Worship Night!

September 24, 2008.
Practice/Detour Night of Worship.
7:00pm GBC Sanctuary.


Alright...hold on to your seats.

The set list:
-Our God Reigns (Chorus)
-All Because of Jesus
-Our God Above
-All We Need (Chorus/Bridge)
-Part of Your Story (Todd, this is one of the only tunes that gets requested. Kudos)
Gift of Worship Video from http://www.worshiphousemedia.com/
-Glorify (2 TWB tunes in a row!)
-Center
-My Savior, My God
-Rescue
-We Are Hungry (Acoustic)
-Stand in Awe/The Stand (Chorus)
-Mighty to Save

Keeping it short........God showed up. The youth pastor and I went into this facing the same struggle with distractions and a certain degree of separation from the planning. We spent some time laying it out before God and just lifting the church up in prayer. And God answered.

By the end of the night there were students broken down and we even had a salvation! That is sad that this is a rare occasion. What makes this one night any more special than any other day of the week? It just goes to show you that the Holy Spirit is not hindered by us at all. When you are in the right place doing what God has called you to do, lives will be changed. Even though you may not EVER see any of the results from the seeds you have planted, God still uses us to change lives. In our weaknesses, Christ shines through.

Even though we are broken sinners, He still uses us.
And that rocks.

-Peace

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P.S. I think Charlie Dodrill got me thinking the most about this...

Why did You lay down Your kingdom and throne,
Why did You come here to die all alone,
There on the cross were You certain You'd return above?
Why did You give us a will truly free,
Why do You never get tired of me,
Why would a King come to practically beg for my love?

Interesting

I try not to get too political in whatever I do. That's just sort of a rule I live by. It's not that I have anything against politics and political people, it's just that in all actuality, I don't get it. I appreciate having a mostly-functioning government in place and I understand why we have to have laws and policies and yada, but I guess I don't understand why political "discussions" between parties typically result in Bush-Bashin' and/or all out blood shed (Street-fighter style). Hmmm, kind of reminds me of some biblical debates I've seen as well....

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Like I said, in most situations, not all of them. Don't get all flustered. I'm not talking about you. Well, maybe. If you can't hear the words 'Obama', 'Osama', 'Guantanamo', 'Oil', 'Bush', 'Current World Leaders', etc, etc without totally flipping out, then go ahead, get flustered. I am talking about you. But this is my blog so you can cry if I want you to.

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Anywho, I ran across an interesting article (thanks to a tip from my dad) comparing Batman's character in the blockbuster film "The Dark Knight", to our commander-in-chief (anybody remember him?). Here is a portion of it...read the whole article here.

Enjoy.

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"There seems to me no question that the Batman film “The Dark Knight,” currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.
And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society — in which people sometimes make the wrong choices — and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell.
“The Dark Knight,” then, is a conservative movie about the war on terror. And like another such film, last year’s “300,” “The Dark Knight” is making a fortune depicting the values and necessities that the Bush administration cannot seem to articulate for beans."

Confessional #3

Well, here we are in the wake of our good friend Ike. I have to say, this guy did not fail to impress. Half of the Nacogdoches Metroplex is still either without power or just now getting it back on. There were power lines down everywhere, trees on top of houses, flying debris, trees on top off other trees, fallen trees blocking roads, and everything. It was awesome. Except for trees that fell on houses. That sucks. Sorry if that happened to you.



So this past Wednesday night showed that our high school students definitely have a desire to come and hang out at the church. Our youth pastor, Danny, was fielding calls and texts from students wondering if we were meeting that night. And they showed up. We have a great turn out and the excitement was there as well. On to the set list:

Promises (Jared Anderson)
-Announcements
My Savior Lives (New Life Worship)
Holy is the Lord (Tomlin)
Stand in Awe (Jeremy Riddle)
The Stand (United)
-Message - Romans 8:28
Hungry (Kathryn Scott)

We had the same crew from last week (minus our keyboard guru, Jason) and we fell right back into the same rockin' groove. Kicking the night off, I have to say that Promises went off great. There was some energy and the students were beginning to show some enthusiasm. This is an area that I really want to get our crew excited about; opening up and letting loose (who knows, we might even get them jumping soon).

This was our second week to do 'My Savior Lives' and I think it is starting to sink in a little. The song's melody is relatively simple which makes for a quick learn. The lyrical content, however, is dead-on doctrinally and simply portrays the truth of Christ's eternal reign. This one is a must for an energetic, yet worshipful tune for almost any occasion.

We then did the standard arrangement of 'Holy is the Lord' and ended on a slow chorus. From there we transitioned into 'Stand in Awe'. I took a moment to profoundly state (ramble?) something about taking a stand in our schools and with friends to rise above the crowd so that everyone may see Christ in us. This is the theme of next week's all-worship night and I thought it would be a great time to preview that topic.

From there, we went straight into the chorus of 'The Stand' (which is quickly becoming one of my favorites). Typically, we only do the chorus/pre-chorus for this one, but we ended up playing the entire song. I'm glad we did too. Not only does it portray the gospel message and exuberantly proclaim our love and submission to give our hearts to Him, it just so happened to tie right in with the message. Yesssss. I LOVE that. As a worship leader I have to say, it's awesome when God lays songs on my heart and helps guide me in preparing them.

Finally, I have to say no matter how many times I play 'Hungry', I just don't get tired of it. Such songs of pleading and desperation (i.e. 'Rescue', 'I Give You My Heart' etc.) give us an opportunity to surrender everything that we are holding onto and I just can't get enough of it.



So that is what went down this past Wednesday. I have to say that I am SUPER excited about next week. Not only am I leading Sunday morning, we have our 3rd all worship night at GBCs sanctuary. If you are gonna be around, drop in from 7:00-8:30 and get your praise on. Maybe we could get a Mogulus broadcast going...

-Peace

Worship Confessional 2

Alright, so here's my account from last night at Practice (GBC high school service). First and foremost, we finally had the entire band back together! We have been missing a couple of guys over the summer and it is definitely good to have everyone back.

Our current Practice team:
Me - acoustic/vocals,
Kaylyn Van Dunk - BGV,
Katy Draper - BGV,
Skylar Hagler - electric,
Doug Hedstrom - bass,
Jason Morgan - keys,
Jacob Hines - drums,
Courtney Kasper - media
Roman Walley - FOH

I have to say that these guys (and gals) absolutely rocked the house. I mean, it was by far the best we have played since I started working with this group. The set list for the night consisted of My Savior Lives (New Life Worship), Salvation is Here (Hillsong United), Shine (Matt Redman), Part of Your Story (Todd Wright), and we finished up after the message with I Give You My Heart (Reuben Morgan, Hillsong). The original plan also included Stand in Awe (Jeremey Riddle) but we had to cut it do to time.

Throughout the night, I think that the crowd really responded well. We're in kind of a growing time since we lost some of our older students and gained quite a few new ones. With new faces comes new challenges; the biggest of which would be teaching students about worship.

This is something God has laid on my heart over the past few months and I feel as a worship pastor that it is my duty to not only lead worship, but to teach about it as well. Not just to be singing, but truly surrendering our hearts and lives to Christ and being overtaken by his spirit. Not about what we get out of it, but the gift that we offer to Him. Worship is so not about us. I heard someone describe it in a way that I've never really thought of and it got me thinking. They said that worship is kinda like coming home. No matter how far away you may get, there is nothing better than running home and seeing your Father running toward you with open arms. Who knows, maybe one day I'll even write a book about this. Or, more than likely, I'll just talk about writing a book and not ever do it.

Our rehearsal time was cut short due to students arriving early, so we didn't get a chance to finish running the songs. Even so, the songs we didn't get to run were as good if not better than those we did. It's really exciting to get to the place where individual musicians can come together and really be a band. We have cues and can communicate effectively without words, we know arrangements and can change them up at any time, and we can nail songs with little rehearsal time. Now I'm not trying to brag about this, I'm just saying God has gifted these guys and when they use their gifts for the right reasons, many, many blessings follow.

I have now been leading worship at Practice for over 1.5 years and it just keeps getting better. Seriously, I have to remind myself that this is my job! I actually get paid to do stuff I love!

And life is fantastic.

Ike is a comin'. Grab your shotgun and head for the hills.

-Peace

Weekend Outlook

So here we are. It's Friday again. Since my Fridays generally consist of working all day and hanging out/going out with my wife and maybe some friends, I don't think it would be an interesting read for a My Friday post. Trust me, I'm saving you some boring posts. Some of us don't get weekdays off. But I digest...

I was supposed to be off today because we are heading down to Lake Jackson for Maegan's best friend's wedding. However, I found out yesterday that my co-worker was not scheduled to work today. So I got stuck covering the morning shift. Oh well, this just means that Maegan doesn't have to go to an awkward/boring luncheon with all the ladies. She didn't say thank you, but I'm pretty sure she was thinkin' it.

Speaking of my beautiful wife, today is Maegan's birthday!! Send her some love if you get the chance (in form of call/text/facebook/Curious George monkey paraphenalia/monetary donations only. No other love is accepted.). So we're going to spend her birthday weekend selflessly making sure that her friend's wedding needs are met and that the show goes off without a hitch. Oh well, we can celebrate later.

We'll be back in town on Saturday night ready to rock-&-roll on Sunday morning. Speaking og Sunday, we have already had a couple of folks come and audition for the Crosspoint worship team. This is exciting seeing as how we haven't had much fresh blood in the mix for the past couple of semesters. If it all works out, we may have some relief for the more stretched (3+ services per week) members of the band.

That's it for today, we'll be back in town tomorrow.

-Peace

What's Next?

Have you been sitting around feeling guilty for loving all of those devil-worshipin' rock-and-roll songs on guitar hero/rockband? If your like me than the answer would be no. But, I guess it bothered some big wigs in the Christian Marketing World (if you want to sound official, just call it the CMW) that too many young people were headin' down the path of death and destruction and they needed to get saved.

What do we do now?

Of course! We have R&D figure out which fad has gained a lot of popularity over the past few years and is well on its way to fizzleing out soon. And then we copy it. This time its only 3 years after the release of the Satan-version. Glad to see we're closing the time gap between us and them.



This is huge.

All I'm saying is you better be sitting down.



I present to you..............
















Guitar Praise - Solid Rock - Available in mid-September 2008

You can place your PRE-ORDER NOW - You will be one of the first to get Guitar Praise direct from Digital Praise when it becomes available in September. (Note your credit card will be charged when you place your order.)

Grab the guitar and play along with top Christian bands! Shred those riffs or blast the bass…you add a unique sound to the solid Christian rock. But watch out: if you can't keep up, the artists will take a break and stop the music. Crank it up and try again - you'll soon be rockin' with the best while praising the Lord!

-Features hit songs from popular Christian rock bands
-Includes wireless USB guitar controller.
-Two guitars can be connected at the same time, so two guitarists can play together - either on the same track or one on lead, the other on bass.
-Players press the fret buttons and strum on the strum bar in time to the color-coded notes as they scroll onscreen.
-Offers over 50 songs with 4 levels of play per song - from easy to expert. Beginners start slowly, but soon their fingers will be flying; - just like a real guitarist.
-Onscreen lyrics reflect Christian values. Vocalists can sing their hearts out as their friends play the guitar.
-Record keeping lets players store high scores per song and unlock new songs in sets of six as they progress through the game and post their scores online.
-Players can also earn new guitars with richer sounds and different effects.
-Works on Windows and Mac computers.



Don't believe me? You will now.

Deleted Post

I just wrote a post about hurricane Gustav and the way that people react and sometimes overeact to disaster. I re-read it somewhere in the neighborhood of 17,000 times and realized that it just didn't sit right. It was just too harsh. Yeah the hurricane wasn't what I thought it was gonna be (e.g. Rita part deux) and so I guess I decided to rant too quickly. Upon doing some research, I found that already 7 people in the US and over 70 from Cuba and Jamaica have lost their lives because of this hurricane.

So instead of making light of the situation (and those that overstock on spam at Wal-Mart during those times), I figured I could do something better with my time. Like pray for those who have lost loved ones. And pray that levees in Louisiana don't break again and leave hundreds homeless.

I am, for the most part, a pretty selfish guy. So here's what I'm going to do. I am REALLY going to try to put that aside for now and spend some time asking God to help others instead of me. This isn't me trying to get all down and out on myself. It's just the truth.

(I'll post something witty and clever about how crazy wal-mart was on a later date.)

-Peace