worship recap – hands

We had a great Sunday this week.  It was a busy weekend, but Sunday went off without a hitch and I think a lot of people were touched.  I went to a C&MA Youth Conference on Friday and Saturday, Pastor Dave and his sons Daniel and Dean held a concert on Saturday night called “Loudhouse” and then we all played on Sunday morning (except for Dean).  On top of that, we had a big band and I didn’t play an instrument.  That makes it hard for our sound guys who ran sound on Saturday night as well.  All of this together made for a kind of sketchy Sunday morning music wise, but it went off without a hitch.

I’m not sure if it was all of the late nights, the large band or the fact that I didn’t play guitar, but Sunday morning felt awkward to me musically.  For some reason the stage was really quiet.  I don’t know about you, but I hate a quiet stage.  It’s hard to get a good feel for what’s going on and even harder to follow.  Another thing that was difficult for me was the fact that my band mates (does that sound British or what?) challenged me to lead worship without an instrument.  That could be the reason I had trouble “feeling” the music.  On top of that I never know what to do with my hands.  This is how I felt…

Despite my own feelings of insecurity, it was a good morning.  It’s always fun to try new things and even more exciting to have Dave and Daniel (father and son) playing on stage together.  Here’s what it looked like.

Band:
me – vox
Lynette – vox
Dave – keys
Daniel – egtr
David – egtr
Greg – agtr
Guy – bass
Mike – drums

Tech:
Andy & AJ (also father and son) – Audio
Parris – ProPresenter
Bradley – Lights

Setlist:
God Of Wonders – (Mac Powell)
Salvation Is Here – (United)
Today Is The Day – (Lincoln Brewster)
-welcome-
Hear Us From Heaven – (Desperation)
-message-
When God Ran – (Benny Hester)
-offering-
Walk By Faith – (Jeremy Camp)

worship recap

Well, I think I am finally comfortable saying that I can play lead guitar.  I did so on just about every song this weekend and I think it went pretty well… at least the first service.   It’s always pretty nerve racking to play lead and sing at the same time, but I’m getting used to it.  I’m realizing that I don’t have to play all of the time.  I’m learning to let the rhythm guitarists carry the song.  I’m so used to leading with an acoustic guitar and playing all the time that it’s hard to break away from that.  With some help from guys like Sal, David and my good friend Karl I’m making some progress.  (Check out Karl’s new look by the way  http://www.guitarforworship.com/)

This weekend was extra special for reasons other than my guitar playing.  Emilee Oddo sang lead on a couple of songs and nailed it.  I saw tears in the congregation.  She’s got an incredible voice!  Also, Jerry got to play for the first time and because of that he was able to invite his parents to Church for the first time in a long time.  It brought tears to his eyes.  That’s so powerful!

All in all it was a great weekend.  Music was good, message was great (what Dave likes to call a “10 hanky Sunday”) and lives were changed!

Band:
egtr/vox – me
vox/synth – Emilee
egtr – Jerry
agtr/vox – Tim
bass – Kevin
drums – Rick

Setlist:
Mighty To Save (United) – Thanks to Karl for letting me use his Phase-Shifter on this one
I Am Free (Desperation)
-welcome-
Lead Me To The Cross (United) – Emilee sang lead on this one and nailed it!  My favorite of the weekend.
-message-
From The Inside Out (United) – Emilee sang lead on this one as well.  Always great!
-offering-
How He Loves (Crowder/McMillin)

mercy me – lovewell

I’m listening to MercyMe’s new album “LOVEWELL”.  My mother-in-law bought it for me by mistake, I think.  All I can say, however, is…

REFRESHING!!!

Go buy it!

worship recap – mother’s day

We had a great weekend.  We’ve had a tradition of doing a song I wrote a couple of years ago called “American Mother” every Mother’s Day, however this weekend we decided to break that tradition.  There’s something about traditions that scare me.  Regardless, we had a spectacular weekend.  Sal and David   tore it up on guitar.  We had a couple of songs with killer solo parts that they both nailed.  We also had a song with a drum solo, one with driving bass, an acoustic guitar intro and of course, I can’t forget about the one that stretched all of our vocals.  Everyone did an incredible job and I think people truly connected with God in a powerful way.  Oh yeah…  and attendance was up.  That’s always nice.

Here is the setlist and players.

vox/agtr – me
vox 2 – lynette
vox3/tambo – herb
drums – mike
bass – guy
egtr 1 – sal
egtr 2 – david

God You Reign (driving bass) – Lincoln Brewster
Everlasting God (acoustic intro) – Brenton Brown (Tomlin version)
Let The Praises Ring (drum solo) – Lincoln Brewster
-welcome/baby dedications-
-video intro-
-message-
You Are The One (solo) – Lincoln Brewster
-offering-
You Are The One (another solo) – Lincoln Brewster
-dismissal-
Glorious One (vocal workout) – Steve Fee

After Church we hung out with my family and celebrated our moms with a BBQ.  The boys entertained the moms while Sammy & I watched “It Might Get Loud”.  It was blast.

Tony’s Back!

Tony’s back in the blogosphere…  Check out his latest post titled “How far east are you?“

worship recap – video message

We had an interesting weekend for a couple of reasons.  First of all, Pastor Dave had a resurgence of the good old Kidney Stones.  Elena, his wife texted me Saturday morning to let me know they were back.  That being the case, my mind began racing to see, what message did I have prepared to teach.  I wrestled with a few until I got a call from Dave later that afternoon.  He informed me that he would like to show a video instead of having me teach.  At first, I was a little taken back…  “What am I, chopped liver?”  But then he told me what it was.

We just so happen to be going through a series titled “Parenthood”.  We got the idea from Life Church in Oaklahoma.   In order to stay on track with our series, Dave thought it would be good to have Craig Groeschel teach via video.  How am I going to argue with that?  Craig’s the Pastor of one of the largest Churches in America and he leads the way in Video Venue’s & Internet Campuses.  So…  How am I going to argue with that?  Well, I didn’t!  And I’ll tell you what…  It was nice not to have to lead worship and teach.  I did that a few weeks ago and it just about killed me.  Thanks Craig!

Here was our setlist.  Once again I didn’t have a lead guitar player so I ended up playing lead.  It was fun and I actually attempted some leads this time! 

Band:
Ron – Drums
Kevin – Bass
Tim – Agtr
Tammy – Vox
Me – Egtr

Setlist:
Glory to God (Fee)
Marvelous Light (Hall)
From The Inside Out (United)
-welcome-
-video-
How He Loves (McMillin)
-offering-
How He Loves
-dismissal-
Marvelous Light

As you can see, we had to switch the setlist around a little because of the video.  The copy that we had didn’t work so well so our tech team had to do some quick transitioning.  Thats why we put the welcome right before the video.  I think it worked well actually.  All in all, it was a stressful, but fun weekend and I think it actually went off pretty well!

Please pray for Pastor Dave.  Kidney Stones are no joke!

Dance or Die…