, that'll really motivate me! :)

it all started with 'intrinsic'

Ok, so it all started with the word 'intrinsic'... it's found in the song "All I Can Do is Surrender." Questions at church, in e-mails, even on myspace... what's that word 'intrinsic' mean?

Shortly after that came 'manifest'... then 'typify'... I started to get a reputation among some of the band members at Morning Star... if we were doing a new song and there was a 'fancy' word in the lyric, they'd ask me if I wrote it--they were onto me! :)

So a few months ago, I compiled this admittedly ridiculous 'survey' of all of the 'fancy' words from my debut CD Every Reason Why--and I quickly discovered that I'm not near as funny as I like to think I am--and even less so according to my wife! :) Then--and this is where it gets interesting-- I got an e-mail from a worship leader I'd just met down in Dallas at a Conference this July... he told me that after he looked up several of the words found on the CD, he actually started to enjoy it a bit more. I think he was just railing on me a bit, but he validated my bad sense of humor in this video just enough for me to upload it for you all! So here it is...

(push play, video will take a few minutes to buffer)