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Hey all. Had an inspiring week at Re:Create11!

Excited to be leading worship at New Life Church in Richmond Hill, GA this weekend. My lovely wife, Lydia, will be joining me on vocals.

1) My Savior Lives (Egan/Packiam): Key of A. Still one of my favorite songs to open a set with. Works great with a full band or just an acoustic guitar.

2) Our God (Tomlin/Redman/Myrin/Reeves): Key of A. Just added this one into my rotation of regulars a few months back. Led worship at a VERY traditional Methodist pastors gathering back in late 2010 and one of the pastors asked me if I knew it. Sadly, I had not heard of it. But, I went and listened to it and added it instantly to my repertoire! When I rock it with a full band, I like it to actually have a lot more oomph than the Tomlin recorded version.

3) Overcome (Egan): Key of A. One of my favorite songs of all to lead in any setting.

4) How Great is Our God (Tomlin/Reeves/Cash): Key of A. Getting to be an oldie, but still definitely a good one!

5) How Great Thou Art (Hine): Key of A. Will segue immediately into the chorus of this one from How Great Is Our God, similar to the tomlin arrangement.

I’ll be capo 2 the entire set (playing in the key of G) so everything will come out in the key of A. I might move over to the piano for the last How Great medley. We’ll see! Looking forward to a great morning!

Sunday Setlists

Most of you that know me, know that I am heavily involved with the behind the scenes stuff that happens over at The Worship Community. One of the reasons my blog tends to go quiet for weeks at a time is because I’m getting my “blogging” fix taken care of my writing and scheduling content for TWC. I love it!!

Today, we’ll be premiering Brian Doerksen’s Welcome to the Place of Level Ground from his live/dvd project called Level Ground, The Live Experience. Head on over to TWC and make sure you watch the video premier. It’s wonderful! You’ll love the atmosphere and environment Brian and his team created for this project.

If you’d like an EXTRA chance at winning a LEVEL GROUND WORSHIP LEADER KIT, I’m giving away 1 copy here as well! And so is Fred McKinnon. Be sure to stop by and register at his place!

The Worship Leader Kit includes the CD, CD Trax, Live DVD with 2 hours of footage, and Digital Songbook with transposable chord charts. Continue Reading…

This post marks 500! yay! Happy 500 post day!

I haven’t been blogging here regularly as I keep a consistent writing schedule going on The Worship Community and over on my health and fitness blogs. RH.com has kind of taken a back seat. But I try to share about the times I lead worship or when I participate in some musical event and such.

I am excited about a great new opportunity that will unveil itself in the very near future! Keep your eyes and ears open for some neat musical things coming from this part of the world!

In 2011, I’d like to write 50 songs. I attempted that feat back in 09 and made it to about 30. Great accomplishment back then, but I’m going to knock it out of the park this time. That’s 2 songs a week. Who’s with me?

The last two weeks I had the privilege of co-leading with Mandy Thompson at The Chapel in Brunswick, GA. It was neat getting to know the leadership team and to get a sneak peek at their planning/prayer process for each week.

Played keys. Borrowed a keyboard and a stand. I was just joking with Mandy earlier about how I have no equipment to be so involved with music. Funny how that works. For the last 15 years, I’ve been on staff at churches that provided equipment. Now that I’m “freelance” I don’t have any. Haha! I do have an upright piano at the house, but could you imagine me lugging that thing around!! Haha!

This week’s setlist looked like:

1) All We Need (Hall): Key D. Mandy led this one. It was the opener.

2) Our God (Tomin): Key G. I have to take everything Tomlin records DOWN a few steps to sing it comfortably. This is a great song! Love it! We built the bridge up to anthemic levels and then had one of the leadership team come up and pray and then read the verses from Romans about if God is For us…while vamping the bridge chords under neath. Right as she finished the scripture reading we built back into the bridge…”And if our God is for us…” BAM! Good stuff!

Then we medleyed right into…

3) O Praise Him (Crowder): Key G. We did this one last week as well and it’s a GREAT singable song. I’ve never been a huge Crowder fan, but this song works well in a group setting because of the simple choruses.

4) Here I Am To Worship (Hughes): Key E. Mandy led this one and I just filled in some tenor on the choruses. I love this song. Any shape, form or fashion!

5) Come Ye Sinners (Jami Smith arr.): Key D. Mandy led these last two communion songs, while I backed her up in the choruses.

6) Let The Redeemed (Actually not sure who this one was by!): Key D.

Sometimes God can be found in a cathedral, in a chapel, or in a church building.
Sometimes God can be found in the wilderness, beneath the stars, or beside the ocean.
Sometimes God can be found on a busy sidewalk, in a market, or in a cafe.
Sometimes God can be found in a smile, in a tear, or in a song.

Sometimes God is all around us waiting to be seen.
Sometimes God is hiding in a stranger’s trouble.
Sometimes God is all around us waiting to be heard.
Sometimes God is hiding in a street man’s despair.

Sometimes God can be found in our children, in our friends, and in our family.

Sometimes God is all around us in the darkest, loneliest times.
Sometimes God is in a whisper, in the wind.
Sometimes God is hiding in plain sight, right under our noses.
Sometimes God is right around the corner, in the next surprise.

Sometimes God can be found where we least expect to see Him.

***
This week was one of those times for me. I wasn’t looking for God. I wasn’t trying to be super spiritual. I wasn’t in a worship gathering or church service.

Just skimming through tweets and facebook statuses, catching up with online life, and I came across a cover song by Adam Young (aka Owl City).

It caught my eye, because I’m not really a fan of Owl City, but I AM a big fan of the song he covered: In Christ Alone by Stuart Townsend and the Gettys.

This isn’t a post about how to plan a worship setlist or how to increase the efficiency of your worship rehearsals or how to tune a guitar to drop D. It’s just a post about how I stumbled across a God moment and it really blessed me. I wasn’t expecting this guy to be exuding the light of Christ, but he does.

Adam Young has the ear of the youth of our generation. He is very talented and out there making music they enjoy. He blogs regularly and talks about his faith in Christ openly. I saw God in him in a way that I rarely see even in fellow worship leaders. Not that I doubt any of my colleagues faith or anything like that, but it was just very encouraging to see a young man who has the world by its tail unashamedly proclaiming his faith in Christ.

No, I don’t think we should make him into some poster child or hold him to a higher standard. I don’t think we should place the onus of converting a generation to Christianity on his shoulders or anything like that. I just really enjoyed listening to this guy sing about Christ. Period.

And I think the Holy Spirit will do the work that He will do while thousands of people listen to Adam Sing about his trust in Christ.

I think you’ll enjoy it as well. After you listen, be sure to read his blog.

In Christ Alone (Owl City Blog)