Last night I went to the piano rooms in ECU and played there with the intention to build some music creativeness. However, I noticed that creativity was not happening and that I was pretty much stuck on the same old chord sequences…dissatisfied with what I was playing I just wanted to leave the building feeling disappointed…
Nevertheless, as I was about to leave I was reminded to just use that alone time to worship but again the chord progressions were just too boring for my ears. But then the Spirit got my attention and reminded me to play quietly/softly/gently, pretty much telling me to be still and that my taste is not what was important but what the Father wanted to hear. And so I played gently and it was amazing…the whole time I was being reminded of a statement I had heard a while back saying “entertaining His presence”….so how can I relate this to the Bible? I hope to do so soon.
What up! Long time since I blog but here I am…
Setlist:
Home……………………………..……E
Battle Cry……………………..…..C#m
Song of the Redeemed………F#m
Jesus Paid it All…………………..Bbmj
Never let me go………………….Fmj
I enjoyed singing “home” by Daughtry, I thought it was a good pick to open up and the lyrics are simply clear and encouraging. Now, Battle Cry on the other hand did not go as expected. The song is amazing both lyrically and musically but I think there are number of reasons why we should stay away from songs that require a bigger band:
1st, we are a new congregation and we are still figuring out our audience.
2nd, we do not have a bass player.
3rd, our electric guitarist/keyboardist/vocals is also our sound guy.
4th, we only have one hour to set up the stage with instruments and sound, which also makes it difficult to warm up. So as a result of this I think for the moment being we will try to stick to songs that have melodies that people can easily grasp and sing to and do not require a great amount of sound that we currently do not have…
On a second note I got to play the “flying V” and got to sing/lead with distortion for the first time ever in my years of worship experience (yea, someone had to step out of his comfortable zone)…Finally, I think Jesus paid it all created a memorable atmosphere of worship reminding us with its lyrics that Jesus has paid our debt and we owe nothing. There is no way on earth that anyone could ever repay Christ for His sacrifice, nothing is equivalent to what He did for us at the cross and that is why He is the perfect offering and that is why we worship Him, because all he asks in return is for us “to believe in his name”.
Thanks everyone out there for hanging on with us as we develop this worship ministry.
Tuesday night after echo group we hit EcU campus and posted some HaRmoNY flyers and had lots of fun… part of what makes this event entertaining is that I do it with my two buddies (Mike & Bernie) who are always messing around having fun giving me ideas about where we should put up our flyers, they truly do not care how far they have to go to put up a flyer. All they care about is people getting to read what Harmony is about…and every time we do marketing they are always suggesting we get in the school buses and either post our flyers inside or hand them out to people. Last night Mike suggested we should just buy one of the school buildings and use that as our church…Now what makes these accounts astounding? They’ve only been to a bible study like 5-6 times…
1 Chronicles 16
25…Tell of his salvation from day to day.
24Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples!
25For(S) great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised,
and he is to be held in awe(T) above all gods.
26For all the gods of the peoples are idols,
(U) but the LORD made the heavens.
27Splendor and majesty are before him;
strength and joy are in his place.
~you can check out the pics on flickr @ bottom right of my blog~
So today it hit me that we are only two weeks away from our next service and that’s pretty crazy b/c I feel like we just had our first one…But in our practice last week God’s Spirit reminded us of the following principle:
Psalm 149 (the Message)
1-4 Hallelujah! Sing to God a brand-new song,
praise him in the company of all who love him.
Let all Greenville celebrate their Sovereign Creator,
Zion’s children exult in their King.
Let them praise his name in dance;
strike up the band and make great music!
What’s the principle? It’s a celebration! February the 24th 11am Dr. Unks Oasis: it’s a party, a fiesta, an invitation to join a multitude of people gathered to glorify the Creator of the universe. ….And the beauty of this section of the psalm is that it tells the worship band “strike up the band and make great music!” ….
So does the place/setting matter? Will God love you more if you worship Him in a million dollar church building? Is there an appropriate building setting that Jesus requires for you to worship Him? 1st of all, the fact that you are even choosing to worship Him, means that you are surrendering to His majesty (to who He is, what He represents).
According to scripture there is not a particular place, God says you can be anywhere; you could maybe have committed the biggest crime in your life and be LOADED with guilt but yet scripture says the following:
Psalm 139 (the Message)
7-12 Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit?
to be out of your sight?
If I climb to the sky, you’re there!
If I go underground, you’re there!
If I flew on morning’s wings
to the far western horizon,
You’d find me in a minute—
you’re already there waiting!
Then I said to myself, “Oh, he even sees me in the dark!
At night I’m immersed in the light!”
It’s a fact: darkness isn’t dark to you;
night and day, darkness and light, they’re all the same to you.
Worshiping Christ in spirit and truth means that “we are real and honest in our worship, knowing that even though we are not perfect, He is. (John 4:23)”.
So we kicked our first service last 27th of January and wow! What an experience. Choosing a program was an adventure being that God has blessed us with much talent.
Our program was:
I still haven’t found what I’m looking for…….G
Song of the redeemed………………………….F#m
Spring of life…………………………………………Bmj
Lead me to the cross…………………..…………Fm
Come ye sinners…………………….…………..D#mj
Musically the songs were not difficult, all had basic minor and major chord structure, what added sound texture was having an electric guitar and good drums, especially on song of the redeemed. But overall, my favorite jam had to be spring of life. I remember that while practicing this song, which we learned a day before service, I was really feeling it and even shared with the band that I was about to drop some tears b/c the lyrics just really minister to me and to later find the newspaper quoting“Jesus, you’re the well that won’t run dry; Jesus, you’re the drink that satisfies,” made it even more clear that this song was a HiT…
But as far as the overall experience of leading people to sing songs TO Jesus in bar? That will have to be another post. Shout outs to the band, ya did great!
