mikeymo's place

The second week of our Lent series brought a beautiful day,  a great worship service and a church plant anniversary.  It doesn't get better than that.  The setlist:

Opening Song:

Glory to God Forever (Fee/Beeching)(B)

Main Set

We Cry Out (Johnson)(D#)
God of Wonders (Byrd/Hindalong)(G)
Holy is the Lord (Tomlin/Giglio)(G)
Empty Me  (Comer/Way)(G)

Offering:

All Around (Coffield/Houghton/Lindsey)

We did a little medley with "God of Wonders" and "Holy is the Lord" which came out nice.  We went from chorus to chorus, so it went like "...declares your majesty, you are holy, holy, you are holy, holy, holy is the Lord, God almighty..."  (it worked better than it looks here)   We also took out the echo in the bridge of "God of Wonders," instead just repeating the "hallelujah" (...hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah to the Lord of heaven and earth, hallelujah...."   That part I liked A LOT.  

I also was invited to play at the Good News Christian Church first anniversary, which was a great honor for me.  This is our church plant in New York City, and it is growing like crazy.  We played a bunch of songs, including Lord Your Mighty by Youthful Praise, Anthem by Planetshakers, an original called I Need You Jesus, Right Now and also The Power of One by Israel Houghton with our choir, Send Judah First.

You can check out other recaps at The Worship Community, but they might not be as much fun!

Ok, to be honest, when Integrity sent me the Level Ground set a few months ago, I was kind of like, "Oh, hey.  Brian Doerksen. Um, yeah. That's mighty Vineyard."  I mean, who doesn't love "Come, Now is the Time to Worship" and all, but I'm more of a four-on-the-floor and electric guitars kind of guy.

But, being the dutiful music reviewer that I am, I ripped the CD to my mp3 player and gave 'er a listen.  I heard some good stuff, nice worship songs, skillful production and all that.  But, it really wasn't my cup of tea.  All that changed when I popped the DVD in. 

This joint is brilliant, in execution, but especially in concept.  At the beginning, you're in a car with Brian as he drives up to some small garage or workshop in the wood somewhere, presumably western Canada.  There are some scenes of guys working inside the building, and then the fun starts.

What's going on seems to be a small worship service.  The room fills with 40-50 people.  There is a stage.  There are instruments.  But here is the thing: the band isn't on the stage.  They are down on the floor with the crowd.  And they are facing the same way. 


Imagine being in a church, and the worship band came down and joined the congregation.  They just happened to have instruments.  But everyone was all doing the same thing, worshiping God from - wait for it - level ground.  We did something similar last year, but I'd love to do this.

But wait, there's more.  Around the room there are different things going on.  There are artists painting a large canvas in one corner.  There are flags.  Yes, worship flags!  What? Awesome!  Interspersed with the songs, Brian goes on stage and interviews various band members and artists about their faith, relationships, pasts - all kinds of things.  Admittedly, Brian is not the most skilled interviewer in the world, but some of the responses were so genuine and compelling I couldn't stop watching.

All of this serves to give me new appreciation for the songs on the album.  Now, when I listen, my mind's eye sees the room, the crowd, the paintings, even the flags.   This is, turns out, good stuff indeed.

Well, they can't all be great.  At least that's the thought I had stepping off the platform.   But I digress...

I was riding a pretty good "Holy Spirit high" coming into the weekend.  I had spent the past few days at the Forge Retreat in New Hampshire, and was blessed to participate in some epic worship with my good buddy Joel Klampert, as well as Mike Kim and Bill Kunkel.  It was acoustic, it was rhythmic, it was real, and it was as authentic as it gets.

Fast forward to Sunday.  Here's the set:

Opening:

Give Us Clean Hands (Hall)(G)

Main Set:

Say So (Houghton/Gungor)(E)
Hosanna (Fraser)(E)
Mighty to Save (Morgan/Fielding)(A)
The Stand (Houston)(A)

Offering

Saved by Grace (Houghton/Lindsey/Johnson)(Bb)

OK, honestly, it wasn't that bad.  We seemed to have some monitor mix issues that made the whole thing sound terrible to me, which I found distracting.  We used two guitars on Hosanna and Mighty to Save.  Normally, I like my acoustic on a fairly hot channel, with the volume on the guitar pre-amp low to mid.  Daniel was playing my acoustic and had the volume up high, and it was killing me in my in-ears.  That's as far as it went, apparently, as Izzy had it mixed right in FOH, and I heard several comments that the two guitars sounded cool.   So, in the end, the worship was good, I was just distracted.  Which is better than the reverse, I suppose.

We've been working on some cool ideas for Easter week, especially Good Friday.  But that's all I'm saying...

Check out other recaps at The Worship Community.

Yes, you read that right...   I hit the trifecta today, helping to lead in three different churches!  And I loved it!

We began with our twice-monthly visit to Lighthouse Fellowship Church.  It was just acoustic guitar and vocals today there.  I love the simplicity of those kind of sets.

At my home church, Gospel Light Community Church, the set looked like this:

Opening:

Our God (Myrin/Redman/Reeves/Tomlin)(B)

Main Set:

Tell the World (Douglass/Houston/Sampson)(A)
One Way (Douglass/Houston)(A)
From the Inside Out (Houston)(C)
Revelation Song (Riddle)(D)

Offering:

All Because of Jesus (Fee)(C)

Following the service at GLCC, it was time to head to the Bronx, NY to visit (and play at!) Good News Christian Church. 

Let it Rain (Farren)(Bb)
Finding Who We Are (Shamberger)(G)
Anthem (Lasit)(E)
Rescue (Anderson)(D)

Makes for a long day, but well worth it! (and it happens again in a couple of weeks!)

Check out other recaps at The Worship Community

We had a special day this Sunday at Gospel Light.  It was our first ever "Missions Madness" - a weekend focused on missions.  Friday night was a special prayer service focused on missions locally and around the world, and today we had a presentation from our head tech Israel, who just got back from a mission trip in Belize.  We also were blessed with a visit by Dave Wells from Compassion International.

Dave sharing about Compassion.

To go with the tone of the day, we had a set list that not only spoke of a missional spirit lyrically, but stylistically as well:

Opening:

Mighty to Save (Morgan/Fielding)(A)

Main Set:

David Danced (Gonzales/Gonzales/Monroe/Posthuma)(Am)
All Around (Coffield/Houghton/Lindsey)(E)
God of This City (Bleakley/Aaron/Comfort/Jordan/Kernaghan/McCaan)(C)
Came to My Rescue (Davies/Sampson/Thomas)(C)

Our drummer came up sick this morning, leaving me to have to pull drumming duty.  Lot of toms today. "David Danced" we did with a real Latin flavor (think Salvador) with a couple of the verses sung in Spanish.  "All Around" brought a more African flavor to it.

All in all it was a really special service, and something that we want to make an annual event.   And, there were at least seven Compassion children sponsored, which makes me mighty proud of my church.

How was your service?  There are always a lot of recaps at The Worship Community.