worship text-fessional for 01/20/08

So the last text-fessional in which I led worship was way back at the end of November. The major reason for this is that it’s been that long since i’ve led worship. We combined our Sr. High and Jr. High services, so Andy LaChance has been leading the worship portion of service. I am a fill in musician / leader whenever he needs me, and will run sound when he does not. So, the worship role has taken a bit of a backseat for now. However, Andy was out this week and I led the following:

Wholly Yours – Crowder – A- It’s like butter… smooth and tasty.

Made to Worship – Tomlin – A – Live, Tomlin does this in B (higher than A), on the CD it’s in C (even higher) (all of that is from memory, if i’m wrong, don’t shoot me… the bottom line is that its significantly higher on the CD, and slightly lower than the CD when done live).The verses in A are a little low for my liking. B is doable for me, but probably less enjoyable for anyone who chooses to sing along. I could split the difference and throw it down in Bb, but that throws off the flow of service… So A it was. It went much better than the first time we did it in the Sr. High. In fact, i’d say it went pretty darn well.

Never Let Go – Redman – B- We’ve done this many times. Because both Wholly Yours and Never Let Go can become kinda “epic-ish,” I made conscious effort on both to keep the refrains minimal, but i just can’t help repeating the bridge cause its amazing.

The sound system is improving, but could use some help still. My biggest concern is getting it setup and not jacking with it every week… meaning the actual set up of the system, not the levels, etc, which should be tweaked throughout the day.

Oh, we were missing Josh on electric, but we managed. All in all, it was a good morning of worship.

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”)!

Wheeler did some songs on acoustic called Here Is Our King, Hungry, From the Inside Out, and Nature of Love written by Crowder, someone famous, Houston, and Wheeler respectively. Wheeler wrote “Nature of Love” on saturday and its alright. James played some percussion. We weren’t supposed to have a band, but two of the three other members showed up anyway because they do not check their voice mails.

and the crowd went wild…

Half of you guys are worship leaders… and most of what I’ve heard from you is better than any thing i’ve done… but … i did it anyway. Pretty much for friends and family…

3 Songs by Jaybrams
The Splendor
Breathe You In
Lead Me Home

They’re not done with a great recording quality… i could get all techie on why, but basically I dont have the greatest interface / hardware. It gets the job done. I’ve got a handful more to come, a few of which are better than anything that is currently up. Click on “lyrics” on the player to read short snippets concerning the particular song.

p.s. – if you’ve got a Virb, befriend me.
p.p.s. - I like virb, but sometimes the stuff doesn’t load well. Just hold Shift and click refresh. That forces it to reload all the code and not use your cache… that seems to help… or click the “open player in new window” link.. that sometimes helps too… or just get annoyed with me and say “I DONT HAVE TIME FOR THIS YOU IMBECLE!” and throw things at me.

text-fessional for October 21st at FWBF Fuel Sr. High Ministry.

I started this week off echoing some words I read a few weeks ago that have really stuck with me. Its time we rethink our priorities and stop putting Jesus first in our lives. Often we talk about Jesus first, then family, friends, work, school, etc etc etc… but the problem is it’s a mindset puts Him on a checklist. As with all checklists, when you’re done with item #1, you move on to number 2… so we get through with Jesus and move on with life… this obviously isn’t what Christ intended when he said “seek first the kingdom of God.” We need to put Jesus as the center of our lives so it becomes Jesus IN our family and IN our friendships and IN our social lives and IN our workplace… thanks, steven, for the inspiration… it seemed to hit home with the youth.

Naturally, this lead perfectly into our first song:

Be The Center (Frye) – D – I loved this song even before the paradigm shift mentioned above. So simple yet can certainly speak so clearly. We keep it pretty laid back with a lot of bass from both the bassist (Travis) and on my acoustic. There was some build each time we got to the chorus but nothing too crazy.

All To You (Brewster) – E - This was probably the weakest song in tonight’s set because it didn’t work well with the new experiment we… uh… experimented with. Instead of having drums, we had a percussion section.Logan set up two floor toms, two congas, a smaller tom and a cymbol, all played with hot rods. Overall tonight I really really liked the outcome of this, but it didn’t work as well with this song as the others. We all agreed, but still made it work. My guitar sounded a little quiet from the stage, so that was another minus on this one. We had a good time with it, but it just didn’t flow as well as it normally does.

Indescribable (Tomlin) – F#m – As we always do, its a full step lower to make it easier on me and the congregation. It went pretty well… During practice, after we realized how weak All To You sounded, I was a bit nervous about how this one would turn out. You’d think such a drum driven song would have suffered with our set up, but it actually worked very nicely. Josh did an excellent job on electric with this one. I’d venture to say this may have been his best over all week, which is really saying something considering he’s got very nice chops. The last two weeks especially, he has really made strides as a worship musician as opposed to just a musician with mad chops that happens to worship.

Surrender (McRoberts (Vineyard)) - G – Again, like Be the Center, this is one of my all time favs. We kinda do a typical acoustic version with a little of the Brewster version mixed in. We had a time of reflection after the normal progression of the song which went nicely. 

We also had the blessing of a recently reorganized sound system that sounded better and was more intuitive to our room. Its something the Jr. High worship leader and I had been trying to get together on for a while, but he gave up trying to get me up there and just did it himself.  So, props to him.

How’d your sunday go? (feel free to link to your confessional in the comments)

text-fessional for Sunday, October 14th, 2007

I’d like to start by saying I actually had some feedback after service this week! Can you believe it?! One of the adult leaders sought me out to let me know she was blessed by the worship and that it was exactly what she needed. Praise God that He is working in our lives!It is nice to hear that my efforts and heart are not exposed in vain, but that He is faithful to bless people’s lives. This is not to say that I am worshipping in vain, but we all should examine our effectiveness regularly. Having an outside source, such as a member of the congregation, reaffirm the effectiveness can be a gentle reminder to our flesh to keep persevering despite our own doubts…

We did not have a drummer this week. Myself on acoustic and vocals, Travis on Bass, and Josh on electric I *heart* Tom Brady… made me think quite a bit, because it went really really well… I may experiment with a different set up here soon, but I have to think, pray, and chew on it for a bit.

Consuming Fire (Hughes) – G – Full version with “stir it up” bridge. –begin rabbit trail:I used to play electric far more often than acoustic, including early on with this praise team. So I used to spend quite a bit more time developing or mimicking lead fills. I hadn’t really brought much to the table for Josh in a while, relying on his skills / creativity to come up with stuff. He admittedly doesn’t feel comfortable with this. He has great skill, but most of his creativity is birthed in hardrock or jazz (odd combo I know) Brady makes my sports heart happy. All this to say, –end rabbit trail– I decided to work out a nice intro lead fill that repeats intermittently for Josh. He picked it up and enhanced it quite nicely. He also pulled off a nice U2/Eric Johnson feel over the verses. As much as we like to vamp over our short version of this song (which includes just the chorus and bridge), it is hard to beat the full version. Travis had a nice laid back feel on the verses that helped carry the low end.

Beautiful One (By The Tree version) – G- After a slight selah at the end of Consuming Fire, I “clicked” this off with my foot and we jumped right into the driving intro. Even without the drums, it was pretty aggressive. I let the bass and electric carry most of this song, especially on the verses. Nothing too special here Tom Brady is beyond special. Good, solid song that will continue to be on rotation as long as it only shows up ever few months.

Never Let Go – Redman – B – (capo 2 with A fingering) I love this song. Period. And it remains one of the few songs that I can physically hear the students and leaders sing along with me, so that is a plus. I still enjoy the bridge of this song too much.. man its powerful: “I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on / there will be an end to these troubles, but until that day comes / still I will praise you, yes I will praise you” … since I love it so much I use it as the main refrain towards the end of the song rather than spending more time on the chorus. No one seems to mind.

We are in a pattern of following three worship songs with a contemporary song that can speak truth into our lives. Goo Goo Dolls, Lifehouse, and this week…

Shine On (needtobreathe) – F#m – Original is done a full step up, which I contemplated. The verses sound better in G#m, but I have a bit more freedom keeping it a step down. We had a bit of a train wreck at the beginning. Josh’s guitar went way out of tune… i panicked… sped up the song… after the first verse i just slammed on the breaks, apologized, gave josh a chance to tune, and started over. It went much better…. but it just kinda felt fake after that. I dunno… Anyway, for those not familiar with the lyrics, verse 2 and the bridge are defining points:

I was with you in the valley / and up upon that hill
so take just one more step in front of you
for I am with you still… you still

Can you see my hands are open
And I’m waiting just ahead
You think you need it all now
But you needed me instead

And that was that…

p.s. – check out Joel’s innovative “stickfessional”
p.p.s. – Tom Brady is otherworldly.

text-fessional for October 7, 2007

REMINDER: It’s been a while, so just so you know… I lead worship for the Sr. High Student Ministryat Firewheel Bible Fellowship in Garland Tx, which meets on Sunday Nights.

Joel was transparent about a tough go of it he had yesterday. I had similar issues this week… I’ve been edgy lately over things I can’t exactly discuss at this point. I see things in situations that frustrate me which are very legit, but then I feel huge planks protruding from my eyeballs that remind me how wretched man can be. It has kept me sleepless at times, lying in bed staring at the ceiling, feeling a bit alone despite having my wife there snuggled up against me…. all this for another post, maybe today if i have time… but I digress… onto the worship confessional…

The usual suspects joined me and finally we had them all in place. James played percussion and Logan played drums, Travis was back on bass, Josh on electric, myself on acoustic, and my wife made her second appearance in a row! WOOT WOOT. < — that’s the most excited you will see me get during this confessional…

So, i was pretty distracted from the get go. Practice was a bit brutal. I decided to use my acoustic as opposed to my bro-in-laws. I’ll be switching back next week. Despite his doing a horrid number to the EQ of a system, it still fills out the sound better than my crappy Mitchell… On to the set…

Filled With Your Glory - Ab – (capo 4, E fingering) Dragged a little. My distractions made me screw up the words to at least three lines. Musically wasn’t too bad. And I still sing“Angels and Minotoars”

Wholly Yours  – A - (capo 2, G fingering) Our main service intro’d this song in the morning service… which made me long for a decent sound system and (here’s a novel idea) a sound man. Or at the very least an opportunity to lead worhsip from the main sanctuary (are they still called that in today’s “relevant” churches??) Jealousy does not get you far in life… Song went pretty well. It was too fast in practice, decent tempo in service. A little noisy on the percussive side (drums and aux.) but nothing too distracting.

The Splendor – A – (Capo 2, G fingering) This song just wasn’t clicking at all during practice. And it was really frustrating. Its a brand new song to the band, but it wasn’t their fault that it wasn’t clicking. It’s a slow tempo song that is easy to push because of the rhythm… We kept pushing it in practice, which leaves no room for buildup… In service I started it quite a bit slower and it ended up working out better than I expected. I really like the lyrics, not sure about the song itself. Perhaps I’ll record it for you and throw it up at some point.

Broken – B- (capo 2, A fingering) This is off the new Lifehouse album… It’s greatness. Not a bad rendition from us. At this point I was pretty much done. I had very little motivation or focus left … Where God chose to work through the worship in Joel’s service (see above), He chose to let me fight through the whole thing with no redemption. That’s okay, redemption comes in His timing. My voice cracked towards the end, which is always fun… and that was that.

Perhaps I’ll take it on the chin and next week goes better… perhaps I’ll pull a Richard Cory (not literally, but figuratively… google if you must)

text-fessional for September 30, 2007

The bad news is Amy will officially no longer help me in this venture. Her and the spouse have moved on to pursue the direction God has been molding him for over the past year or so. She had “sorta” stepped down from the worship team a few weeks ago, but she was still sort of a consultant. In fact 3 Sunday’s ago, when I could not be there, she was kind enough to help the youth fill in… so she will be missed, but they’re on an exciting journey and its good for them.

The good news is this week was pretty cool for me. My wife was kind enough to sing with us. She is an awesome vocalist, and we haven’t had the opportunity to lead together since 2005… It was dandy. In addition to her:

Josh was there with his trusty electric
James was there with his trusty drums (and mallets)
Logan was there with his trusty hands to play percussive instruments
I was there with my bro-in-laws acoustic… considering switching back to mine. His is better unplugged, mine handles a sound system better… probably going back this week.

We are missing something… oh yes. Bass. Now the awesome thing is my wife can play bass. But it is less than awesome because we didn’t have a spare one laying around… So onto the lineup without bass:

Revolutionary Love – Crowder – Key of A – Capo 2 with G-Fingering. Needs bass. Needs work on lead fills, but I didn’t take the time to show Josh what was up so that was my bad. Went pretty well. Transitioned directly into

Here is Our King – Crowder – Key of A – Capo 2 with G-Fingering. Needs bass. Lead fill over verses that Josh engineered sounded tasty. After the big ending on Revolutionary Love, I went straight into the chorus of this one. Easy transition. Percussion and Josh drove the music in the verses. I decided against actually listening to the original to get all the verse timings down correctly because I figured the verse timings are odd enough that no one in the audience would remember anyway, so I thought “i’ll just make the timing up the way I like it.” … This would not have flown had Amy been there, which is probably a good thing… but alas, i rebelled.

Bring it down end on a soft chorus (how cliche, but it works) and then transition into:

Before worship, I made anyone in a black chair move to a green chair… they did. After this song, I told everyone to sit. And they did.
SO MUCH POWER!!

Jesus Paid It All – Alex Nifong (sp?) – B – Capo 4 with G-Fingering (go figure!). Survived without bass. Driven by percussion until the tag at the end. The wife sang it cause she sounds 137 times better than I do. After V1, Chorus, V2, Chorus, V3 we go into the best part of the song… the tag “Oh Praise the one who paid my debt / And raised this life up from the dead”

We built this slowly. I started vocally an octave lower than when its “big” with just acoustic. Enter percussion. Enter Electric (softly). Enter cymbal swells with mallets. GO BIG. Jump an octave, full drums, full electric, full percussion… enjoy.

We proceeded to then do a Goo Goo Dolls song *gasp!* called “Without You Here.” I am convinced that if this guy isn’t saved now, he is one of the most enlightened non-Christian musicians in America today. Listen to his album “Let Love In.” There is so much positive and faith-inspired content… So I explained that to me this song is about a guy searching and discovering what God’s Love can do… “Love can heal the pain / Truth is never vain / It turns strangers into lovers / and enemies to brothers” … and once that is discovered, it is easy to see how empty you are without God’s love… “Now, now that you’re near / There’s nothing more without you / without you here” I really cannot say for certain if he writes these songs with God in mind, but they can still speak to us.

And that was that…

Volume was much better than previous weeks. Participation from the students seemed to be better as well.

text-fessional for Sunday, September 23, 2007

Wow. Its been awhile since installment number 14. We went through a month or so of just myself and Josh on acoustic. Last week was supposed to be our first week back as a full band, but I ended up not being able to be there. I hear that the team did a decent job of filling in on short notice, and I appreciate it.

This week was my first week back with a “full band” but it was exactly full. I played acoustic, James played drums, travis played bass and that was it… Josh couldn’t make it, and well… we don’t have singers anymore for various reasons.

One of our new focuses is to make sure the volume is appropriate for the space and place. Sounds basic, but when you have a handful of youth who are used to rockin’ it out, it can be a challenge. In this regard… and every regard really, practice went outstandingly.

Then, the inevitable happened… something changed. It wasn’t any of the team members, it was the sound system… and it was my fault, i guess. The wireless mic that the speaker uses was really really quiet, and they were struggling getting it boosted… Remember, we don’t have a sound man… so me, being so nice, simply boosted the mains. But I totally am an idiot because i did not readjust the team’s mics or my acoustic channel…

So it was way too loud.. but at least you could hear the vocals … which has been a problem… so onto the set.

No One Like You – G – It went well despite not having an electric. I like this song even though it is on the verge of “old.” It was actually a last minute addition, so i picked it more out of comfort.

I Can Only Imagine – E – Medium tempo, bit of a “train” feel on the drums at the beginning and end. Sounded nice. I’ve done the tempo before, but James added the train feel. “Old” is incorrect for this song… “timeless” is more accurate.

Indescribible - F#m – I do this one a full step down from the original… or what I learned as the original. Just easier to sing. And I do sing right along with it in the original key, but why worry about “am I flat? or Sharp?” when you can just sing it and enjoy it by dropping a step down. First tme we’ve done it in youth, but its a common enough song that everyone joined right in. Goodness abounds.

Let My Words Be Few- A – Kept the capo on 2 so i could transistion right into this on out of the last one. It went well. I moved James over to the auxillery drums (congas, whatever… wish we had a jimbay (sp?)). That went nicely. Nothing too special here.

So, over all i thought it was a nice set. It was good to get back together, i just really wish I wouldn’t have pushed the volume inadvertantly. I had to struggle with feedback from my guitar, even after I adjusted my EQ pedal volume nearly all the way. If we had someone at the board, this could be resolved… but such is life.

Looking forward to moving forward and intro’ing some new songs…

Text-Fessional for Sunday, July 29th, 2007

Well, thought i’d get to this earlier but i was too busy making post-it note eyes and watching Beckham make his MLS Debut last night, but better late than never.

If you haven’t yet, read the preface, because that covers some important stuff.

So after discussing the plans with the band we thought it’d be best to have myself and josh play acoustic while singing. During the time we definitely wanted some discussion with the students about worship. I started off with a confession and apology, stating much of what was stated in the preface and being honest - ”i’m still learning this whole worship leader thing.” That part went okay; I think it was important for the students to see the authenticity. Without going into too much detail, the ministry has been through so much transition that many of the students just felt like I was another guy to come through and take over with out any regard to how they felt about it. Honestly that wasn’t the case, but with the history, I told them I understood their feelings.

Then I shared this verse, which absolutely floors me still:

O Lord, open my lips,
  And my mouth shall show forth Your praise.
 For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it;
  You do not delight in burnt offering.
 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,
  A broken and a contrite heart—
  These, O God, You will not despise.
Psalms 51:15-17

Here’s David, in a time where the only recognized way to commune with God is by being a prophet, a priest or through your animal / harvest sacrifices, yet he really gets the essence of worship.  It’s not about the physical outpouring, it’s about the heart.  I told the students (and leaders for that matter) straight up that its not my job to prod them to clap or sing or stand or sit; all I can do and all we can do as a praise team is offer God what He desires: a real honest outpouring of worship from the heart.

This discussion went pretty well… I also referenced 1 Samual and John 4 that are often referenced in worship discussions, but focused on the Psalms verse. This ended up being our line up:

Enough – Tomlin
Overwhelm Me – (dunno, can’t find it online) Josh introduced this song and led it.
From The Inside Out- Hillsong United

We’re using From The Inside Out as our “theme song” for this experiment, although I rarely do “theme songs” it seems to fit. I received good feedback from the students that they appreciated how it went and enjoyed the change of pace. One student stated it was much more of a worship experience than anything we’ve had in a long time.

After week one, I certainly feel confident this is the direction the ministry needs right now.