let my words be few

Here’s my attempt at being more consistent in blogging. Every Sunday evening or Monday morning, I’m going to post the songs we sang at church on Sunday morning and possibly give a little commentary on each song. I try to be very intentional about the songs we sing and not just sing songs that are cool or songs that I know will bring forth some emotional response. So here goes:

1. Praise the Lord (Psalm 150) - This was a new song we did for the first time today. It’s from the Sovereign Grace Psalms CD (which I think is their best ever). Our church anniversary was this weekend and Psalm 150 was our focus. It’s a very singable tune, so the congregation picked it up pretty quickly. My favorite line is:

Praise the Lord with instruments,
Praise the Lord with excellence
Look at what He’s done for us
Bore our sins upon the cross.

2. All Creatures of Our God and King - We use the David Crowder arrangement of this one. I love how the drums and the acoustic guitar complement each other. The lyrics are Trinitarian which is a big plus. Often we focus on the Father or the Son and occasionally the Holy Spirit, which is good, but singing about the Godhead is vital to biblical worship. More songs need to be written like this. Maybe that’s a challenge for me.

3. O Praise Him (Psalm 134) - The first song I wrote that I felt good about. The lyrics were written by Henry Francis Lyte a long time ago. I wrote a new melody to it and added a simple little chorus. Our church loves this one which is very humbling for me. I love the words of the third verse:

Praise the Lord, great mercies trace
Praise His providence and grace
All that God for us has done
All God sends us through His Son
All that breathe your Lord adore
Praise Him, praise Him evermore.

4. The Lord Is (Psalm 23) - Another Sovereign Grace tune for the Psalms CD. This is a fantastic song in 6/8. It’s a simple declaration of God’s love and faithfulness as our Shepherd. I first heard this song on the WorshipGod 08 conference a few weeks back and immediately knew this was a song our congregation should sing. I love how it takes an Old Testament passage and shows us Christ in it.

You gave Your own life for my ransom
So I could rejoice at Your side
You have shown Your faithfulness again and again
There’s nothing good that You will not provide

The Lord is, the Lord is my Shepherd
The Lord is, the Lord is my Shepherd
I shall not want.

5. Jesus Messiah - A new Chris Tomlin song. Very much like a lot of his tunes. Recorded way to high for congregational singing, but drop it down a step and a half and you have a highly singable song that exalts Jesus. This was another new one for our congregation today. I rarely do that. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I’ve ever done that before and probably won’t again. But, it went well. We sang this during the offering as we often do to teach a new song and invited everyone to join us on the chorus at the end. The first verse is the theme of our young adult ministry (from 2 Cor. 5:21), and I think this will become sort of an anthem for us.

He became sin, who knew no sin
That we might become His righteousness
He humbled Himself and carried the cross
Love so amazing, love so amazing.

6. Receive the Glory - Another Sovereign Grace song. This one has become a staple for our worship services with significant meaning in the life of our church. We’ve sung this song for the last 3 anniversary services, our pastor’s 25th anniversary, and a number of other occasions.

All that we’ve accomplished, You have done for us
And any fruit we harvest is a gift from Your hand

So we glory in the cross of Christ
That made us Yours forever
That joined our lives together to sing.

Today was a big day at church as well because we went to a new service format. We got rid of our 8:15 acoustic service and changed the times of our others. We are doing 9:00, 10:15, and 11:30 for our service times. The big component in this change was that we moved our worship band service to our sanctuary for the 11:30 hour to allow for more growth. Maybe I’ll explain more of what I mean by that it a future post. (Yeah, yeah, you’re all thinking March 2009.) Anyway, everything went better than we hoped and we had very high hopes. This is going to be great for the life of our church. Soli Deo Gloria!

So, I’ve been reflecting on some things that I’ve always enjoyed, but recently have been enjoying them more than ever. Here they are with brief commentary.

1. Phil Keaggy - I’ve listened to and enjoyed him for a while now, but i was able to see him in concert this past Sunday night and was blown away once again. I also got to hang out with him since I was the “promotor” of the concert which was lots of fun. He is genuinely humble, funny, and caring. And he’s incredibly small.

2. 7th Chords - This is a musician thing, but I’ve been playing/adding 7th chords to some music recently and it’s amazing how one note can take you somewhere totally new. When I finally learn how to play 9th, 11th, and 13th chords, I’m not going to know what to do with myself.

3. Oreos and Milk - Most of you who read this know I don’t like chocolate. However, there is great goodness in Oreos. Add to that a big ol’ glass of Organic Valley Whole Milk (yes, whole milk, don’t get me started on the evils of skim milk) and you’ve got one of the best treats ever.

4. Old friends who used to want to be like you and bought red Takamine guitars and mini-vans because that’s what I used to have, well, still have - When I first started playing and singing, there were some guys who thought I was cool because I played guitar and drove a mini-van with a CD player in it (this was back in the 90’s), so they decided they wanted to be like me and bought the same guitar as me, started driving mini-vans, and growing beards. They now have better guitars than me, cooler cars, and fuller beards and that’s awesome.

5. My wife - This is the most important one. Sometimes we get lazy and don’t recognize how good we have it and begin to take the ordinary for granted. Then one morning you wake up and realize (by God’s grace) that you’re married to the girl of your dreams, your best friend, the one who knows your voice inflections better than anyone else and is the only one who can harmonize with those, the one whose laugh makes your heart sing, the best mommy in the world, an amazing web designer, one whose beauty can stop traffic, a great cook, a joy to be around, the one who I’m staring at across the room right now without her noticing and longing for the moment where she will lay her head on my chest tonight and go to sleep. And then you smack yourself for not fawning over her everyday to tell her all she’s means to you, and how thankful you are for her, and how she truly is a gift from God that you don’t deserve. I’m in love, smitten, whipped, captivated, enchanted, moonstruck and crazy about her.

That’s what I’m enjoying right now. How about you?

This happened when we were in Florida. It’s my most embarrassing moment as a worship leader. We were coming to the end of a set of songs asking Christ to be the center of our lives. Be Thou My Vision flowed right into Jesus, Be the Centre. At the end of the song, our drummer, who was playing on the dreadful electronic drums, accidentally hit the “Count Off” button. So, as we sang the words, “Be the reason that I live,” we began to hear, “1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4…” over and over and over again. The only appropriate response at that moment was to laugh and turn it over to the pastor. How do you recover from something like that? Enjoy.
Click here to hear!

This summer I had an amazing opportunity to go to Thailand and lead worship for a missions conference.  It was one of the most moving experiences of my life.  Many of the folks there serve in very hard places and often have no church other than their own family.  So, for most of them, to gather together for times of corporate worship was a huge blessing.  It was also a blessing for me to serve them in this way.  Below is a video of the last day and we’re singing together “Not to us, but to Your Name be the glory.”  We began the conference with this song and from the first note the sense of Jesus Christ being in that room, leading the worship Himself (Psalm 22:22, Hebrews 2:12), was almost overwhelming.  I’ll never forget that moment.  This video is the last day and we sang this song again to bookend what this conference was about.  It’s a little choppy because it was recorded with a little digital camera made for still pictures and not movies, but you get the general idea.   

Today, December 6th 2007 at 2:13 p.m. my iTunes stats just reached 10,000.  I’m actually at 10,001 right now.  That’s 28 days, 13 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds of music.  I’ve been putting Christmas music in the past few days and the album that put me over the 10,000 mark was The Lost Christmas Eve by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.  If you haven’t heard of them, you need to.  It’s Christmas music that ROCKS!  So, I’m going back to banging my head to “Siberian Sleigh Ride” and celebrating this milestone.  

Oh, and by the way, if anyone is still looking for a Christmas gift for me, these guys are playing in Columbia on Dec. 23rd at the Colonial Center.  *hint, hint*