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“Sometimes Risk Works Out”

June 18, 2009 | 11:41 am

A friend of mine sent me the link to this post and asked whether he thought something like it would be able to fly at OBC - check it out:

A year and a half ago I met a new friend named J-Griff. He has become part of our church and has an amazing gift.

He speaks a different musical language than most of our congregation and I have wanted to use him as part of our worship experiences for a long time, but could never quite muster up the courage. Then I read this post and decided that just because something might fail I have no an excuse not to go for it.

The “this post” he’s referring to is some great thoughts from Tony Morgan on the “new traditional church music” -

Only it’s as if we got stuck in the 80s. While the church still leans on a mix of rock and pop music as the preferred worship genre, our culture has shifted once again. Now, according to iTunes, 1 in 3 of the top 100 songs in the country is either hip-hop/rap or R&B/soul. My guess, though, is that you can’t name a church in the country that’s using these genres of music for worship. Why is that?

Now, before you let your “it’s-not-our-culture” bias set in, consider this. Most of the hip-hop and R&B music has been recorded by black artists. 14% of the U.S. population is black. But, remember, nearly one-third of the music purchased on iTunes is one of these two genres. You do the math. White people like hip-hop.

If you want to hear the recording that inspired this song, check out “One Way” from Soul Survivor 2008 on iTunes here.

| ideas, links, worship | Comments (3) |

How I’m Feeling

June 15, 2009 | 2:03 pm

What do all of these things have in common?

  • fever, which is usually high, but unlike seasonal flu, is sometimes absent
  • cough
  • runny nose or stuffy nose
  • sore throat
  • body aches
  • headache
  • chills
  • fatigue or tiredness, which can be extreme
  • diarrhea and vomiting, sometimes, but more commonly seen than with seasonal flu

They’re all symptoms of swine flu AND several of them have been ravaging my body for the past few days. I’m definitely on the mend (and no oinking yet!) so I don’t think there’s much cause for concern but it certainly made things interesting this past weekend.

On Saturday morning I got up, felt fine, headed over to the church for breakfast with a bunch of guys and then spent some time with my family at a kids festival in town. By 1:00 we were home and I was totally knocked out by this flu - chills, fever, headache, coughing. I ended up on the couch, not moving until 10:00 or so that night - knowing that I was going to be leading two services the next morning at OBC and feeling pretty confident that I’d be okay to do that.

I drank lots of orange juice and water before going to bed and another full litre of juice the next morning before heading to the church. I can honestly say that I have never led worship feeling the way I did - my head was spinning, a couple of times I had to just step back to catch my breath. During the 9:00 service I sat beside my wife during the message and spent most of it doubled over just trying to get comfortable enough to go back up and lead the closing songs.

In the midst of my great weakness, though, God was definitely honoured. I spoke with lots of people who couldn’t tell that I was sick and told me how moving the service was and how much they enjoyed it.

We are continuing in the series called “Grow UP!” where we’re spending nine weeks on a chunk of verses in 2 Peter which talk about spiritual growth. Earl led us through an exploration of perseverance and godliness and it was clear there were some “aha!” moments for people in the crowd. I think that this series will come out as being one of the most helpful for our people over the last couple of years - lots of good stuff and great content for people to grab on to.

Here’s what our service looked like -

Welcome/Announcements
Call to Worship
Sing to the King - Billy Foote - E (9:00) // You Are - Mark Roach - E (11:00)
Let Everything That Has Breath - Matt Redman - E
Meet & Greet/Offering
Your Love Never Fails - Chris Quilala - G
Responsive Reading - Psalm 118
Tis So Sweet To Trust In Jesus - Hymn - G
Message - Perseverance & Godliness
You Never Let Go - Matt & Beth Redman - Bb
Lord Reign In Me - Brenton Brown - C

A couple things to hilight -

  • We switched our opener after the 9:00 service. I thought that “Sing to the King” would give us a good Jesus-focused opening right at the beginning but it didn’t - pulled it out and added “You Are” for 11:00. Much better.
  • “Your Love Never Fails” is a new song from Jesus Culture - we’ll give it another couple tries with the congregation before deciding if it’s a keeper or not. Not sure yet.
  • That song plus the reading focused on the enduring love of God leading in to “Tis So Sweet” was a really nice section in both services. At 9:00 there was one guy who sounded like he’d been waiting his whole life to sing that hymn and as soon as we started the first line he just let it belt out - awesome! :)

Great weekend - despite my sickness. Couple more weeks of this series and then two weeks of holidays for me - looking forward to all of it!

====
You can find more posts like this at my friend Fred’s blog here.

| textfessional, worship | Comments (1) |

Passion 2010 - something’s not right

June 10, 2009 | 7:07 am

From the Passion website - “Shaping Values”

God’s People
………………………………………………..
We believe that those who have placed their faith in Christ are knit together in one Body, the Church, a distinctive community of faith expressed in local clusters, engaging culture on every front with God’s hope and love… a Church for which Christ will personally return.

Community of Faith
………………………………………………..
The worldwide Body of Christ functions best in localized communities of believers. Seeking to serve the local church, not replace it, is a value that is affirmed by our staff and leadership as they worship and serve within the context of their local fellowships.

Mobilization
………………………………………………..
Believing that God seeks worshippers from all peoples, we desire to inform, challenge, equip and mobilize believers for participation in God’s global purposes among the nations.

Cultural Impact
………………………………………………..
Desiring to see all people worship God in Spirit and truth, we endeavor to engage the culture through creative Biblical communication, one to one sharing of the message of Christ and acts of compassion toward those in need.

If those things ARE in fact shaping values for Passion then why does the lineup for Passion 2010 look like this?

Passion 2010

Louie Giglio. David Crowder. Chris Tomlin. Steve Fee. Beth Moore.
Hillsong United. Charlie Hall. Kristian Stanfill. Christy Nockels.

White. White. White. White. White.
White. White. White. White.

To be fair, not included in this graphic are Matt Redman, John Piper and Andy Stanley.

White. White. White.

Sorry Passion - but this is a big fail. If you really ARE serious about local clusters, the worldwide body and all peoples equipped and mobilized then you have a big disconnect with the people you are putting on your stage at this conference.

| asides | Comments (12) |

Hillsong United - Toronto - concert review

June 9, 2009 | 8:59 pm

I made it down to Ontario Place in Toronto on Saturday night to spend the evening with 10,000ish friends listening to Hillsong United and Bluetree. The event - a one-day festival put together by Unite Productions - was a big success and everyone really enjoyed themselves.

This was not the first time I’d seen Hillsong United live - they were in Toronto a few years ago and played at a large church in town. They’ve been back a bunch of times since then and have required bigger venues each time. This is the second year they played at Molson Amphitheatre at Ontario Place and the the whole night was great.

We made it down in time to catch the last half of Bluetree’s set. Most of the songs they played were the same from their set in Toronto with Vicky Beeching from last fall, including “God of this City.” The guys are great musicians and learning more and more about playing venues of this size. This is really something they’ve been thrust in to with the Chris Tomlin-induced success of “God of this City” so the band is playing some catch-up when it comes to working a crowd, etc. But, all in all, very solid set from these guys and I’m looking forward to seeing them again.

The always-awkward intermission was next and I’m not exactly sure why the break between bands needed to be 45 minutes but it definitely seemed like the guys on stage (including Hillsong’s youth pastor who made an appearance laster) were just killing time before getting Hillsong United on stage. On a pretty random sidenote, in all of my years of going to concerts I have NEVER been to one attended by a couple who had just been married. Not only did that happen on Saturday at this concert but it also happened at the Michael W. Smith concert in Hamilton last month - two concerts in a row where the bride & groom show up to the concert after being married without even taking the time to get changed. Nevermind the comments about having “better things to do”…

After intermission, the Hillsong United guys finally made it out. The show went pretty much as predicted - 4 or 5 hype songs at the beginning, leading to some more reflective stuff for a while, a quick build leading in to the youth pastor talk, some extended quieter response songs and then ending with the hyped up pump songs. I should have kept a songlist of the show because by the time they were done the band had played for about 3 hours and seemed to just keep going and going!

Hilights of the show for me -

  • Joel leading us in the chorus of “The Stand” and looking around at hands and hearts raised to God all over the amphitheatre - thinking about the impact of those lives surrendered to Him
  • Jill McCloghry (for everyone who was asking, she was the one in white on the right side of the stage) singing an incredibly beautiful new song (”At The Cross”?) which will apparently be on the new Hillsong Live album.
  • Brooke Fraser - that girl could sing the phone book and I’d be mesmerized. I love her voice, her demeanor, how she handles herself on stage - everything. She sang “Desert Song” and “None But Jesus” and also talked about the refining of her faith through struggles. Great wisdom and insight from her - really appreciated it.
  • The Hillsong United guys were obviously impacted by the level of engagement of the crowd. They made several comments about loving being in Toronto, their memories of being here and how the Toronto audience was really the first one to “accept them” and make them feel at home away from Australia.

All in all, it was a great night. Big thumbs up to Unite Productions for putting together such a great event. The guys at that company are awesome to work with and I’ll continue to do what I can to support them.

UPDATE: My friend Matt has posted some video of that incredible song from Jill. It’s called “His Glory Appears” - here you go!

| concerts, worship | Comments (0) |

Ed Stetzer in Toronto - September 30

June 5, 2009 | 7:39 am

Ed Stetzer is coming to Toronto in the fall to be part of a “Church Revitalization” event at Richview Church. If you are in church leadership and interested in the future of the church, you will want to be part of this. Here’s a quick bio blurb with more info on Ed -

ED STETZER has planted churches in New York, Pennsyl-vania, and Georgia and transitioned declining churches in Indiana and Georgia. He has trained pastors and church planters on five continents, holds two masters degrees and two doctorates, and has written dozens of articles and books. He is currently the Director of Lifeway Research and Lifeway’s Missiologist in Residence.

Event details -
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Richview Baptist Church - 1548 Kipling Ave., Etobicoke, ON
416-247-8701
12:00 pm—4:30 pm for Pastors (including lunch)
7:00 pm—9:00 pm for Church Leaders
info@FEBToronto.com

| asides, links | Comments (0) |

Prodigal Dog

June 4, 2009 | 3:38 pm

There’s gotta be a sermon illustration in here somewhere!! This article was on the front page of our local paper this week -

Details of this 40-kilometre adventure will never be known, though it’s sure to be a dog-gone good tale.

Exhausted, alone and hungry, Meeko, a four-year-old Orangeville pooch, found her way home after wandering off during a day trip.

She remains tight-lipped about her journey. Meeko offered not a single bark as she laid calmly at her master’s feet while the Jansen family shared the story — what they know of it anyway — of her disappearance and ultimate return.

Eleven days earlier, this laid-back lab cross started on a quest like none she’d known before.

You’ve got to see this. To get a sense of how far this dog actually traveled to get home, check this out -


View Larger Map

The distance starts to get impressive once you zoom out on the map. Wow!!

| asides | Comments (1) |

Hillsong United - Toronto - tickets available!

June 3, 2009 | 10:13 am

I know that lots of people are looking for more information and for tickets to the Hillsong United event happening in Toronto on Saturday, June 6th. Unite Productions has said that most of the good seats for the United part of the day are sold out but I’ve got a pretty sweet hook-up for you! If you are looking for all day passes at Ontario Place and tickets for the Hillsong United show, leave me a comment on this post and I will reply right away. I’ve got LEVEL 200 (SOLD OUT!) tickets available.

Here are the artists who are playing on Saturday -

    Hillsong United
    Bluetree
    Hello Kelly
    Manafest
    This Beautiful Republic
    Group1Crew
    Finochio
    Carried Away

That is a pretty sweet line-up of Canadian & international talent. If you are looking for tickets, comment here and I will be in touch. Make sure you include your email address!

| asides, concerts, worship | Comments (2) |

The Skit Guys - God’s Chisel

June 1, 2009 | 10:26 pm

This video (God’s Chisel from The Skit Guys) was making the rounds on twitter this week and we were able to use it on Sunday morning at OBC. Normally we never use videos this long but the content, production and delivery was so powerful that we decided to go ahead with it. We are working through a chunk of 2 Peter that is focused on spiritual growth and the push on Sunday morning was that growth isn’t about perfection, it’s about journey. We are often critical about the lack of perceived growth in our lives because we are not perfect in self-control or goodness, etc. The point, however, is that if we are connected to Jesus (John 15) then our lives will bear fruit. Rather than being focused on the character trait we should be focused on our connection with Jesus.

We showed this video right at the end of Earl’s message and it worked beautifully - people laughed at the right spots, nodded in agreement, took deep breaths at the meaningful moments. The impact was significant. Lots of people asked if we could post the video for others to see.

| ideas, links, worship, youtube | Comments (1) |

Worship Pastor position near Toronto, Ontario, Canada

June 1, 2009 | 9:15 am

I received an email late last week letting me know that Uxbridge Baptist Church is hiring a full-time worship pastor for their church northeast of Toronto. I know I’ve got some friends who are looking for a worship pastor position so I thought I’d post the info here.

If you are interested in applying, there’s instructions in the job posting which you can see here.

| links, worship | Comments (0) |

Prayer For Africa

May 29, 2009 | 12:28 pm

I`m gathering some resources that we may use on Sunday as part of the Global Day of Prayer and came across this video -


| links, worship | Comments (2) |

What Does Your Audience Want To Hear?

May 28, 2009 | 9:58 pm

You may not think of it this way but I’m pretty sure that most of us spend time in front of an audience every day. That audience could be your family, your friends, your co-workers, neighbours, a board or committee. Maybe the audience is a congregation for worship leaders or pastors. Maybe your audience is mostly online through your blog or twitter. Whoever you are, there are areas in your life where you have an audience.

Every Sunday I stand in front of an audience of hundreds of people who come from all over our region to gather together and worship. Each of those people come with different expectations and experiences from that past week, month, year. Each of those people are coming on that Sunday morning for different reasons - it might be because Sunday morning is a core piece of their spiritual growth, it might be because they are so wiped out on life that they just need some lifting up, it might be that this is the day that they’re giving God one more chance. Whatever their reason, something made them get out of bed and decide that instead of the countless other things they could be doing that morning, they were going to get in their car and make their way to church.

Why is it important to remember this? As a leader with an audience, you need to remember that part of your preparation must include this question - what do they want to hear? What is it that people are expecting to hear from the people who are getting “voice time” on Sunday morning? What are the kinds of things that they are waiting to hear from you?

As leaders, our role is certainly not all about telling people what they want to hear. There is enough of that - politicians, car salesmen and pastors are notorious for doing this and it’s not at all what I’m talking about. That person who walks through those doors on Sunday morning does not need you to simply blurt out what you think they need to hear.

What they do need, however, is to hear the things they are expecting in an unexpected way. If I was a preacher, I’d repeat that. People need to hear the things they are expecting in an unexpected way :)

Worship leaders - you have an incredible opportunity and responsibility to speak in to the lives of people who are gathering on Sunday morning. If you’ve spent considerable time thinking about and practicing the songs you are going to sing, why are you not spending considerable time thinking about and practicing the words you are going to say? Is your job on Sunday morning to simply sing the songs and get out of the way? No, it’s not. Your job is to lead worship - the songs are a tool to accomplish that. Your words are also part of leading worship, so use them well.

Want some specific things to help you begin to think about this?

  • Think about how you’re going to open the service - and no “Good morning, let’s stand to worship - here we go!” is not enough. And don’t be the one who walks out and tries the “Good morning! .. .. .. Well.. let’s try that again - gooood morrrrrniiiinnngggg!” That just tells the congregation you are nervous and unprepared. Yes people are in the room and have gathered for worship but put some brain time into a couple of intelligent thoughts that will help remind them of what we are doing when we gather together.
  • Realize that you shouldn’t speak between every song but if you ARE going to speak, make sure that what you say is relevant to the song before and the song after AND that the focus of your words is leading people in worship rather than pouring out your artist’s heart for 10 minutes all over a bunch of people who are getting tired of singing.
  • Remember that you are leading worship not just leading songs. If it’s just about leading songs, why are you up there? There are much better singers and musicians who could be leading the songs on video. If all you’re doing is closing your eyes and singing the song, you are not leading worship.

This post is actually the prelude to a second post which will be coming soon but I thought it would be worthwhile to get some of these thoughts out first.

What are your thoughts? Worship leaders - do you spend time thinking about what you’re going to say? Do you talk too much? Not enough?

| ideas, worship | Comments (3) |

Catalyst Music Project

May 27, 2009 | 3:25 pm

You may be familiar with the Catalyst Conference movement and all the cool stuff they’re up to. One of the new things they’ve just launched is the Catalyst Music Project. While I’m not crazy about the 18-page publishing contract that the winner has to sign, I do think that they are on to something very, very cool.

Check it out here - www.catalystmusicproject.com

We believe there are new anthems and worship songs being written on the hearts of our generation across this nation and around the world. This is a call to leaders who have a vision to share these songs with the body of Christ.

Catalyst Music Project | Aaron Keyes from Catalyst on Vimeo.

If you follow my twitter you know that I’ve been really excited about something called WorshipRises - I’m intrigued by some of the things Aaron is saying in this video and how much it resonates with some of the things going on in my own heart and mind right now. I’m excited to see the steps of this journey as Catalyst begins to uncover some of what God is doing in and through worship leaders around the world.

| links, songwriting, worship | Comments (2) |

Loop - Sing to the King

May 25, 2009 | 7:00 am

“Sing to the King” by Billy Foote & Charles Horne is a very simple song of declaration that’s pretty easy to teach and sing. If you are a church that’s going through a bit of a worship style transition and looking for a song to bridge from some older, more traditional songs to newer, contemporary songs then this could be a good pick. The melody is easy enough for most people to pick up the second or third time they hear it and the lyrics are very straightforward.

The last time we did this song I was looking to spice it up a bit by using a click track. We’ve been using click/loop tracks for about a year and a half at OBC and they’ve become another one of the instruments in the band. We don’t use them every week but when we do they help the band play better and give another sonic layer to the song.

I normally get all my click/loop tracks from PraiseCharts.com but they didn’t have one for this song so I went on a bit of a hunt. I found that Greg over at DigitalWorship.net had posted loops to use with an Ableton Live setup. I haven’t posted about Ableton before but basically it’s click/loops on steroids - guys who are using it can do phenomenal stuff - but right now we are using the standard linear kind of loop during our services.

I took the snippets that he posted on his site and put together a beginning-to-end loop that we used last week in our services. Have a listen -


(RSS readers you probably need to hit the blog)

The loop we used has a click track to keep our drummer on tempo with a one-bar count-in. You can download the loop here - it’s a stereo WAV file so you can separate the loop from the click.

Here’s the structure for the click -

(click only) One bar - count-in
Intro - 8 bars
Verse
Chorus
Turnaround - 8 bars
Verse
Chorus
Chorus
Turnaround - 16 bars
Verse
Chorus

| links, tools, worship | Comments (2) |

Sunday Quick Hits

May 24, 2009 | 11:12 pm

I haven’t been giving much time to doing full worship confessionals over the last little while and I’m not about to break that streak tonight. So hear are my Sunday quick hits from today -

  • Sunday is pretty much the only day that I don’t curse the alarm going off a 6:00 AM - I get jazzed about helping to make Sunday morning happen
  • We are continuing our “Grow UP!” series - if you thought it wasn’t possible to pull nine week of gooood content out of nine verses in 2 Peter, Earl Marshall has proven you wrong
  • We called a MAJOR audible between our 9:00 & 11:00 services and completely changed the order of service - I mean completely changed
  • The biggest reason for that was we had people sitting & listening for too long at our 9:00 service - keeping people engaged, active and compelled is key on Sunday morning
  • I wish someone would help visiting missionaries understand what congregations want to hear from them
  • I think we need to be clearer with people who are giving ministry updates on what will fire up our people
  • We baptized a high school girl today - beautiful example of INVEST and INVITE being lived out in relationship, now seeing this girl IGNITE and IMPACT - it is a beautiful thing
  • INVEST, INVITE, IGNITE, IMPACT - our 4 I’s of ministry strategy helping us to achieve our vision to Transform Our Region, Transform our world because of our mission to glorify God by making disciples who love God completely and others sacrificially
  • We only did two songs in our 11:00 service and - guess what! - it was still engaging, authentic worship
  • Don’t believe the lie that you need 6 songs and 25 minutes in a worship package to get people to a place of worship - use every moment of your worship set properly
  • I had this mental conversation during one of the verses in our 11:00 service - “Oh. You’re here today? Well, that’s interesting. And you came with her? Wow. Very cool. God, You know what’s going on - make it happen.”
  • Songs we did this morning - Unchanging by Chris Tomlin, Here I Am To Worship by Tim Hughes, It Is Well (9:00 only) and then just a verse/chorus meditation of May The Words by Tim Hughes
| textfessional, worship | Comments (2) |

William Paul Young (author of “The Shack”) on The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos

May 19, 2009 | 1:38 pm

Lots of you end up on this site because I’ve talked about “The Shack” several times - both about my interaction with the book and about my interaction with William Paul Young, the author. Paul was in southern Ontario last week and was part of a show on CBC called “The Hour” hosted by George Stroumboulopoulos. George has become a very well-respected journalist in Canada and I love his interview style.

If you want to see the interview (it’s less than 13 minutes) you can see it here - http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/videos.html?id=1124988848

After you watch, I’d love for you to come back and drop your thoughts in a comment. Here are mine -

  • .George is a fantastic interviewer. He gets to the heart of the matter very quickly and knows enough of the story & context to come off sounding well-informed and intrigued by the answers.
  • .Paul has heard every question in the book over the last couple of years and has an answer ready for every one of them. He has become very experienced at the interview thing.
  • .I am amazed and excited that a book written for this guy’s six kids has opened these kinds of doors for spiritual discussion. Agree or disagree, like him or not, Paul’s book has given the church new opportunities to talk about the gospel with those who have questions. Are you taking that opportunity??
  • .What is the deep, preconceived, misguided notion of God in my own life that I need to get rid of?
  • .Big thought on this one - there is NO WAY that CBC would have given this guy 15 minutes of airtime 10 years ago. No chance. Pretty awesome that he was given that opportunity to declare Jesus is the Word of God, that God is existent as the Trinity and that He is exceptionally fond of each of us. That is very cool.
| books, canada, links, tv | Comments (5) |

Love Story meets Viva La Vida

May 12, 2009 | 7:00 am

I can’t remember where I saw this posted first but it is too brilliant to not share. Seriously - genius!!

Avery, my 3-year old, is pretty much in love with Taylor Swift and at every possible opportunity is asking if she can listen to “the Juliette song.” She hasn’t heard this yet but I think she will be a big fan!

“Creativity is merely a plus name for regular activity. Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better.” -John Updike

| asides, youtube | Comments (4) |

Hillsong United in Toronto - contest!

May 11, 2009 | 12:54 pm

Hillsong United is coming to Toronto next month and the folks at Unite Productions are giving away some tickets. The response to the HU band is incredible every time they come to Toronto and lots of you are ending up at my site looking for Hillsong United info. So - here you go!

To enter the contest, click here and submit your info. The winner will be selected on May 15 and gets 4 tickets to the event on June 6.

| concerts, worship | Comments (0) |

Liveblog with Twitter

May 11, 2009 | 9:01 am

I’ve done the liveblog thing a few times using ScribbleLive and LOVE it - that is a great app for capturing thoughts in the moments, pulling in tweets from people who are in the room and a quick, easy way to help people track along with an event you are attending. But.. What if you are at an event you’d like to liveblog but can’t take your computer? Wouldn’t it be great to somehow connect WordPress and Twitter to let liveblogging happen?? Well, now you can!

Does this sound like an infomercial pitch yet?? :)

There’s this great WordPress plugin called Twitter LiveBlog that works beautifully - I put it to the test last week when I was at an event with Bill Hybels. You can check out my liveblog post from that event here.

Basically it works like this. Install the plugin and update all the settings with your Twitter account info. To begin a new liveblog post you simply send //NLB// (title) as a tweet from your phone or Twitter app. Whatever you put as “(title)” after “//NLB//” will become the title of your new liveblog post.

Begin sending tweets through the event. Let people know that you are liveblogging and you may be tweeting more often than you normally do. The tricky part is sending updates that will be helpful and relevant to BOTH your Twitter and blog audiences.

When the event is done, send //ELB// as your last tweet and the plugin will know that you are finished. Voila!

If you’re on Twitter, you can follow my updates at @chrisfromcanada

| tools, twitter | Comments (0) |

Worship Confessional - Sunday, May 10, 2009

May 10, 2009 | 11:02 pm

It’s been a while since I’ve posted with a recap of Sunday morning but I’ll try and do some catch up. Today was the second week of a 9-week series we’re doing called “Grow UP!” The content of this series is from 2 Peter 1:3-11. Yes, 9 weeks focused on a 9 verse chunk of scripture. And these are 9 verses full of some GOOD stuff.

Here’s our outline -

Because of Your Love - Paul Baloche - G
Great Things - Matt Maher - G
Sing to the King - Billy Foote - E
Mother’s Day focus
Announcements/Offering
Child Dedications
Communion
My Hope Is Jesus - Hillsong (CD with video)
Jesus You Are Worthy - Brenton Brown - C
Message - 2 Peter 1:5
Prayer

Some of my thoughts after today’s services -

  • People came ready to sing today and the combo of that with some good leadership from Rebecca helped things get real focused, real quick! The two opening songs work really well together (same key, similar progressions) and had some good energy to get things going. “Sing to the King” is a new one for us and people picked it up quickly.
  • Earl took some time to honour moms today and did it with sincerity and meaning. Our service was NOT all about moms (it was much more about Jesus and the work of the Spirit in our lives!) but we did take some time to show moms our appreciation.
  • Lots of visitors for child dedications this morning. We are a church with lots of young families and lots of babies (we had 25 babies born in a church of 500 a couple of years ago!) and dedicating kids is a significant thing for us. We are still working out exactly the best way to do this in a way that is significant and memorable - I’d love to hear how other churches are doing child dedications.
  • Today was the third Sunday in a row that I wasn’t leading. It’s the longest I’ve gone in my time at OBC without leading and I didn’t like it. The scheduling just worked out this way but I don’t want to do that again. Going four weeks between being the voice of our worship ministry isn’t ideal.
  • Orangeville is not a university town so when our talented, musical high school students graduate we lose them (and other churches GAIN them!) for 8 months or longer, depending on whether or not they actually come home to mom and dad for the summer. I connected with a bunch of our university students who are back home and excited about playing this summer. That pumps me up!
  • We closed our service by asking people to prioritize spiritual disciplines in their lives so that they are training (not trying) towards spiritual growth. We gave opportunity for people to stay and pray after the service if they wanted and several did - it was amazing to see people that we as leaders have been praying for over the last several months or years taking some time to talk to God about their own spiritual growth. I think today was a landmark day for some people at OBC.
  • This series is right up Earl’s alley - it’s a great meshing together of some of the things that have been happening in his own life over the past couple of years and he’s got the opportunity to be sharing some of that right alongside with what scripture has to say about spiritual growth.

Check our more posts like this at Sunday Setlists

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A Day With Bill Hybels - liveblog

May 7, 2009 | 10:21 am

10:17:18 AM: Heading down with some of our staff to take in a day of coaching with Bill Hybels. I’ll be live blogging everything via twitter.

10:53:47 AM: Good to see some familiar faces today. Reconnecting is really my favourite part of stuff like this.

11:08:05 AM: Interesting format from Hybels - no intro, straight to questions from the crowd. Here we go!

11:12:28 AM: Re: young adults in church - “there is no flash flashy enough to draw that generation.” -Hybels

11:26:15 AM: “Pastors put in 2x the effort on getting their people fired up about evangelism and get 1/4x the results compared to discipleship.” -Hybels

11:30:02 AM: “The worst response to ‘failure’ in evangelism is to stop sowing seeds.” -Hybels

11:46:31 AM: Lots of good stuff here with Hybels. Exciting to think about the impact of these words in churches around southern Ontario.

11:50:17 AM: “The non-stop work of the Holy Spirit is to move us towards complete Christ-centredness.” -Hybels

12:05:29 PM: Re: satellite/regional campuses - “If you replicate weakness, you’ll get weakness. Replicate strength and you may get strength.” -Hybels

12:24:11 PM: “We have to be more concerned about the potential of the church than we are about protecting our jobs.” -Hybels

12:32:41 PM: Time for lunch. Great stuff so far. Thanks for the replies and RT’s on this - more coming this afternoon.

1:38:28 PM: Mmmmm… Conference lunch. You’ve had it before - you know you have!

1:46:28 PM: First post-lunch question is all about boards and church governance. Excuse me for a moment while I… Zzzzz…

1:56:13 PM: Hybels laying out his thoughts on emerging church (whatever that is). More good stuff.

2:01:25 PM: “Let’s build churches that have as many missional maniacs as possible. How you get those maniacs is up to you.” -Hybels

2:05:09 PM: All of Willow’s classes (some of them seminary level) are available free on their website. Didn’t know that.

2:20:17 PM: “You do not want to have a fuzzy weekend brand.” -Hybels. Dang.

2:21:23 PM: Hybels spending a big chunk of time related to changes they made to Sunday and why. Right up my alley.

2:23:04 PM: “The hidden treasure in service planning is pre- and post-service content.” -Hybels

2:24:16 PM: Hybels is going off on creative team desires to plan WAAAAY in advance. @earlmarshall is nudging me to pay very close attention :)

2:29:24 PM: “Too many communicators&worship leaders will change your brand. Sunday AM needs a voice.” -Hybels (he’s not saying there should only be 1)

2:30:13 PM: “Sunday morning singers have to be evocative, sincere and able to emotionally move a room.” -Hybels

2:36:16 PM: “I’m not Willow-bashing. I actually like the place!” -Hybels. Hilarious.

2:39:46 PM: Thanks for all the replies and questions about Hybels’ thoughts on programming. I will blog this week. Great stuff.

2:53:05 PM: Hybels talking about his own personal and spiritual replenishment. Obvious that lots of guys in the room need to hear this.

2:59:47 PM: “Don’t play the blame game. You’ll only be postponing the dance with emptiness.” -Hybels

3:36:44 PM: Great day with Bill Hybels & a bunch of leaders. Lots of great stuff. Looking forward to processing my thoughts soon. Thanks for following.

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