FredMcKinnon.Com

Hey Everybody!

Yesterday (Sunday, August 8th) was my first time back on the stage, leading worship at SSCC, in a couple of weeks.  It was great to be back.  We started a new series called “Small Steps, Big Faith” and our service didn’t have a “sermon” … just a flow of worship, testimonies, and communion.  Well, we did “kind of” have an impromptu sermon during our 9:00 AM service when one of the pastors lost track of time in his 5-minute “setup” … which turned into 25 minutes!

Thankfully, a little “Campfire Meeting” backstage after that service helped us workout the timing kinks and we nailed the flow in the 11:00 AM service.

Walk In Song:
“Washed by the Water” (NeedtoBreathe)

“Glorious” (Paul Baloche)
“For All You’ve Done” (Hillsongs)
“Amazing Grace/My Chains Are Gone” (Hillsongs)

*Testimony:  I shared a faith-building testimony about prayer.
*Testimony:  One of our pastors, Steve, shared a faith-building story about how God called him into ministry.

“Great is Thy Faithfulness” (Traditional Hymn Version)
*The Lord’s Prayer (corporate prayer)

Communion:
“You Gave Your Life Away” (Baloche)
“Jesus Paid it All” (Northpoint Live Version)
“Christ is Risen” (Matt Maher)

From a technical standpoint, we used a cool backing lyrics video for “Christ is Risen”, which required us to play this song to a click.  The animated lyrics and backgrounds were powerful and added a nice visual dynamic to the worship experience on that song.

We wrapped up our Sunday with a big, family “Beach Night” on St. Simons Island – it was a great day celebrating with other Believers here in the area!

This recap is a part of the “Sunday Setlists” event hosted by TheWorshipCommunity.Com.

We enjoyed a great time of worship at SSCC yesterday.  We were in Week 4 of our “Prevail” series on spiritual warfare.  Pastor David taught about the “breastplate of righteousness” and challenged us in some big ways.

As far as the musical aspect of our time of worship, here’s a snapshot of what we did:

Walk-in:

“When We All Get to Heaven” – a fun arrangement I made where we open it up in the old, traditional style, acapella.  Then, we rip into a funky version that is a blast to play, and after singing all 4 verses and the Chorus, we end the song with a campmeeting-style, double-time backbeat Chorus.  Always gets the people excited.

Opening Song:

“No Other Name” – Todd Fields/Northpoint Live arrangement.  This is always a great go-to song for a shorter, 3-minute opener that rightly brings attention to the Name of Jesus.

Middle Set:

After a short teaching (ie. 1 minute) on the word “hosanna” and what it means, we sang back-to-back “Hosanna” songs …

“Hosanna” (Paul Baloche/Brenton Brown)
“Hosanna” (Hillsong)

Then, the band left the stage and I moved to the grand piano where we did an intimate, reflective arrangement of “Sanctuary” (Lord Prepare Me) with piano, vocal, and acoustic guitar.

After the sermon we closed with the old Vineyard song, “Take My Life” (aka “Holiness”) by Scott Underwood.

Loved leading this week.  You can watch our services live or “on demand” at www.sscclive.com.

This recap is a part of the “Sunday Setlists” event hosted weekly by TheWorshipCommunity.Com.

Today is Sunday, June 13, 2010 – and this is our worship service recap from SSCC.  I’m posting this along with hundreds of other worship leaders in the “Sunday Setlists” event that happens every week over at TheWorshipCommunity.Com.

Today was a blast because I was able to debut the first song I’ve written in nearly 6 years.  It’s called “You Save” and it’s the fruit of my first songwriting collaboration with Mandy Thompson.  More on that in a second …

Our walk-in song this morning was “Marvelous Light” … Shannon Lewis has always “owned” that song and done an awesome job leading it.

Opening Set:
“Alive Again” (Matt Maher and Jason Ingram)
“You Save” (Fred McKinnon and Mandy Thompson)

After some announcements, missions video, sermon promo, and challenging word by Pastor David Yarborough, we celebrated Communion.  During communion we worshiped with:

“You Gave Your Life Away” (Paul Baloche and Kathryn Scott)
“Be Thou My Vision” (hymn)
“Revelation Song” (Jennie Lee Riddle)

One of the cool additions today was violin, courtesy of Ms. Carol Parks.  Below is a video of the new song, “You Save”.  Enjoy!

Verse 1:
Darkness, famine, trials, temptations,
Sorrows, anger, lies, frustrations,
Where, o where are You, God?
I feel a million miles away yet I know you are near
Are you listening?  Do you even hear?
Where, o where are You, God?

Chorus:
Where o where does my help come from?
I cry out into the night …

Verse 2:
Lusts of the flesh and the greed in my heart
Selfish desires to be set apart
Where, o where are You God?
Have my sins hidden me for all eternity?
Will you rescue?  Will you still help me?
Where, o where are You, God?

(Chorus 2x)

Bridge:
Your arm is not too short to save
Your reach goes deeper than the grave
When I’m crying to You
You save!  You save!
You save …. You save …

(repeat)

My help comes from the Lord above
Maker of heaven and of earth
You watch over me and run
to save!  To save!
To save …. To save …
You save …. You save ….

Hey Everybody!

Another great day of worship at SSCC yesterday.  One of the songs that Russ Hutto has been telling us about is “Say So” by Israel Houghton and Michael Gungor.  We introduced it as our walk-in yesterday … complete w/ the full Ableton Live tracks offered by Interactive Worship Live.  Since we already had drums, bass, acoustic, piano, and electric guitar, I muted those tracks in Ableton, but we still benefited from the loops, synths, the THREE extra electric guitar tracks and other fillers …

Earlier this week I “tweeted” about my frustrations in scheduling a worship setlist that didn’t “flow” as well as it should simply because we knew people would come to church late.  This was one of those weeks.  Because we needed to make some major announcements about our upcoming Easter services … specifically, the parking issues … we needed to make sure more people were “in the building”.  As a result, I put “Hosanna” (Paul Baloche/Brenton Brown) at the top of the hour to give an extra 5-minutes for people to come in … LATE.

I know we shouldn’t schedule to reward and enable late attendance, but in this case – all of those late-comers missing the announcement about parking for Easter would have been a bigger problem.

After announcements we entered the middle “set” … this is where I wish we could’ve had “Hosanna” for a 3-song flow.  Instead, we jumped right into “Revelation Song”.

After that, we were thrilled to have a blog/twitter friend, Gary Durbin, share one of his original songs.  Gary was in town for Spring Break and knowing he’s a great worship leader and songwriter from Melbourne, FL … I asked him to share a song.  He did better that that … he WROTE a song based on the sermon text I gave him only a few days ago.  And it was AMAZING!  Thanks, Gary!

We closed with “Take My Life” (the Tomlin/Passion version) as a song of dedication and consecration.

Overall it was a great Sunday, though the flow of worship seemed a bit disjointed because of the way I had to break things up.  Travis, our Tech Director, helped smooth things over with some great transitional elements via video.

I’m posting my worship recap as a part of the bigger “Sunday Setlists” event that happens over at TheWorshipCommunity.Com every single week.  Go check it out!

Hey Hey Hey,

Just finished a great nap on a beautiful Spring day here on St. Simons Island, GA.  This day started out with a chilly 39 but has warmed up to a near 70-degree day.  Jon Michael (my oldest, the 9-year old) finally got the bike he’s been holding out for so I’ll make this short as a family bike ride awaits me!

The place?  St. Simons Community Church

The people?  Some of the best on the planet.  Great team today.

The songs?  A great set of old and new:

Walk In:  “Washed by the Water” (NeedtoBreathe)
*love, love, love this song.  David Dantzler played acoustic and led this song today and he always nails it.

Opening Praise:  “See His Love” (Tim Hughes version)
*we’ve been doing this song frequently for years and it just stays in rotation.  Love it.  My wife loves it.  That makes it say in rotation for a LONG TIME.

Worship Set:
“Hosanna” (Hillsong) – led by one of our teenagers, Liza Odachowski.
“Psalm 63″ – written and led by my friend Russ Hutto.  You gotta check out this song, it’s so singable and the people grab it immediately.
“Step by Step” – flows perfectly from Psalm 63, a great old chorus from the Rich Mullins days.

Closing Song:
“How Deep the Father’s Love” (Stuart Townend)
*what a rich song.  Simple piano/vocal arrangement led by Todd, with the band building in on the final verse.

David’s sermon was hilarious.  I am still laughing about his fast-food examples and how his Dad messed him up by saying he was “outside playing”.  You’ll have to catch it on the podcast.

That’s a wrap.  I’m sharing this along with other worshipers all over the globe as part of the weekly “Sunday Setlists” blog/twitter fest over at TheWorshipCommunity.Com – so visit there and see all of the things other worship leaders are doing … and checkout the most recent “tweets” below of other folks sharing about their services by using the “#sundaysetlists” hashtag (code) on their tweets!