FredMcKinnon.Com

Dear God,

I repent.

I’ve allowed life to overwhelm me.  I’ve allowed our crazy culture to overtake me.

I say I love you, but I don’t show you that affection as I should.

I should be so grateful.  You’ve given me so many blessings.  An incredible family, an amazing church, and an unbelievably amazing wife.  I complained to her recently, that with her schedule, keeping up with four young kids, all of their activities, plus a house to manage, I feel like I’m last place.  I complained that by the time I get time with her, she’s spent.  I get the leftovers, if there are any.

Then, it dawned on me.  That’s exactly how you feel about me.

I get preoccupied with social networking, with this blog, with subscribers, stats, comments, or the lack thereof.  I get preoccupied with business ideas and networking plans that I’m positive come from your Spirit; yet, they become idols instead of tools.

I lead others in worship and serve you – it’s my job.  I love it, and I love Your Presence, so why do I ignore it so often?  Why do I reject you so often?  Why would I rather stay up late watching meaningless TV shows only to regret it in the morning when I’m too tired to worship you in my private, hidden life?  Why is there dust on my piano, and why do I never make music to you on my own anymore?  You created me for this, yet I constantly fall to petty distractions.

I allow lustful thoughts to spark around in my mind until they ignite into a fire.  Then, I have to fight to put it out.

I ignore Your Holy Spirit, constantly speaking and convicting me about the lack of care I have for my physical body.

I get too worked up over what others think about me.  I get consumed with the desire to be accepted by everyone else, forgetting that you accept me regardless.

I spend more time typing in a blog or Twitter than I do in Your Word.   No wonder I’m so screwed up.  Do I really believe, even for a second, that ANYONE out there has more to offer than YOU?

God, I’m really sorry.  It grieves me.  I’m grateful for our time together this morning.  I’m grateful for your love, mercy, and acceptance.  I’m really eager for you to speak to me.  I want wisdom.  I will do whatever You say.  Please order my steps.

Your Word is my prayer this morning:

5 Oh, that my steps might be steady, keeping to the course you set;
6 Then I’d never have any regrets in comparing my life with your counsel.
(Psalm 119: 5-6, “The Message”)

Hey Ya’ll,

I want to invite you to checkout the relaunch of HighestPraise.Com – it’s still a work in progress, but go check out the new home.

A little background …

HighestPraise.Com is my oldest site – nearly 15 years old (well, it started out as an aol.com/~hpprod site – remember those?  In reality, I was making a “worship website” with free songs, leadsheets, “MIDI” files (remember those?), etc., more than a dozen years ago.  I sort of pioneered that online – I’m ashamed to say it, because to a large degree, it’s true … and the shame comes because for someone who pioneered that, it never really went anywhere.

The site was a big, “HTML-driven” site with hundreds of pages and with the help of Chris Moncus I’m bringing it all under the care of WordPress.  None of the songwriters or worship leaders I was producing and publishing have been writing lately so the site just went stagnant the last couple of years.

In 2009, I’ve seen a fresh revival of songs, songwriters, and potential to use HPP (Highest Praise Productions, Inc.) to get original music out by “indie” artists and songwriters.  Hence, the relaunch.  Hence, this post.  Hence, your visit.

Current Featured Song

The current featured song is written and recorded by Travis Jones at Northwest Bible Church in Dallas, TX.  I didn’t produce this project but have the privilege of sharing in the publishing administration with Travis’ “Two Man Tent” music catalog.  It’s called “Almighty” – and is now featured and available online at HighestPraise.Com.  You can listen to the song, download the MP3, chordchart, and leave a comment about it.

Some Vision

I’ve already been talking to a few of the worship songwriters out there about HPP and my vision behind it.  I’ll be sharing about it in more detail here on the blog.  I am asking for your support and hoping that you will spread the word and share in the excitement.  The main vision behind the publishing/administration arm of HPP is to:

1.  Promote original music, primarily for personal and corporate worship, to the masses, giving the “indie, grassroots songwriter” a larger platform to have their gifts of music and song exposed to the Church worldwide.
2.  To protect and collect royalties and administer licensing for these works, providing the songwriters and artists with financial compensation.

Clearly, our #1 avenue of song promotion is through the network of sites and social media here – my blog, twitter, HighestPraise.Com, and TheWorshipCommunity.Com. Through that network alone, several thousand people can be exposed to the music per day.

Some of you who are reading this are probably asking “how can I get involved”?  Well, take a look at the Publishing section over at Highest Praise, or jump online and message me on Twitter.  We’ll talk.

If you are in worship ministry and you read this – I hope that two things will excite you about this:
1 – the opportunity to have your songs considered
2 – the privilege of using some of the song material from your peers.

Personally, I’d love to start seeing songs like “Almighty” and other originals written by the “everyday, grass-roots” writers in the church appearing in the “Sunday Setlists” blogs each week. If this gets you fired up – twitter this post, share it with your friends, and spread the word.

For the Kingdom,
Fred

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to the 34th consectuive week of “Sunday Setlists” – a blog carnival where we all share a recap of our worship services.  Thanks to all of you who have been participating.  A few questions I get every week:

1 – What if our services aren’t on Sunday?  NO PROBLEM – it’s called “Sunday Setlists” because that’s when I post this … you can post recaps from your Sunday services, Saturday services, Mid-Week, or any special events.  If you are a touring worship band, share your setlists from your concerts!

2 – I don’t have a blog.  NO PROBLEM – leave your recap as a comment below!

3 – I’m not the Worship Leader.  NO PROBLEM – we welcome (and encourage) recaps from the “congregation” point of view.

4 – I didn’t lead this Sunday, I was off.  GREAT – give us your perspective from “off” the stage!

How to Participate

Checkout the full details here.  Simply:
1.  Blog about your worship service(s).  (Don’t have a blog, see #2 above!)
2.  Link back to THIS POST in your blog.  This is very important.  Link to:
http://www.fredmckinnon.com/myblog/2009/03/15/sunday-setlists-34/
3.  Fill out the Mister Linky below and enter the URL to your blog post.  NOT your homepage!
4.  Leave a comment and visit the others.
5.  If you use Twitter, share your Setlist link with this tag:  #sundaysetlists
(see all Twitter posts with #sundaysetlists)

My Worship Confessional

So today was a different day for me as the Worship Pastor here at SSCC.  This was my view:

Yep – today, I scheduled myself OFF the platform, and ON the mixer.  I had the pleasure of mixing FOH today.  Thankfully, I had our Tech Director, Travis Paulding, next to me in case I blew something up.  He was producing today.

I think it’s important as a Worship Pastor to develop leaders – and to give them their space.
* sing with me while I lead
* I’ll sing and play with you while YOU lead
* You lead

Kim Dixon led the worship today, and she did an exceptional job.  Kim is a natural and has the voice of an angel.  I worked with Kim on song selection, keys, etc., but let her do the bulk of the rehearsing and arranging.  Here’s the setlist for today at SSCC with Kim leading:

Walk In:  Come, Now is the Time to Worship
Opening Song:  I Have Found (Kim Walker)
*Break*
Second Set:
Your Grace is Enough
How Great is our God

*Special*
Held (Natalie Grant)

*Video Testimony*  (will post video later this week)

*Sermon*
“The First Half was Great, The Second Half was the Pits” (Guest, Bill Barrow)
We are in Week 3 of 6 in our series on the Book of Job, “When it Hurts”.  He did an awesome job.

Closer:
“Rescue” (Desperation Band)

Today’s service was really strong.  The Book of Job always brings some tension into the room.  How many of us really “like” the God that allowed those things to happen to Job.  The special music “Held” went directly into a powerful video testimony of a lady in our church who’d lost her son.  We found out after the 9:00 service that some guests came today who’d just lost an infant to SIDS a few weeks ago.  Wow, what a week to show up for the first time.

At the conclusion you could see lots of people praying and responding to the Word of God.  Next week will provide evey more opportunity for people to respond as we tackle “wrestling with God”.

I look forward to seeing what everybody else is doing today!  So go for it!

Particpants:

Enter your Name and the URL to your actual blog (c’mon folks, don’t enter blog homepage URL’s here!  They will be deleted.  Homepage links look like this:  yourname.blogspot.com or yourname.wordpress.com or www.yourdomain.com … we need a FULL URL to your blog post – if you are unsure about this, publish your blog, then click on the blog’s title, and copy THAT URL)

Hey Gang,

It’s “FreePlay Friday”.  This is the day when I break away from worship leadership, church ministry, etc., and make it “free” – I can talk about life, family, politics, fishing, playing, or whatever … and so can you.

So today … I have nothing really to share!

(how pathetic is that!)

Seriously, I’m not much in the mood to “blog” about anything today.  So, feel free to share your thoughts.  I’ll be back Sunday for “Sunday Setlists” … probably.

A friend of mine, David Nevue, twittered this link.  I decided to check it out.

I didn’t realize that I was on a “Christian Science” site at first.  Regardless, I felt myself agreeing with some of what is said.  Especially this:

We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we’ve spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.

Does that wake you up?  Shall we pray?  Do you agree with any, all, or none of the article?
(full article)

Share.