worship confessional (8.17.08)

Tough weekend at MSC, as we lost a special young nineteen-year-old girl to a fatal single-car accident on Friday. She was to turn 20 on Saturday, and our church--young as it is--had literally watched her grow up as her and her family have attended for virtually the entire nine-year life of our ministry. Couple that with the elation that comes with the 30+ baptisms we were celebrating at our Saturday services, and you certainly end up with a strange dichotomy of emotions--and maybe the very essence of the Christian walk.

We've been talking about the Olympics, and the feature tune this week was among the toughest we've ever tried to pull off--more on that later. As we began services on Saturday, we knew the weekend was going to be tough, and I really feel as though we did a great job in worshiping right through the emotional duality in the room. We called it out before we even got started. Just before we sang, I just wanted to name the reality that we were facing. We were staring untimely death and undeserved new life in the face simultaneously... wow. And we worshiped. The setlist, solidified and rehearsed long before the tragedy befell us, was eerily poignant:

Forever - Chris Tomlin
Blessed Be Your Name - Matt/Beth Redman
The Least I Can Do - M. Roach

feature tune - Running On Ice (Billy Joel)

I Stand Amazed - Passion arrangement
All Because of Jesus - Steve Fee

'Blessed Be Your Name' is among the most sung modern worship songs in the country, and most of know that it really shines in the face of tragedy. This weekend, the simple repetitive declaration in the bridge absolutely sucker-punched me... You give and take away | You give and take away | my heart will choose to say | Lord, blessed be Your name. When all was said and done, we simply gave God glory and honor as we attempt to do every weekend, and it felt like the absolute appropriate response to both facets of our emotional state. God is good.

As for the feature tune, Billy Joel's 'Running On Ice,' the piano part alone makes it one of the most difficult songs we've ever tackled--especially considering I played it and I'm not really a piano player. I practiced for hours this week, mainly just trying to nail-down the intro and a ridiculous transition into a quick piano interlude. We recorded some little sound nuggets and artifacts as tracks that we played along to which gave it a little bit more flavor of it's 80's origin, then added some filtered video a la A-Ha's famous 'Take On Me' video. It certainly didn't look like animated charcoal drawings in our version, but it was a cool effect. Of course, all of this came crashing down at the 11am Sunday service when a mute was inadvertently pushed on the channel that contained our click-track. The video started--and restarted--several times (without the click in our ears) before we finally decided to jump ship on the video all together and use our regular metronome. This meant we were going to play it w/ no tracks, which wasn't that big of a deal until we realized half way through the first verse that the video was still playing up in the booth, and now the little sound nuggets and artifacts were bursting through the mains at random times with no rhyme or reason... yeah, it pretty well fell apart. But, the tracks were eventually muted when the video eventually stopped, and we somehow pushed our way through the tune and survived the service... with a few compliments on the feature tune, even :) Ah, nobody's perfect... and technology had it's way with us at 11am this Sunday. If nothing else, we learned something.

I'm doing something new this week, and I'm posting this confessional in collaboration with other Worship Leaders as a part of Fred McKinnon's Sunday Setlists

worship confessional (8.10.08)

We got the refreshing opportunity to attend a small start-up church here in Belgrade, MT yesterday. It was called 'Connect Church' and has only been meeting for about 6 months. Solid music, good teaching and a warm, welcoming congregation. Kinda reminded me of our early start-up days back in '99 although their meeting space was quite a bit more intimate than what we had... those were the days!

Heading home to St. Louis tomorrow a.m. early. Look forward to leading on my home turf again for a while! :)

creation shouting His praise...

wow... a city boy like me spends a couple days at Yellowstone National Park and is left speechless... I've been absolutely overwhelmed by the vastness, mystery and beauty of His creation over the last couple of days. Here's some video I took at the brink of the Upper falls... also check out the photos I posted on my myspace page.

worship confessional (8.3.08) -- from the road

So you may have already seen my post regarding my Alaska trip... as much as I enjoyed the trip, I was actually not even on vacation. I was brought into Cordova by the folks at Cordova Community Baptist Church as the featured guest of a small worship conference. The conference consisted of several evenings of worship, teaching, etc. in addition to some songwriting workshops and culminating in CCBC's usual three Sunday services, all in which I was asked to participate. So this week's confessional is a story of sorts... bear with me, as I feel it's worth telling. :)

Ok, so I arrived in Cordova last Tuesday afternoon, around 1pm, which in my hometown of St. Louis was already 4pm. I had left my house for the airport in St. Louis at roughly 12:15pm the day before, with only a five-hour hotel stay (from midnight to 5am) in Seattle to break-up the five consecutive flights I took to eventually land in Cordova, so needless to say I was tired. As I landed, I quickly discovered just how remote Cordova actually was, as the airport couldn't have been more than 2,000 square feet total and my cell phone, though it said it was roaming, was completely useless. I must confess, as Donald and Gayle picked me up and we headed into town, my smile was a bit painted on and optimism wasn't the first emotion I felt. Boy did God have a lesson to teach me this week... :)

A brief view of my itinerary will communicate the truth that, while I certainly had loads of time to explore Alaska, I was also working a ton. My week basically looked like this:

Tuesday night: arrive (1pm), rehearse with band (evening)
Wednesday night: 7pm - CCBC band kicks off conference, followed by music and testimony (me)
Thursday night: 7pm - lead worship, followed by teaching on worship
Friday: meet with select band members for songwriter workshop
Friday night: 7pm - Concert at CCBC
Saturday: 9:30am - songwriter workshop followed by listening session.
12pm - rehearse with band
3pm - memorial service (I'll discuss in a moment)
Sunday: 9:30am - first service
11am - second service
6pm - rehearse with band
7pm - third service

Ok, so I had a lot planned in the evenings, days basically free. I'm alone in Cordova, AK, a small town of under 2000 or so, and I have no family, no cell phone, no Starbucks, slow-crawling 512K "high-speed internet"... woe is me. It got worse. Gayle sweetly offers me a calling card number so I can try to get a hold of my wife from the hotel room later. My wife is supposed to be calling me to let me know that she got into Montana safely with my 4-year old son and has absolutely no way of getting a hold of me. I find out early the next morning when Carolyn (my wife) returns the message I left on her phone at almost 2a.m. the night before (it wasn't quite midnight in Cordova) that my family's trip to Montana was far less than smoothe, and I had no idea 'cause I wasn't able to check messages. Thankfully, they made it, they were fine, and I just wanted to be with them...

Then God really began to step in. Gayle, Donald, Piper, and everyone else there had already been wonderfully nice and hospitable, and in the process of their tireless efforts to make sure that I saw a bit of Cordova and experienced a taste of life as they knew it, I began to really connect with these people. Add to that the unfortunate--but eerily timed--passing of the long-time Sr. Pastor of CCBC (and father of the current pastor) and now I find myself smack dab in the middle of a grieving community in the Body of Christ. I was asked to attend, and in fact play a small musical role in, the memorial service on Saturday. Afterward, a game night at the Pastor's house ensued and we stayed up until almost 1am, enthralled with one another's company. In five short days, these folks had truly become my friends.

By this time, the reality of the over-the-top hospitality, the continued interest in my life and family, the overwhelming willingness to share their lives with me, and the realization that God had ordained this week of my life far before I walked on this earth really began to tug at my heart. As much as I still wanted to get back to my family, I was truly going to miss these people--and if I didn't screw it up by missing the miracle of this moment--they may miss me, too.

I submit to you all that in that week in Alaska, while a 'worship conference' was held, the Body of Christ shared a victory. We laughed together, cried together, lived together and loved together in a way only God's children could. Without prompting, Gayle bought my son a Cordova coloring book... Pastor John shared with me that one of my songs in particular would likely always remind him of his father's passing--in a good way... Piper and I shared a great talk over a cup of coffee while walking back to the church in the misty Cordova air... Donald and I shared stories over lunch and later, breakfast in a local restaurant... searching for bears at almost 11pm--still dusk in Alaska... roasting hot dogs and marshmallows across from the first glacier I'd ever laid eyes on... the blessings can scarcely be counted.

... and I was paid to come in and bless Cordova. HA... thank You, God. Thank you, Gayle, Donald, Piper, John, and all at CCBC.

The setlists really don't even matter so much, do they? That's what I call a worship conference.

back in 'the lower 48...'

... that's what they call it in Alaska. The lower 48... makes enough sense, I guess, but I'd admittedly never heard it before. In fact, I've come up with an entire mini-dictionary of terms and phrases--some of them Cordova specific--that I learned for the first time in Alaska. Just to give you a little background, Cordova is remote... far more than I thought it would be when I left St. Louis last Monday. And I'm not just talking no Starbucks remote, I'm talking Fedex NextDay gets there in 4 days remote. No roads lead in or out of Cordova, AK, it's only accessible via ferry or plane. Ok, so here's my mini-dictionary:

Out the road - this refers to a specific road heading out of Cordova, and it basically just means you left Cordova to go to the glacier, hunting, fishing, or whatever else is on the one road that leads out of Cordova (but not actually to anywhere else)

Going outside - yeah, seems simple enough in St. Louis... means outdoors, right? Nope. In Alaska, it means leaving Alaska :)

The lower 48 - I already discussed this one briefly... you can't really refer to us as 'the states' when you're in Alaska, since it's one of 'em. So this makes a lot more sense, especially considering Seattle is virtually 'the South' to them :)

Calving - this is actually a real word that refers to the breaking off of large pieces of ice from a glacier... and the resulting waves can cause a bit of danger on the opposite shore!

Copper River Salmon - any other salmon is not really worth discussing in Cordova, and you shouldn't be as naive as I was and think that 'Alaskan salmon' is even remotely the same thing.

That's about all I have for now... Gayle, Donald, Piper, John, or any other of my new friends from Cordova, AK, you're more than welcome to add any I've forgotten via a comment!

You can check out quite a few pics from Alaska on my myspace page if you'd like, and I'll surely blog further about my time in Alaska in the next few days, so check back!

worship confessional (7.27.08)

This past weekend was the 3rd in our 4-part series called "Any Questions?" It's been a great series so far, taking spiritual questions from our congregation and building messages around biblical answers to them. This week our new Youth Pastor, Matthew Skroblus, tackled the oft asked question: Why Do I Still Feel Guilty? He did a great job up there and the Worship Design Team was certainly made aware that we have another option in terms of a teaching pastor once in a while. It's always great to throw someone in their 20's up on the platform, too--someone who loves the Lord and really knows the scripture... that's Matthew.

Anyway, we also introduced my brand new tune "Here With You"... it's the kind of tune that I've been admittedly shying away from writing until now... a simple love song to God. It's not based on any specific scriptures, and it doesn't even have any of our typical worship language--hallelujah, holy, holy, etc. Anyway, I'm currently writing another tune based heavily on scripture and the divine nature of God so I think I felt some freedom to flesh this other one out. I got great feedback on it, and I look forward to getting a demo of it done as well so we can polish it up a bit.

Beyond that, it was a cool setlist that ended with the song "Breathe" ... something about the 4, 6m, 5 section in that tune (which we vamp at the end) just really resonates with me, and I like to just sing over the top of it--and invite the congregation to do the same. In our Worship Design Team we've come to call this a "Breathe Moment" and it's no coincidence. This song seems to beg for them every time we do it. You could definitely feel the spirit in the room during that moment this weekend, and that's always an awesome thing.

So, here was the setlist:

Transformed (M. Roach, Matthew West)
Filled With Your Glory (John & Tim Neufeld)
Here With You (M. Roach)
Breathe (Marie Barnett)

feature tune: Undo (Rush of Fools)

worship confessional (7.19.08) -- from the road

Ok, so last week we set out on a typical Saturday morning... headed to Windsor Christian Church in Windsor, IL. The stuff you hear about from every band that's ever hit the road was about to become our reality... a seemingly harmless blown tire on our trailer started it all...

Come to find out that 12:30pm on a Saturday afternoon is absolutely unheardof in terms of blowing tires--at least according to the myriad of tire shops we tried to call to no avail. We figured out that we were just shy of Greenville on I-70 and were at least able to press on (albeit slowly) because the tire we blew had a brother behind him that was able to bear the load alone for a while.

Armed with the drummer's iPhone and my internet card and laptop, we located, called and /or visited several closed tire shops until finally pressing on again (albeit slowly) toward Vandalia, IL. 10 minutes in the back parking lot of a Wal-Mart was all it took to figure out that they don't even carry trailer tires... but they pointed us toward the consumer vastness that is Rural King ...



The tire--the only one Rural King had--was an astonishing $103 and also put us in quite the pickle in terms of the likelihood we would even receive the blessing of a sound check. We figured out (ok, I didn't figure anything out, the guy installing our new tire figured out) that it was a dry-rotted valve stem that was likely the culprit. After inspecting the others, we had the young man replace another that seemed headed in the same direction. After spending an hour and a half and over a hundred bucks on the problem, we had a brilliant idea:



The story has a crazy happy ending... the worship that night, while virtually void of a sound check, was very special... we arrived safely and worshiped passionately with the warm, friendly folks who had come out to Windsor Christian Church. Immediately after the set, a couple of kids from a youth group who had come to see the show asked if they could have the tire... one of the moms, without flinching, handed me a check that covered the entire amount of the replaced tire. Two others also came forward, expecting nothing in return, with money toward our tire expense and we ended up signing the other half of the tire and giving it to the youth group at the host church, Windsor Christian.

Crazy cool day, we made it home a whole lot quicker than we made it out there... definitely impressed by the touch we felt from the Body of Christ out in the middle of Central Illinois.

worship confessional (7.6.08)

It was a good weekend overall... must admit, though, I didn't really feel 100% back in the swing of things--two weekends playing out of state, I come back and it's the first weekend of our Lead Pastor's summer vacation (he's basically gone all of July) and on top of that we did this kinda Family Service type of thing. So, I guess it just didn't feel as much like 'home' as it usually does coming back after a few weeks away. That said, there really is something special about coming home and leading with a sense of familiarity. I know we're worshiping the same God no matter what church or state I'm in, but Morning Star is also my family, and there's something awesome about worshiping not only with fellow believers, but with family. Ok, enough of that...

So, we had all of our K-5 kids in worship this weekend. We've received mixed feedback about that--(by the way, do any of you do that quarterly or once a month or something? I'd love to hear about how your congregations feel about that)--but it did make the music a little more interesting. Pastor Keith had told 'em all the week before to stand on their chairs while we sang and they did. They also really did sing out, which was very cool. Ok, setlist:

I'm Not Ashamed (Tommy Walker)

Indescribable (Laura Story)

Once Again (Matt/Beth Redman)

feature tune: Communion (Third Day)

ended with: How Can I Keep From Singing (Tomlin and Co.)

When we have Communion (once a month) we typically will cut a worship song from the front set, so we only do three instead of four. We change up the rhythm of the verse melody quite a bit in the Tommy Walker song and we really don't implement the calypso (if you've heard his, you know what I mean) but it's a high energy tune. Indescribable is still a favorite of mine, and after getting a change to meet Laura Story this past month I think I like it even more. She was just an absolutely awesome person and great to talk with. Real to the core, and I love that. Anyway, then 'Once Again' which is one of those oldie but goodie tunes in my book. I just love singing that song. In church I've been using a wah and a DD-20 delay pedal with my acoustic a lot lately... just to bring some tones to the repetoire other than the simple acoustic. So I used a dotted eighth delay on the verses and bridge (and I essentially use the wah like an envelope filter) and that changed it up a bit.

'Communion' is a great song and we've used it several times over the past few years during Holy Communion. I play electric on it, which always poses a unique challenge getting the transition smoothe into the next tune. We try to go all the way through Communion and Offering, then begin singing again as a congregation before the Pastor comes up and gives the final blessing. This week, I just had the keyboardist tail off the end of 'Communion' (the song) and play the chorus changes with organ only. It sounded cool, and kinda reverent actually, as I changed guitars and then slid into an acoustic version of 'How Can I Keep From Singing.' Once the offering was completed, we started the click and launched a full-on band version of the same tune to send us out. It was a cool Sunday, and I was glad to be back.

More next week!

Worship Confessional (6.29.08) -- from the road

Wow... it's been a while since I've penned one of these, and now I'm a week late on this one. Time just seems to slip through my fingertips. Hey last week we found ourselves in Little Rock, AR at The Church at Rock Creek. Richard Wentz is the worship Pastor over there and we met at this cool conference called re:create that I've been to for a couple years in Nashville. Anyway, the ministry there is quite cool, and we had an absolute blast.

Had some new guys playing with me this past week--Josh Gleave and Keith Harris--not only great players, but great guys. Richard is already doing two of the tunes off of Every Reason Why ('A Thousand Hallelujahs' & 'You Are') in services, so those didn't even have to feel like new tunes to the congregation... I threw 'Amazing' in there as another tune that every finds at least somewhat recognizable and my setlist looked about like this:

As Long As I Have You
A Thousand Hallelujahs
Amazing
The Least I Can Do (w/ tag of 'Here I Am to Worship')
You Are

The church is very unique in a couple of ways... first of all, the third service on Sunday--called the Rock Creek 30--is a legit, 30-minute service. Two tunes, a 15-minute message, prayer and offering. Sound a little strange? Not when you hear them tell you that they've baptized a half-dozen people in the last few months that started out at that service. Awesome. Also, instead of a Friday, Saturday or Sunday night service, they actually have a Monday night service. Also seems a bit odd 'til you see 600-800 people showing up for it.

Anyway, like I said, we had an unbelievable time, Richard and the entire staff were amazing. If any of you ever find yourself in Little Rock looking for a great, God-centered church to visit, don't even hesitate heading over there. If nothing else, there's a Starbucks inside the bookstore--come on, who can beat that?!? Seriously, though, after a long (my son was especially beat) but wonderful weekend, we headed back to the good ol' STL and look forward to the opportunity of heading back there again sometime soon!

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!