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worship text-fessional for Sunday, November 25 2007 at Fuel student ministry’s Ignite Senior High service.

Last week (the 18th) was horrid. So I didn’t want to talk about it. Basically the volume in the house was changed from practice and while the stage sounded fine, the mains hummed / distorted the whole time. I was oblivious to it until the last song when it broke down to just acoustic and my vocals. Then i could hear it and i was pissed… so, moving on from that week…

I’ve realized that if I give an inch in volume, things tend to fall apart. Not so much due to any one musician, but due to lack of having someone help control the sound at the board. So until I have someone at the board the set up is as follows:

Me - Acoustic / Vocals
Josh - Acoustic
Travis - Bass
Logan/James - Percussion
Wife - Occasional vocals

No electric, no drums. Percussion = two congas, floor tom, stand tom, and cymbal. I personally like the set up alot (we’ve done it before, now it’s just semi-permanent)… it allows for a lot of freedom musically but is not overpowering. It’s much more controllable, which is needed right now. This has been the most challenging eight months I’ve ever had as a worship leader for a wide variety of reasons, largely due to my own faults… the concept is that I will take some experience out of this and become a better person for it, but it seems every time things start looking like they’re on the right track, something comes along and derails it.

I know I know…. pity me. But that’s not really the point. Leading worship has always been a fairly easy process for me. Not that I’ve always (ever?) been good at it but everything that surrounds it has clicked… equipment, band chemistry, “audience” participation, worshipful hearts all around, etc etc etc… We have had moments of some of this working, but for the most part this has been a whole new monster… anyway, perhaps leadership should take me aside and say “jeremy… that’s it…” and i’ll lay it down, but i’d prefer not to give it up.

so, this week with the new set up seemed to go well. I was losing my voice with all the sudden weather changes, but I fought through it. This was the set:

Here Is Our King - Crowder - G: sounds better in A, but wanted it to transition into…
O Praise Him - Crowder - G: could’ve done this in A… anyone else notice this is pretty much a Christmas song? I like to spring that nugget on the youth every year.
He Knows My Name / How Deep the Father’s Love medley - various people - E: I’ve talked about how much I like this in the past. Search it if you care to know.

Finished by fighting through (voice was really trailing at this point) my favorite contemporary / modern Christmas song “Better Days” by the Goo Goo Dolls. If you watched half-time of the Green Bay / Det game you saw it performed. Song’s been out and one of my favs for over a year, though. On a side note, i’ve noticed that most of the time that a vocalists notices his voice is going, it usually still sounds “okay” to everyone else. I hope that is the case… i hope Better Days wasn’t butchered… but at least I didn’t sound as horrible as Kelly Clarkson did on Thanksgiving (if you can make it to the bridge of this one, you will know the meaning of “bleeding ears”)!

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