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a couple sundays ago we had an evening worship meeting to talk about our vision for worship at calvary hanford.

here’s the media from the event, should you desire to check it out.

quicktime

windows media

blessings

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you may remember 10 second worship practice…well welcome to Stop-Motion Worship Practice 2.0!

enjoy.

[youtube]http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=ylAJpovuvCQ[/youtube]

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we had a hasty worship practice on saturday. in fact you can watch it in 10 seconds.

just select ‘play now’, ‘play in popup’ or ‘download’.

sorry there’s no audio…i didn’t have time…so…hum softly to yourself.

i suggest the ‘circus’ theme…you know….Boo BOO Boo BOO, Boo BOO Boo BOO. you know the one.

sorry, podpress is broken.

i’m looking forward to lots more time lapse videos.

i’m starting back up with our periodic worship newsletters.

here’s april of 2008′s installment.

remember: Jesus comes to church…

enjoy

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remember how i started a chord variations series?

here’s another installment

D Major

happy practicing.

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this past sunday was my week to lead.

i had a pretty hard time singing, but i’m not sure if that made a big difference…which is kinda sad now that i typed it…

anyway, here’s the video…from my position in the room i think i felt better about 1st service than 2nd.

first service quicktime
first service windows

second service quicktime
second service windows

blessings

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i like playing guitar. i bet you do too.

unfortunately, we all plateau in our abilities. it’s a drag, but it’s the nature of the beast.

if we don’t keep stretching ourselves with challenging practice we’re not only going to stop getting better, but i notice we actually get more sloppy at our musicianship.

we don’t want that.

one of the things that always helps me to get climbing again is studying more chord variations.

there are lots of programs and websites out there that can help you with that, so hit google.

or, you can hang out here and get chord-variation sheets as i produce them.

25 variations per sheet.

A Major

A Minor

happy practicing!

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this past sunday i was on the rotation to lead worship, which i am every third week. in my preparation last week i decided i wanted to try something ‘different.’

what does that mean? i don’t know. that’s why it’s different. i like to try out new things because i feel it causes me to grow and develop and helps to keep me from becoming stagnant in that area of service to the Lord.

the problem with wanting to try something different (as opposed to it happening accidentally) is that i don’t usually know what that difference will actually be…leaving me with the curious responsibility of coming up with something meaningful, yet not usual for our corporate worship services on sunday morning.

the other problem is that i only have about 4 ideas per year…you can see the mess i had made for myself.

at least six times in the Psalms, once in Isaiah and twice in Revelation we are encouraged to sing to the Lord a new song. as a worship leader i think it’s fair to take that attitude and apply it to my methods, techniques, song selections and other miscellaneous parts of worship.

it’s not that change for the sake of change is good. rather, to me it is about cultivating what God has allowed me to be a part of. pruning leaves, planting seeds, insert other farming metaphor here.

so, this time around i decided to do 4 songs instead of the usual 5 (well…to be fair, 4 with a little medley before the 5th song), we introduced 2 new songs instead of none and i broke my rule of never doing more than 2 songs consecutively in the same key (we did 3).

i also continued something newish i’ve been doing, reading an excerpt from a Psalm, or the Psalm in its entirety, to help us all focus on the Lord during our singing.

in the end, the changes were beneficial for our corporate worship. the people seemed to connect with the Lord in a wonderful way. i learned (once again) that even ‘good’ rules i make for myself in preparing worship sets can be changed or broken from time to time if it is Christ-centered and purposeful.

have a listen here

have a…watch…here

what helps you to focus on the Almighty during worship?

: click to enlarge :

i really enjoying staging (setting up the stage with microphones/gear/etc.) for sundays and wednesdays. in fact, i don’t think i would like not having to do so on a regular basis. the few times i’ve walked onto an unfamiliar stage that someone else set up for me have just felt unusual…like i wasn’t prepped, wasn’t home.

placing microphones and volume pedals and cabling sometimes reminds me of how the levites would work to set everything in the tabernacle in its place. lavers and tools and showbread and curtains…all carefully set up so that the people who were coming could be ministered to with as little distraction as possible.

it also reminds me of my 3 years of worship leading at fresno pacific. i loved tuesday nights when we would get together in the empty sanctuary to set up and practice. that tuesday staging and practice got me ready for wednesday morning where we had exactly 21 minutes to help our fellow students worship God.

i realized that we always set up the same way at church. then i realized that when we set up at college hour i was on stage right, while at church we’ve always put the leader at stage left…i wonder what that means?

what is your favorite part of ministry prep?

or,

how does your church set up the worship team?

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we introduced a new song on sunday. it was written mostly by my lovely wife, with a few tiny additions by me.

her focus was on singing to the Lord sweet things and loving things.

after all, He has been sweet to us!

hope you enjoy it.