Worship Confessional

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Chase Valley Band Confesses

Published May 18, 2008 Uncategorized , Worship Confessional 17 Comments

Worship Confessional number 12.

Here you’re getting 4 guitar players on screen plus clips from the worship set!

What more could you ask for?

A set list?

ok.

Awesome is the Lord Most High – Chris Tomlin
You Never Let Go – Matt Redman
All Creatures of our God and King – Davie Crowder
Heart of Worship – Matt Redman
Mighty to Save – Ben Fielding & Reuben Morgan

The Newsprint Connection and Remarkable Predecessors

Here is my Worship Text-fessional for March 30, 2008

Set list for Chase Valley Church

God of Wonders – Mark Byrd and Steve Hindalong
Beautiful One – Tim Hughes
Light the Fire Again – Brian Doerksen
Hungry -Kathryn Scott
Evermore – Joel Houston

Highlights/Lowlights

One of our singers brought in a Newspaper today dated 8 years ago. She had forgotten about this news clip and just found it today by happenstance. It was from the first day Chase Valley Church worshiped in this building when it was newly constructed. There was an article about CVC and large picture taken during the worship service. The lyrics on the screen in the photo were

Clothe me in white so I won’t be ashamed. Lord light the Fire again.

Also by random chance I chose Light the Fire Again as a song for today. It was awesome to do that song and feel that deep connection to the past.

Practice was amazing this week. I had high hopes for today. I was a bit disappointed. Our execution was decent but not exceptional.

I have a deep longing to worship God in a way that is remarkable. Read: I want things to be done in a way that they are worth remarking on. I want people talk about worshiping God to their friends. I’m not sure that right now people are so excited about our worship service that they are compelled to talk about it. I’m wrestling with the notion that God could be calling me to simply be faithful and not worry about being remarkable.

Evermore. Great song. I love my predecessor. She was in love with Hillsong and as a result the congregation knows TONS of Hillsong songs. I’ve never done Evermore before this week, but chose to learn it based on the church’s familiarity. I love this song. All week long I was singing these lyrics into my heart:

Even if my world falls I will say, ‘Above all I live for Your glory.’

For that matter I love both my predecessors. I’m Worship Pastor #3 for Chase. It’s a big honor to follow in their footsteps.

What do you think?

“Being remarkable” should or should not be a goal within the worship ministry?

Easter Worship Confessional 03.23.08

Published March 24, 2008 Video , Worship Confessional , Worship Leading 18 Comments

Here’s a goofy/sleep depravity induced worship confessional for Easter:

Watch the video now – check back later for updates to this post.

Email and RSS Subscribers, click here to visit my website and see the video.

Palm Sunday Recap

Published March 16, 2008 Music , Worship Confessional , Worship Leading 4 Comments
Tags: Brenton Brown, Brooke Fraser, Chris Tomlin, Christian, Faith, Martin Smith, Paul Baloche, Spiritual, Worship

Set List for Chase Valley Church for Sunday, March 16

The Happy Song – Martin Smith
Hosanna – Paul Baloche
Everlasting God – Brenton Brown
We Humble Ourselves – Paul Baloche
Hosanna – Brooke Fraser
Holy is the Lord – Chris Tomlin

Highlights/Lowlights

Singing with the children – for the last 3 weeks I’ve skipped out on the sermon to hang with the kiddos and teach them Hosanna by Paul Baloche. All the kids from k – 5th grade came walked in with palms and then came up front to lead this song. We had them piled on each side of the stage and they did sign language for the chorus. It rocked.

Simple Band – We scaled down to one vocalist (besides me), and only one guitar, bass and drums. It worked AWESOME. The music was tight and we reached a new level today musically.

My voice didn’t quite “wake up.” It was tough to sing the whole set. We did Holy is the Lord as a response song after the sermon. Then as people are leaving we sing the chorus again. My voice finally felt ready to start as we were singing that final chorus.

2 Hosannas – Yeah it’s Palm Sunday, of course we’re gonna sing multiple versions of “Hosanna in the Highest.” They both went great.

Electric – I played my electric on the Fraser Hosanna. (I played acoustic on everything else.) I wanted to get the delay and cool riffs into the song. The bass carried a lot with out the acoustic so it still sounded pretty good with only one guitar.

Worship: Rock the Choir

Published March 10, 2008 Church , Worship Confessional , Worship Leading 11 Comments
Tags: Billy Chia, Choir, Chris Tomlin, Christian, Christianity, David Crowder, Faith, Lyrics, Marty Sampson, Matt Redman, Set List, Singing, Text-fessional, Tim Hughes, Vocals, Worship

Today worship was awesome!

Set List for Chase Valley Church March 9th, 2008

No One Like You – David Crowder
King of Majesty – Marty Sampson
Made to Worship – Chris Tomlin
Wholly Yours – David Crowder
Hear I am to Worship – Tim Hughes
Psalm 103 – Billy and Sarah Chia
The Heart of Worship – Matt Redman

We had a lot of music today.

Highlights & Lowlights

The hour time difference threw lots of people off. Half the team showed up late. Really late.
The Choir sounded phenomenal! (More on that below)
The band was super tight. Everyone worked hard on the music this week and it really showed.
I put so much into it I was pretty drippy with sweat when I got off stage.
No One Like You rocked. This is a brand new song for the congregation. It’s also a tricky one to learn in typical Crowder fashion. We did it pretty close to the CD version so there was a lot of nuances the people had to pick up on. Everyone worked hard and we nailed it.
King of Majesty – Not my favorite song, although a lot of people around here like it so we may be doing it again. I’m not a fan of lyrics like “These words are from my heart, these words are not made up.” They’re just a little trite for me, but I know some of the songs I like lyrically are too convoluted for some people. Being a worship pastor is not all about picking only the songs you like.
Made to Worship – tough song to sing. I even brought it down to A and it was still hard. I liked being able to play a lead line on this one.
Wholly Yours – I totally messed this one up. This song has a progression. The lyrics take you through a story of being broken and then finally giving your all to God. Well I showed up today ready to worship. I didn’t want to wait through the whole song. When we should’ve gone into the bridge with says, “But the harder I try the more clearly can I feel the depth of our fall and the weight of it all.” I shouted out “So here I am” and tried to go into “here I am finally all of me everything!” Apparently I was too excited and didn’t want to have to wade through “depth of the fall” to get to “all of me wholly yours.” Fortunately the choir was rock steady and went the bridge when they were supposed to. I fumbled a few chords and got back on track thanks to the choir.
Here I am to Worship – went well the first time.
Psalm 103 – I didn’t plan on doing this song. We front loaded a lot of music today and then band sat down and we went into offering. Normally the congregation sings a full song during offering, I haven’t really done “special music.” I came back up and started finger picking to give some back ground music while the offering was being collected. When I looked at my pastor to give him the cue that offering was done and he could come back up, he simply had his head bowed in prayer just vibing a spirit of worship so I started singing. It felt well received.
Hear I am to Worship (take 2) – I finished Psalm 103 and Fred gave me the cue to do another song. So we sang another verse and a few choruses of Hear I am to Worship. (The theme for today’s sermon was “Worship.”) I stopped playing guitar, and while the crowd sang acapella I put down my guitar and left the stage then joined the crowd to sing. So we sang with no one on stage but God. I didn’t plan this but I was hoping to underscore the notion that worship is not about the music or the band but it’s all about God.
The Heart of Worship. Didn’t quite have the punch I thought it would. Fred told Redman’s story of how worship had gotten stale and routine and that his church stopped using a band for a season to focus on what worship was really supposed to be. During this season Redman wrote Heart of Worship. I thought after the message this would really hit home, but perhaps the fact that this song is so oversung it may have felt like the stale, routine worship that Redman was trying to avoid the first place. (I’m just speculating at this point, really the whole day was amazing and I heard tons of great comments about both the music and the message today. Really every other song went spectacular and this one was not bad, but simply average.)

How to Rock the Choir

We don’t do choir the same old way at Chase Valley. Instead of a feature act, the choir sings once a month as the “back up” singers. They learn all the worship songs that we do for the day and sing on each one. They sing mostly melody but throw in a good mix of harmony as well. It has several benefits:

Having 10 – 15 extra people on stage leading really helps to draw people into worship.
The sound is really full because we use condenser mics and run them through the mains
They stay on track when I don’t!
There are tons more that maybe I’ll do a post on in the future.

I love doing Choir this way. It has it’s challenges and perhaps in the future we’ll do some special music but today I was really excited to being doing choir this way.

So there’s a lot there to comment on. Let’s keep a conversation going on this post (or other past ones) next week while I lighten the blogging and celebrate the best 2 years of my life.