God’s love for us is so amazing.  It’s not dependent on our works or our obedience.  He just loves us.  Period.

What about His blessings?  Perhaps that’s a different topic altogether.  A few days ago I mentioned how obedience can help us dismantle the hardness of heart.

Does obedience also unlock God’s blessings in our lives?

Take a look at this old testament promise that I love so much:

2 And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God.
(Deut. 28:2) [emphasis mine]

What do you think?

I found myself praying about areas in my life where my heart has grown hard, where my soul seems cold.  This prayer slipped out of my mouth as I was walking the dog down N. Harrington, praying aloud into the quiet morning air.  I resonated with every part of my body and I thought I’d share it with you.

“I want to dismantle the hardness of my heart through steady, slow acts of obedience and devotion”.

Amen.

Hey Gang,

I’m still here.  If you follow the blog posts at all, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that I’ve not blogged or written much in the past couple of months.  “Life moves pretty fast.  If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”  (name that movie quote)

Fall is always the busiest season for me.  We add soccer to our schedules – so we have games every weekend.  (Thus, the absence of the popular “Small Town Stories” series I was doing on Saturday mornings).  I’m gearing up for the busy retail season with HPP Enterprises, my e-commerce company, and church is bustling along as always.

In less than two weeks I will be hosting my first ever event here, “Refuge“.  I am so excited to be hosting this event and several of you faithful blog readers are attending – can’t wait to hang out with you for 3 days!  It will be an incredibly powerful time and it’s not too late to join us – just register at RefugeSSI.Com.

With everything that’s been going on, the blog is usually one of the first things to take the back burner.  The early morning time that I’d normally be writing my blogs is now used to train new workers and product source for e-biz.  The late evenings, selfishly, but rightfully, are used to just slow down, relax, and watch some of our favorite TV premiers and seasons with my wife.  A Summer transition in our worship ministry at SSCC added a considerable layer of responsibility, meetings, followups, and work to my plate at church.  So … although the blog topics are present in my mind (and my potential blog articles list in Evernote is growing quite large)!, I’m just not able to take the time.

This is just an 8:30 AM check-in to say I’m alive and well.  Maybe we’ll bring back this space but for now, you get what you get, when you get it.   Yeah, I know – that breaks all the rules about blogging … but this blog ain’t my God, and although I’d love to have a huge readership, this space is more for my own downloads, so the timing is all mine.

Hope you understand.

Are you still with me?

Most Christians know Isaiah 40 quite well – it’s one of those verses we learn to quote early and often.

It’s such an awesome promise to us, and really meant something to me this morning.  I’ve felt like I’ve been in a bit of a funk, physically, spiritually, emotionally, and this was a promise I needed.  As I wrote this out in my private journal this morning, I felt compelled to be vulnerable enough to share it with you, hoping this prayer will help you as well.

———————————————————————

Isaiah 40:28  Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
29  He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
30  Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
31  but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.
———————————————————————
Such great promises for us.  I love how this is written as a promise for us to cling to.  It’s generic enough to know that I can grab it today, in 2011, and run with it.  I’ve been feeling weak and weary.  This morning, I’m making this my prayer.

Father, thank You for Your Word.  Thousands of years ago, through the prophet Isaiah, You spoke this promise.  The promise that when I faint and when I am weary, and fall exhausted, that you will renew my strength.  That I will run and not be weary, I will walk and not faint.

By faith, I claim this promise this morning.  I’ve been weary.  I’ve been exhausted.  Not just physically, but spiritually.  The condition here is waiting on You.  So, I wait.

So I wait for you … so I wait for you …
I’m falling on my knees – offering all of me.
Jesus, You’re all this heart is living for.

Sweet.

That’s the one word I’d use to sum up our 9/11 services at SSCC yesterday.

We opened with the Latin-groove “Glorious” by Martha Munnizzi.  Always a tough one for the band and vocals to pull off (this song has the craziest key changes I’ve ever seen).

Kicking off the congregational singing was “Hosanna” (Baloche/Brown).  After this opening song we were seated and watched a 3:00 minute video reflecting on 9/11 ten years ago.  Afterwards, our pastor spoke briefly about what has changed in our lives since then, and how restless the world has become.  Reading the famous quote by St. Augustine “I am restless until I rest in You – we performed as a special, Audrey Assad’s “Restless“.

This flowed into congregational singing of “Come Thou Fount“.  Our closer was “Amazing Grace/My Chains Are Gone” as a gospel response song.

That’s a recap of the songs this week.  As always, I’m posting this as a part of the weekly “Sunday Setlists” event hosted over at TheWorshipCommunity.Com.

Hey Gang,

Lord willing and weather permitting, I have the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity next week to hear Andrea Bocelli perform with the New York Philharmonic on the Great Lawn of Central Park in New York City.  I can’t wait.

I’ve been listening to more of Bocelli’s music so I’m more familiar with his songs and discovered this video.  I’ve watched it (and shared it) countless times.  I seldom finish it without my eyes getting all wet.  Turn it up.

And yes – I do realize this is the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  My loving this video and sharing this video is not an endorsement of the Mormon faith at all.  I am a Christian, not a Mormon.  Nevertheless, this is one of the most beautiful, inspiring renditions of the Lord’s Prayer I’ve ever heard in my life.  (and if by chance you feel a bit disappointed towards the end like I did, hang in there … you’ll know what I mean!)

Multi-Generational Worship.

This is a buzz word these days.  We keep discussing this at our church, and how we desire to create it.  I have news for you, it’s not that easy.

We’re in the midst of ongoing, challenging,  yet fulfilling discussions about our worship culture, and we always come back to these questions:

What is “multi-generational worship”?
How do we define a “culture of worship”?

So I’m reaching out to you, my online friends.  I’d love to hear from worship leaders, pastors, and non-church leaders.  Congregants.  Moms.  Dads.  Kids.  Youth.

At the bottom of this post is a “Add a Comment” box.  How would you define “multi-generational worship” or “blended worship”.  I’d suggest checking the box that enables you to get an email reply if someone else comments on your post so that the dialog can keep going for days.

Go for it.  (Facebook friends – I’d be honored and grateful if you’d leave your comments on the blog, and not on Facebook (or both) …. by leaving them on the blog, we keep all of the conversation in one place.)

For the Kingdom,
Fred

Hey Gang,

For all of you worship leaders … when was the last time you got off the platform?  For all you church goers – when was the last time you saw your leader off-stage?

I’ve been off the platform for the past two Sundays at SSCC.

Two Sundays ago my wife and I took the weekend (sans kids, thanks to my mom!) and went away to celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary together.  I tuned into our worship services via our SSCCLive.Com internet broadcast and enjoyed seeing my friend Russ Hutto lead the worship.  You could say I was truly “off” that Sunday, except for about 15 minutes of emailing and texting when our scheduled drummer for the youth service was a no-show.

Yesterday I was back at work, but off the stage.  My friend Shannon Lewis led worship for us. (read his recap of the service and the setlist on his blog) It’s so funny to hear how many people come up and say “you’re off today”?

I believe that as leaders, we have a responsibility to raise up and empower other leaders.  As we work to duplicate ourselves and multiply our efforts we have to step aside and let other leaders flourish.

This Sunday, Shannon’s leading in our main sanctuary gave me the ability to do several things:

1.  give him a chance to lead and bless our congregation with his gifts (we all lead differently, and the diversity is good)
2.  gave me a chance to mingle more with our people as they came in and connect with them relationally
3.  gave me a chance to worship in the congregation and get the much-needed perspective of what that’s like
4.  gave me the chance to observe the culture of worship in each of our venues (Tiny Town, Kid Jam Clubhouse, Youth Rooftop)

Being off the stage brings so much perspective.  From the congregation I can see how the audio mix is sounding (great job, Ben!), I can observe how people are engaging, how our lighting feels when it’s adjusted in the room, what other distractions may be occurring that we miss from the stage, etc.

Some of you are in a church where you have nobody else to lead worship.  It’s you, or it’s a CD.  I’d like to encourage you to really pray and ask God to bring in more leaders.  Ask the Holy Spirit to give you eyes to see who on your team may be that next leader.  Begin to mentor them.  Take the “you lead with me, I lead with you, you lead” approach.

My goal is to be completely off-platform 2-3 times per quarter.  I typically adhere to that unless I have a very specific reason for not doing it.

How about you?

(this recap is a part of the “Sunday Setlists” event hosted by TheWorshipCommunity.Com each week)

Here’s a recap from St. Simons Community Church for this Sunday, August 7, 2011.  As always, this setlist recap is a part of the weekly “Sunday Setlists” event that happens over at TheWorshipCommunity.Com.

Today I enjoyed welcoming our two newest additions to the praise team – Beth Cox (vocals) and her husband, Allan (trumpet).  It was awesome having them serving together.

Our walk-in was an older favorite, “Love the Lord“.  We did the bulk of our praise and worship right at the beginning of the service today as we had a packed Sunday with 50+ minutes of teaching/speaking time.

The opening set included Come Thou Fount, Jesus Saves, and I Exalt Thee.

One thing that was cool during “I Exalt Thee” was as our band backed off and just let the people sing out, we had our tech team actually RAISE the house lights up a bit – the idea was that our darker, more intimate setting was for personal worship, and as we began to change from “I Exalt Thee” to “we exalt Thee”, it became a corporate cry and I wanted our congregation to not only hear one another, but also SEE on another.

I honestly can say that in both services I could hear a noticeable difference as we did that.

Our closer was “I Will Never Be”, a beautiful old Hillsong ballad.  The teaching time went well past our cutoff, so we essentially sang this as people dismissed.

Tomorrow night (Monday) I’m headed down with my wife and our Tech Director (and his wife) to see Hillsong United in Jacksonville, FL.  Should be a cool time!

Hey Gang,

I’d like to kickoff a new series here on the blog:  “The Calling Series”.

I frequently get asked about how I was called into ministry.  How did I know what I wanted to do with my life?  What influenced my decisions to study music, specifically, Theory/Composition, Piano Performance, and Production?  How did I hear from God when I answered a call to a specific church of ministry position?

I’ve struggled with the concept of this series because I don’t really want it to be about me … I’m pretty sure folks aren’t that interested in my mini-autobiography.  At the same time, because I get asked the questions so often … especially from youth who are thinking about going to colleges, worship leading schools, etc., I hope that the story of my path will help others.

Everyone may hear God’s voice and His call in a different way – for me, it’s not always the same way.

I’ll get into that as we progress into the series.  In the meantime, whether you’re a worship leader, pastor, volunteer in church ministry, or a lay leader … how did you answer your call?  How did you choose the current path that you are on?  (yes, even if it’s not ministry-related).

I hope you’ll comment below and join the discussion.

For the Kingdom,
Fred McKinnon

Hey Gang,

As you may have heard, I’m hosting a small 3-day (really, more like 2-1/2 days!) retreat here on St. Simons Island, GA in October.  It’s called “Refuge” and it’s more of a sabbatical time of spiritual renewal than it is an equipping-resource event.

One question that I get asked over and over …

“Fred, with all the conferences out there equipping people, why should someone come to Refuge … I mean, can’t they just have their own private sabbatical any time?”

One of my favorite bloggers and leaders, Michael Hyatt, has talked about Sabbatical several times on his blog – you can checkout his posts below:

“Should You Dare to Think About a Sabbatical“?

“Six Ways to Take a Micro-Sabbatical”

Let me ask you some questions:

1.  If left to yourself, without structured help, will you really take the time to stop your merry-go-round and get off for a few days to focus?
2.  Is there value in community, and gathering with other like-minded creatives that will inspire you?
3.  Is there worth in being equipped spiritually, physically, and emotionally?
4.  Can a person who has been recharged in their inner-man return to their routine with a renewed passion, more focus, clarity, and vision?

To be totally honest, those are rhetorical questions.  Of course, the answer to all of those questions is a resounding YES!

So what we have brewing for this “Refuge” event is a real intimate time where you can:

* draw near to God, in personal solitude AND in corporate worship and teaching
* be challenged and inspired in fresh ways to make your daily walk with Christ authentic, real, and personal again
* have a safe place with licensed counselors to vent, confess, and pray
* relax and have a LOT of fun, fellowship, and let the tension and stress of leadership melt away

Someone recently told me how badly they wanted to come, but things would just be too busy.  I almost started laughing – I wanted to say EXACTLY — that’s why you NEED THIS SO BADLY.

A few things you can count on:
1.  Life will keep you busy.
2.  The disciplines of rest, prayer, worship – essentially, Sabbatical, will yield HUGE DIVIDENDS in your personal growth, leadership, and creativity.

That being said, if you’ve been on the fence about this event, I hope you’ll take that step of faith and join us.
Details at:  www.refugessi.com

Hey Everybody,

Today was a sweet service at SSCC.  It was what we call a “stand-alone” Sunday, meaning the sermon was not part of an ongoing series.  Our Family Pastor, Mark Fritchman, spoke on parenting, and did a great job.  I’ve been doing a lot of new music and had lots of energy put into our previous Night of Worship.  Because of that, and the reality that our Tech Director was away (let’s try to keep rehearsal simple) and my wife was away (I’m Mr. Mom all weekend!), I opted for a Sunday where our songs were familiar to the congregation and the band.

Our walk-in song was “Praise the Name of Jesus” by Ken Mullis.  This is a super-fun song to play.  It’s a blues swing with great lyrics.  From our quick greeting we dove directly into “For All You’ve Done” by Hillsong, which is an ongoing favorite at our church for the past four years.

After announcements we did a 2-song set in G, starting with Don Poythress’ version of “The Doxology” followed by “Agnus Dei”.  I really enjoyed this segment and once again, we slowed things down a bit and just lingered at the end of Doxology for a time of reflection and prayer.

Our closing song was “Revelation Song”.  Honestly, I was feeling awkward about it – we usually try to pull our sermon and closing together and that wasn’t the case this week.  I wasn’t really interested in going to the handful of convicting-parent songs, so when he finished the sermon, the changing of gears to “ok, let’s sing one last song and worship” felt strange.

The strangeness faded after about 10 seconds.  The people began to sing and the room was filled with worship.  I’m reminded that we don’t have to meticulously plan every song and lyric to support the sermon.  Worship doesn’t have to be a response to a sermon – it’s just a response to God, period.

And that’s my recap for this Sunday, July 31.  As always, I’m posting this as a part of the “Sunday Setlists” event hosted by TheWorshipCommunity.Com each week.  To view our planning document, visit PlanningCenterOnline.

Criticism and Judgment.  If you can’t take it, you’d best not get involved in worship ministry.

Let’s face it.  The musical aspect of a corporate worship service is filled with the potential for criticism:

* song selection
* style
* instrumentation and arrangement
* volume
* technology used to support (sound, lighting, visuals)

Rarely does a week go by where I’m not blessed by people who share with me how have been inspired by music and ministry.  At the same time, I’m used to getting complaints, suggestions, and criticisms.

Today was a great example.  When I walked into my office I had two pieces of mail (yeah, the real stuff in an envelope with a stamp on it) on my desk.

One envelope included a thank-you card and a sweet note about this person’s experience being so wonderful in our worship service this Sunday.

The other envelope contained a letter from a visitor filled with harsh criticism … but worse, judgment.  It was filled with harsh lines about how “I” attempted to manipulate God, etc.  If the Bible is true (and we know it is), this person has a heap of judgment “pressed down, shaken together, and running over” coming their way, as a result of what they sowed into my heart today.

So how do we handle it?

Criticism: ask yourselves a few questions:

1.  Is there anything constructive that I can learn from the information?
2.  Does this person seem to have a loving, sincere approach?
3.  Is there a relationship present, and does this person have a good understanding of our overall mission, as opposed to a 1-visit snapshot?

Judgment: there is really no place for it.  It stings.  It hurts.  To have someone accuse you of things that are very far away from your heart or motives … things that are actually offensive to your heart and motives … it just is hard to swallow.

I like to spread those out before the Lord and simply ask Him to help me know my heart, my motives, and most importantly, to know HIS heart.  I pray for the person who is clearly reacting out of some other wound or frustration, and pray that I will not allow it to take root in my soul.

There will always be critics.  Some more loving and gentle than others.  Some with information we need to hear and process.  Some who abuse any right they have to comment.

Taking offense is not an option.  It will only drag you down.

How do you process complaints or criticism?  Do you keep them to yourself or share them with your team?

Because we have multiple services at SSCC, margin isn’t something we seem to find.  Despite our many efforts, we typically end up with a worship service that is around 1:15 and is FILLED with outflow.

Songs.
Announcements.
Sermons.

That’s not such a bad thing.  After all, we gather corporately so that we can express ourselves in worship to God (typically, through songs) and be taught and built up (sermons).  Since the body is gathered, it makes sense to do some communication to inform people about what’s going on.  (announcements).

So, let’s think about that.  If you have 5 songs averaging 5 minutes each, that’s 25 minutes.  If you have a sermon averaging 35-40 minutes, now we’re up to 60-65 minutes.  Add in announcements and any kind of transition, you’ve hit your time expiration and there’s no margin.

Now before the zealots start flaming us about the clock, you have to understand — if we don’t try to wrap things up in 1:15 max, we have a logistical nightmare in the parking lots.

This Sunday was one of those rare Sundays where we had “margin”.  Our Discipleship Pastor was preaching and he came to be Sunday AM and said that his sermon would be shorter than he anticipated.  SHORTER?  Are you KIDDING ME?  He even suggested that we have some last-minute planning to allow for more worship at the end of the message.  I was totally cool with that.

The beautiful thing about margin?  You aren’t forced to use it (though we usually do) and you can choose where it comes from.

When I have margin and I know I’m entrusted to steward it, I become a different leader.
It’s not about getting through the setlist on time.
It’s not about avoiding the discussion about going over time.

This past Sunday, as I led through the song we’d selected to happen between the Announcement Break and the Sermon, that margin became invaluable.

We’d just concluded singing a beautiful worship ballad, “Waiting Here For You” from the Passion 2011 album.  Even though it was a brand new tune for our church, I could discern that the people had genuinely engaged in worship.  As the song came to a close, I couldn’t bring myself to just say a snap prayer and move on.  I knew the Holy Spirit was telling me to “wait”.

So I waited.
I prayed.
I played a light, consistent progression slowly.

I took my time.  I asked the congregation to wait.  To pray.  We seldom stop and make time for this.  It wasn’t just a dude on the stage leading a prayer for a quick Amen.  We were waiting in God’s Presence, praying, seeking, crying out.

Knowing we weren’t pressed for time, I took this a step further.  I asked the tech guys (who responded immediately and graciously) to bring up our house lights slowly.

“Who is struggling?  Who just needs a touch?  Who needs prayer?  Slip up your hand – and if you’re around someone raising their hand, just touch them, maybe on the shoulder, to let them know you are there, that you support them, and that you care.  Pray for them.  You don’t even have to ask what it’s about – just lift them up.”

It was beautiful.  I believe we could have stayed in that pause for a long time.  But it was like we stopped the motions for a while and God smiled and said “glad to see you”.

So I took the margin earlier than later.  We concluded our entire service without my adding another song.

In many cases, I’d rather add that waiting time, for prayer, for seeking … instead of yet, another song.

This makes me desperate for margin.  In my life.  In our worship services.  You don’t get it unless you work for it.

How much margin is in your worship services?  Do you feel pressed for time to squeeze everything in, or do you have ample time to wait and see what God may be doing in that moment?

Yesterday was perhaps one of the sweetest days of worship that I can recall at SSCC.  I think there are lots of reasons.  We’d just had a “Night of Worship” event the Friday night before.  We had more margin (see tomorrow’s post!) in our service plan, and the teaching focused on worship.

We opened slowly, with an older classic, “Open the Eyes of My Heart”.  I find it nice to open slowly sometimes.  Paul Baloche calls this an “on-ramp”.  It gives people a transition into worship and I could see people making that transition clearly.

To open up the top of the hour, we introduced a new, upbeat song called “We Are The Free” from Matt Redman’s newest album, “10,000 Reasons”.  I’d originally decided that although I love this song, it would never find a home in our typical sunday service.  I felt it was just too edgy and youth-driven.  It didn’t seem to fit our culture.  I had so many people from the band and congregation who’d already heard the song and really encouraged me to go for it.  To my surprise, the song was really well-received.

From that song we segued directly into super-familiar “Glory to God Forever”.

After a time of announcements, we introduced the brand new worship ballad from the Passion 2011 album, “Waiting Here For You”.  Heather, one of our team members, led this and did a beautiful job.

At the conclusion of this song, I felt a strong sense that we should just wait a moment and not rush into the sermon.  We lingered there, and before I knew it, we were praying and crying out to God.  The congregation was praying, people were praying for others who needed prayer … it was a beautiful thing that I’ll describe more fully in tomorrow’s blog post.

Our Discipleship Pastor did an incredible job teaching on worship, our response to God, and living the life of worship.

We concluded with a traditional version of “The Old Rugged Cross” with nothing but vocals and piano.  IT WAS GORGEOUS.  I loved hearing the people of God sing this classic hymn.  I also sang the deep bass line, which was stylistically different for us, but added to the traditional feel.  It was a special moment.

Transitioning out of the hymn we sang “The Song of Moses”, a newer song from some guys up in Atlanta.  It was massive and I can only say that I felt that our congregation literally walked together through this journey of worship.  It was one of my favorite Sundays!

As always, I’m sharing our worship service recap as a part of the “Sunday Setlists” event, hosted weekly at TheWorshipCommunity.Com.

“Every poet and musician, but for Grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells, to love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him.”.  (C.S. Lewis)

Read this.  Read it again.  Process it.

What does this speak to you?

I announced a while back that I’d finally taken the plunge to purchase an iPad2.  I confessed that it was much more of a luxury item than a necessity.  Now that I’ve used it for a couple of months, I’ve realized just how much I’ve missed by not having it sooner.

Here are 6 ways that I’ve used the iPad2 in the context of corporate worship and my job as a worship pastor.

1.  Planning Meetings:  this is a bit of a luxury, but I no longer have to haul my big MacBook Pro up the stairs and take up a lot of table space at our weekly planning meetings.  I show up with my iPad2 in hand, with quick easy access to my tunes and PlanningCenterOnline.

2.  Digital Music Stand:  there are numerous apps out there that let you store a library of .pdf files.  I haven’t even gotten that far yet, but I export our setlist from PlanningCenter as a .pdf into my DropBox account, and then open it on the iPad for a quick, easy digital music stand.  No more stacks of paper to shuffle through.  (DropBox is FREE, and if you haven’t created a free account there, you’re missing out.  Use my affiliate link so I can get more free space, please!)

3.  Remote Control:  with the “Remote” app, I can easily control my iTunes playlist from my iPad.  This has come in extremely handy when I’m at the piano or keyboard rehearsing a tune or charting out a song.  Where before I’d have to reach way over to my desk and press play w/ the mouse, scoot back to my keyboard, scoot back to stop and rewind, etc., I can do all of this with the iPad sitting on my keyboard.  From one seat at the piano or keyboard, I can load, play, rewind, repeat, scrub – making charting arrangements and learning new songs a lot easier.

4.  Yamaha M7CL StageMix App:  with this incredible, FREE app from Yamaha, I can actually connect via WiFi to our Yahama M7CL sound board and easily adjust the sound.  Granted, we’ve got an incredible tech team on hand mixing the sound, but being able to tweak my personal in-ear monitor mix from the iPad is genius.

5.  ProRemote:  ProRemote is a high-end, paid app (it’s got a hefty price tag of $99) that is a full-featured remote mixing/editing surface for all of the popular recording and looping packages, including Logic Studio, ProTools, Ableton Live, Reason, Garageband, and more.  This app is far more powerful than a simple on/off remote.  It gives you full access to almost every feature in the software itself.   Imagine being able to leave the studio console, walk into a vocal booth, record-enable a track, hit play, punch in and out recording, scrub back and listen, set location markers, and more …. by yourself, wirelessly, without an engineer sitting at the console.  All of this is possible through ProRemote.

In our studio, I’ve toggled back and forth between the iTunes Remote and ProRemote to create loops,click tracks, and full arrangements of songs.  On stage, I used ProRemote to not only control the Start/Stop of our click tracks in Ableton Live, but I also setup loop points and markers where I could easily loop or go back to a rehearsal marker with a push of a “pad” on the screen of my iPad.

6.  My Music – everywhere:  With the landing of Spotify here in the US, I can have my music, playlists, and even the playlists and music of friends available to me on my iPad instantly.  I’m not worried about syncing libraries, managing iTunes accounts, or even better – taking up precious storage space on my device.

Free Spotify accounts are by invitation only through Klout … but I have good news.  I’ve got a special link to get you in.  (Get a Klout and Spotify Account Here!)

This is a short-list of the way I’ve benefited from using the iPad2. If you’ve considered making a purchase, I hope this can help justify it.  If you already have an iPad, how do you use it in the context of your job?

Let the fun begin!

Well, nothing is perfect.  But the way the songs and lyrics fit the 3rd week’s message in our “Uncaged” series at SSCC this week was close to it.

I’d planned our closing song in cooperation with Jon Blankenship, who would be preaching this week … but had no idea that the rest of his sermon would literally be full of the actual lyrics and expressions in all of our songs.

I love it when it when that happens!

Overall, it was a more “contemporary” Sunday than normal, with bigger, edgier, louder music.  I expected that I may get a little more pushback than I did, but only one complaint thus far, and it was from a visitor who said they don’t want anything except traditional music.

Walk In:
My Savior Lives

Opening Song:
I Am Free

Worship Set:
Your Name
You Save (original)

Closer:
Christ Is Risen

It was awesome seeing a number of people confessing Jesus as their Lord and Savior in both services!

Sharing this as part of the “Sunday Setlists” event held weekly at TheWorshipCommunity.Com.

Friday’s are not typically a super-busy blog day, and perhaps it’s good that I’m writing this today, as it could be controversial.

Here’s the deal.  I don’t think that Christians call each other out quite enough.  My “call each other out” I mean … you know:

*correct, spur, challenge, rebuke.

I recently “called out” a brother in Christ.  I’d been noticing a certain tone and use of slang and abbreviations in his Tweets.  I’d seen one too many “WTF” exclamations and decided I’d call it out.

Granted, each of us have our own standards of what convicts us and what doesn’t.  I suppose what you consider to be coarse language could be subjective, since the Bible doesn’t give us a list of “don’t say that” words.  I also know how cool it is to be “free” of rules.  I also know how rad it is to talk about how unimportant something like that may be in the “grand scheme” of things.

My problem?  Everytime I would see that, I’d say/hear/think that word in my mind.

With much reservation, I said “hey, this sort of bothers me, and I want you to pray and consider it”.  (paraphrase).

A couple of other things I did:
#1.  I made sure he knew I was challenging him in the love of Christ, and to spur us to excellence and holiness
#2.  I made sure he knew that I didn’t consider myself perfect, and was constantly getting challenged myself
#3.  I gave license for this person to “call me out” anytime.

In my case, my friend and brother replied graciously. Fact is, I know this dude, and his heart is golden.   I mean, G-O-L-D-E-N.

So, I can hear it now … “judge not, or you will be judged”.  I’ve heard that Scripture taken out of context a gazillion times.

Aren’t we supposed to hold one another accountable?  Aren’t we called to challenge one another, spur one another towards holiness?
And guess what … if I wait until I’ve got my own act together … or you wait until you’ve got your stuff together, we’ll all walk around only half as we should.

There’s a difference in harsh, critical judgment … “taking the thorn out of your eye rather than the plank in my own” and loving, encouragement.

This is from Christian to Christian.  Yeah, I’m not into calling out and judging those outside the Kingdom of God.

I think that if we’d all get over the fear of being seen as “holier than thou” and start leading and encouraging one another … even with a loving rebuke or correction …  that the Body of Christ would be stronger … more holy … and with that … comes the POWER.

Thoughts?

Better late than never, right?

Here’s a recap of our Setlist from SSCC.  As always, I’m posting this as part of the “Sunday Setlists” event hosted over at TheWorshipCommunity.Com.

View our Service in PlanningCenterOnline.

This was one of those Sundays when before you ever start, you realize that you’re probably trying to cram way too much into one service.  Sometimes it just happens that way.  We want to worship through music and song.  We want to be challenged and equipped through the preaching of the Word.  We want to have community and communicate things to our congregants.  We want to celebrate missions and pray for outgoing teams.

The tension comes when all of this needs to happen on one Sunday, for whatever reason.  We are held to a fairly tight schedule due to multiple services and the logistics of clearing a building and parking lot.

This Sunday was one of those Sundays.  We had a longer-than-normal sermon (which we already knew, and was great).  We had new members to introduce, several important announcements, and a missions team to send.  Plus, we’d planned an inspiring time of ministry for response after the sermon.

Well, our service DID go a bit long – but it was worth it.  At the end of the day, I’m sure we were the ones paying attention to the clock a lot more than those who came to worship.  It’s a tension that has to be managed, and I think we did a good job with it this week.

On to the music:

Walk In:  “Everlasting God” (a last minute change because the original song we’d chosen didn’t work out)
Opening Set:
“Alive Again” (Maher, one of our favorites)
“Song of Moses” (recently recorded on new Aaron Keyes album, LOVE this song)

Ministry time at end:
“Rescue” (Jared Anderson)
“Jesus Paid it All” (Northpoint)

Without going into a lot of detail about the sermon and how it impacted people, we were overwhelmed at the conclusion of the service with people coming forward for ministry and to “put their sin” in this cage we’d built.  It was incredibly inspiring and I felt like people were really getting free.  Praise God!

And that’s a wrap for this week!

Question:  how do you manage the tension of time management in your services?

This 4th of July holiday threw my blogging schedule off a bit.  Excuses, Excuses!

So I’d hoped to do a thorough recap on my use of the iPad2 in our worship service but for today, the setlist recap will have to suffice.  The blog on the iPad is going to be a lot more involved.

You can view a production sheet for our July 3rd service via PlanningCenter.

Sunday, July 3rd - St. Simons Community Church

Russ Hutto opened us with the debut of “Here for You” off the new Passion 2011 album.  It was a great song and one I look forward to integrating into our services.

From there, we went into “All my Fountains” (also from Passion 2011) with the arrangement I use for hammer dulcimer.  It’s a favorite of ours, and I love playing it.

After announcements, I acknowledged the significance of the upcoming July 4 holiday and we sang “God Bless America” as a prayer, asking God for his blessing on our country.  That flowed seamlessly into “I Stand Amazed” (How Marvelous) hymn, followed by “Mighty To Save” that was more in the Laura Story-type arrangement than the Hillsong one.

We had an intense sermon about being “caged” — I’d been waiting literally for 2 years to find the right service to do the song “Pieces” by the band, Red.  This was the service.  I spent the week scoring out cello and violin parts, sequencing, tracking, and we did this song for a very powerful time to close the service.

Tons of great feedback about this closer.  I will be posting the sequences and loops soon.

As always, this recap is part of the “Sunday Setlists” event hosted by TheWorshipCommunity.Com each week!

Image: bcfamyours.com (Kyle Baker)

So I mentioned in this week’s worship service recap post that we opened our services at SSCC with a secular song, “When A Man Loves a Woman” by Percy Sledge.

We don’t typically cover a lot of secular songs but from time to time we’ll choose one if it fits.  I’m all for integrating these into our corporate time if the song enhances the overall theme for the day.  In this case, the song was a perfect match to our sermon title.  I felt that overall, it was lyrically safe. Because it’s such an old standard, I felt it would be a good ice breaker.

In searching for a good image to use for this blog post I came across this image (and blog) from Kyle Baker in TN.  His post about “Secular vs Sacred” can be read here.

So what’s your take on this issue?  Should secular songs be used in church services? Leave your comments below and join the discussion.

I’m living with this song this week. It will potentially be our closer this coming Sunday, July 3rd at SSCC. Our hope is to create a tension where we can ask ourselves the hard questions:

Am I trying to do this alone?
Have I tried to be King?
Where and how am I trapped?

We’re pulling together a few string players to make this a beautiful, stirring moment.

(Today’s post is part of the “Sunday Setlists” event sponsored by TheWorshipCommunity.Com.  Checkout worship service recaps from other worship leaders!)

Hey Gang!

I’m crafting this recap at an early 5:19 AM on Monday.  I had no intentions of being up at 4:00 AM but that’s how it happened today.

Yesterday was a great service at SSCC.  The flow of our service was a bit different than normal, as we didn’t have our corporate worship through singing and music until the end of the service.

It was the final week of our “The Man Series”.  This week’s sermon title was “When A Man Loves a Woman”.

What better song to kickoff the morning than Percy’s “When A Man Loves A Woman”!  Since this is a secular song I thought it would be wise to break the ice.  This was our “walk-in” song so I just greeted everyone, explained that we were on our last week, the title, and pitched the song.  It was fun watching people laugh and smile as they casually enjoyed this all-familiar tune.  After we finished the song in the 9:00 AM service people really clapped and showed how much they enjoyed it.

We had one of our supported missionaries to East Asia with us so the first part of our service was dedicated to him.  After a well-produced video he shared about their work.

Just as David was about to get started with the sermon we interrupted him with our final spoof of the Bud Lite commercials, “Real Men of Genius”.  This week was “Mr. Golf Tournament Quiet Sign Holder Upper”.  The real humor in it was having PGA Pro Jonathan Byrd walk out on stage holding a big “Quiet” sign, accompanied my Mark Love, brother (and former caddy) of PGA Pro, Davis Love III.

Our time of corporate singing came during holy communion at the conclusion of the service.  Our communion set included:

“Remembrance” (Matt Maher/Matt Redman)
“In Christ Alone”
“He Ransomed Me” (original song I wrote last month, featured here)

“The Man Series” was a hit in our church.  I’ll miss our cool man cave setup on the stage for sure, but maybe I’ll get our Yamaha grand piano back out there.  I miss playing her!

View a copy of our service details and flow @ PlanningCenterOnline.Com.

How did it go with your services this weekend?

One of the many creative persons that I’ve encountered through the annual “re:create” conference is Jeff Goins.  Jeff lives in Franklin, TN (jealous!) and is an inspiring writer.  He blogs regularly at GoinsWriter.Com – one of the few blogs that I’ve got in my “must read” list these days.

Yesterday Jeff released his first e-book called “The Writer’s Manifesto”.  You can (and should) get a copy by visiting here.

For every person who considers themselves to be a “creative”:

- a musician
- a songwriter
- a screenwriter
- a blog/article author
- a visual artist
- a producer

ANYONE who has the talents and gifts to create art that inspires …

PLEASE stop and read this manifesto.

It’s very short, yet packed with heart-convicting, soul-stirring punch.