As I sat down last night to write my post about Sunday Services I couldn’t stay up so today it gave me an idea.

Here is a sunday in the life of Jeremy (abnormally busy one)

5:45  wake up and shower

6:15 arrive at church begin warmups vocal and guitar

7:00 begin sound check and rehearsal

8:15 finished rehearsal tune guitars, eat donuts and hang out with team

8:45 pray back stage with team for the services

8:55 play new song “We Won’t Stay Silent” as prelude

9:00 First Service Begins

10:45 Second Service Begins

12:15 Church Ends

12:20 with some help, set up 39 round tables and 320 chairs outside on the patio for a wedding

2:00 get home from setting church up

2:30  Sunday afternoon nap

4:00 wife woke me up, shower number 2 (I work up a sweat on sundays)

4:45 arrive back at church to set up DJ equipment for wedding

6:15 started to play dinner music

7:15ish the real dancing begins

9:00ish couple leaves, break down all 39 tables, 320 chairs, I don’t know how many bags of trash, and thanks to my wife and father-in-law they set a classroom with 100 chairs that shouldn’t fit 100 chairs.

11:00pm arrive home

12:30am done…

I’ve been pretty tired all day but got quite a few productive things done today.  Off to see the ENT tomorrow.

When the children of Israel were on their journey through the desert to the Promised Land, God provided fresh manna for them every day. There were times when they wanted to hold on to yesterday’s manna, but it would always spoil and make them sick.

The same is true for us in our walk with God today. We many times try to live off of the blessings we received from God yesterday, but they will never do. We need fresh bread every day. Jesus taught us to pray: “Give us this day our daily bread.”

We must earnestly seek the Lord for that fresh revelation, touch and blessing that He has for us today!

Well this was one of the rare weeks we were just off.  That’s all I can really call it.  I mean the Holy Spirit was there but it was like we were all getting in the way.  Not intentionally…the Holy Spirit wasn’t moving like he normally does.  I left tired and frustrated cause I felt like we were just spinning our wheels.  There is a part of me that is glad for weeks like this because it’s a bit humbling and really causes us to check ourselves and what we are doing, what our motivations are.

Just as a side note and something that I noticed was numbers seemed abnormally high in the services this weekend.  Maybe everyones back from spring break.  Below is the set.

Tim Hughes new album was released in the UK on Monday and…on iTunes.  So yeah I bought it!  Loving it so far but I’ll do a more official review after I’ve listened to it for a few weeks.  YEAH Tim Hughes!!

We had great services yesterday.  Both services were really engaged.  Second service there was a couple I didn’t recognize but they were really expressive in there worship.  Now as any pastor or worship leader will tell you it is really invigorating when people are responding.  It almost spurs you on as a leader to do more and it leaves you feeling encouraged.  It was really a lot of fun.  Church has been fun lately.

Here is the Set!

This is an article Tim Hughes wrote on a subject I already whole heartedly believe in.

Tim Hughes
Recently we had a training night with our worship team where we looked at the role of the Worship Leader. We explored the idea that actually the WL isn’t just the person leading from the front – it’s the whole band. This changes everything.
For too long I believe in the Church we’ve undervalued the role of musicians in leading us in worship. Often there is high expectations that the ‘WL’ i.e. the person leading the singing, will be a leader of integrity, humility and authenticity – and rightly so. But sometimes we turn a blind eye to the rest of the band; perhaps we think that they are only there to provide the sound and make up the numbers and therefore it doesn’t matter how they live their lives.
In the bible we read about the Levites – a people set apart to minister before the Lord. For ALL the musicians and priests involved it was a holy calling, a great responsibility. We’ve been discovering and trying to work out how as a big team we can all take hold of this call and use our gifts to lead worship effectively. In one sense we’re building a greater commitment to team. We’re all involved in encouraging one another to love and good works. We’re all trying to live a life of worship that overflows in the expression of song every Sunday. We’re all preparing our hearts to lead, praying that God would awaken people’s to worship as we gather on a Sunday or whenever it is we lead. We become aware that as a drummer I need to be listening and alert to what God is doing – sensitive to the lead of the Spirit. A change in drum pattern or a build here and there can affect where the song goes – impacting the worship. A keyboardist playing a riff at a certain moment might open up a bit of space for people to soak in God’s presence and respond to His great love. A singer passionately responding in worship can set the tone and draw others in – encouraging people to participate rather than spectate.

This is still Tim Hughes but I feel exactly the same way about my team.

I know for me, working with musicians who think like this is so important. It’s a joy to lead alongside others who are also sharing in the responsibility. It’s amazing to look around in a time of worship to see other musicians/worship leaders passionately engaging with God and leading the congregation.
I believe we need to build the sense of team and set the bar high. What we are involved in is so much more than playing through a few songs. We are responding to the Almighty God and leading His people in praise and worship. To do this we need gifted musicians who love God whole-heartedly and love their neighbour as themselves. We need to grow teams full of worship leaders, rather than leaving that responsibility to one person alone.

I also just read that he is about to release a live CD with about half new songs and half old songs.  You better believe I’ll be picking that one up:)

I am sitting on my back porch watching my kids play thinking about yesterday’s services.  It feels like it’s in the high 60′s (Fantastic!)

It was nice to get Stronger to finally come together.  The last two weeks were really rough…on the 22nd we didn’t even do it in the services.  Kind of a weird meter (3/4)  I know…that’s really crazy:)…almost as hard as 5/4:)  I jest…

Well we had two great services.  Again the first hour was much more responsive than the second.  We did our usual two songs before the sermon then the rest after.  We finally played all of the songs we prepared!!!!!  The services, however, ran about 5-7 minutes long.  Eh!  It was a great time.

The only song that we did that I don’t have in the playlist below was My Tribute.  It’s not in the play list because there is no recording of the song that sounds anything like we played it.  I played piano for it and Saviour King.  I’ll try to lay something down so I can share with all of you how we did it.  Here are the words in case you are not familiar with the song.

My Tribute

How can I say thanks for the things You have done for me,

Things so undeserved, Yet You give to prove Your love for me,

The voices of a million angels, Could not express my gratitude,

All that I am, and ever hope to be, I owe it all to Thee.

To God be the glory, To God be the glory,

To God be the glory, For the things He has done,

With His blood He has saved me, With His power He has raised me,

To God be the glory, For the things he has done.

Just let me live my life, Let it be pleasing Lord to Thee,

And should I gain any praise, Let it go to Calvary.

-Andrae Crouch

I stumbled upon this video today and WOW!  It starts out kind of slow but it’s really powerful stuff.  Hang in there:)

“How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize!” -PENN

Great morning overall.

It was really great to have both services engaged.  Second service started out with about 20 people by the time we got to the second song it was pretty full.  I saw a ton of new people so I made sure to let the congregation know to worship how they’re wired.  It is also a good reminder for the rest of the congregation.

We had communion today and we sang This is Our God during communion.  Normally this would not work very well because of how heavy the song gets.  What we did was during the instrumental break I read Isaiah 53:2-5 then instead of building it up we worked the song down and sang the bridge with just acoustic guitar and keys.  It worked out really well.  (Another sign of a good worship song is that the words are just as powerful without the orchestration behind it.

We ended the worship time with an alter call.   It was really a great morning.

Here are the songs we played today!