“you’re famous”
The subject of an email from my friend Mark after seeing that Nancy Beach has blogged about an idea I mentioned at our Willow training event last week.

Remember the idea from this post?

Nancy Beach blogged about it in this post.

Are you famous?

We just finished our final service walkthrough meeting and this is what we’ve got for Sunday morning:

Sunday, September 30, 2007
“The Bible: God’s Message To You”
Filled With Your Glory - F
God Of Wonders – G
Holy, Holy, Holy – D
Announcements/Offering
Prayer
This Is Our God – D
Jesus, Lamb Of God (chorus only) – Eb -> F -> G
Message – “God’s Message Is Redemption”
Video – “The Book”
Glory Of It All – A

If you think we’re doing “Glory Of It All” only because Crowder’s record came out this week, you’d be wrong! ;) I’ve actually been planning on using that song during this service for a couple of months – good timing, Mr. Crowder!

I wonder who else is doing that song this week?

David Crowder Band – Remedy – B+
Nice effort but nothing spectacular. The best tracks are ones we’ve already heard before.

Shane & Shane – Pages – A-
Good effort from these guys after taking some time off. “Burn Us Up” and “Before The Throne Of God Above” are hilights.

Soularize - InMotion – C
I know that you guys don’t like what’s happening in the current church worship culture but do you really think that a song called “Kiss Of His Mouth” is the way to go?

Johnny Cash – My Mother’s Hymn Book – A
No evil must ever be spoken of Johnny. Great takes on “I’ll Fly Away” and “In The Sweet By And By.”

What are you listening to?

I think yesterday was a landmark day in my life as a leader. I have not always been sure of why God has called me to certain things but it was with great confidence that I went to spend the day with some worship pastors from around Ontario, knowing that God had called me to be a catalyst in connecting these guys on that day.

About a year ago two friends approached me with some questions concerning their roles as worship pastors and how certain things were working in their churches. Out of those discussions we wondered if there was some kind of support network in place for worship pastors. What we found was that there were training and developing events for worship leaders, worship team members and church staff worship pastors but we didn’t really find anything in place that encouraged neworking, support events where worship pastors could connect, develop relationships and share the experience of being on staff at a church with worship/arts as their main ministry focus.

So we decided to dig a little deeper. Was this something that was needed? Would other worship pastors see the value in something like this? The answer was overwhelmingly “YES!”

Yesterday was our first time together. We had 14 worship pastors from all over southern Ontario who came together to meet each other, learn from each other and spend time in worship. It was a great day and I am excited to see what is next for us.

The consensus is that we will facilitate regional gatherings between now and Christmas in 4 or 5 locations in southern/central Ontario and then plan to meet again collectively in January for another day together of encouragement, questions, answers, honesty and spending time in worship without having to watch the clock, worry about transitions, the drummer’s crazy time signature, the crying baby or any of those other things we worry about when we’re leading :)

Are you a part of something like this?

David Crowder Band – Remedy released today. 

Local Christian bookstore – $14.99
WorshipMusic.com – $12.99 + shipping
iTunes - $9.99
Amazon – $8.99

I don’t know what Jesus would do but I know what I did.

What did you do?

Watched it for the first time last night. I’m not really a big TV guy – other than hockey and WonderPets – so it’s nice to have a show that I think I can call my own for the next few years.

Anyone got the DVD’s of Season 1 that they’d be interested in sending up to Canada? Eh?

Here’s the set list we had on Sunday -

Holy Is The Lord – Chris Tomlin – G
How Awesome Is Our God – Chris Vacher & Craig Douglas – C
Jesus You Are Worthy – Brenton Brown – C
Prayer
This Is My Father’s World – Franklin Sheppard & Mary Babcock – D
Centre – Charlie Hall – E
Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus – E
Message
Video – iBible
May The Words Of My Mouth – Tim Hughes – Bb
Announcements
Vision

You’ll see that we made one change from what I had planned to do – dropped “Salvation Belongs” and added the chorus of “Turn Your Eyes.” Worked really well.

 Two hilights from the service for me:

• Always cool to hear how the congregation will respond to a song that I’ve written. “How Awesome Is Our God” is a song that has been kicking around our church as a stand-alone chorus for about a year but when I took it to a songwriting session we developed it as a verse, added a chorus and bridge and came out with a nice little anthemic song about the greatness of God. The congregation seemed to really catch on pretty quickly and having the song come out of “Holy Is The Lord” was a good choice.
• Lots of people in our congregation really appreciate when we do the more traditional stuff and so we make an effort to include music from every generation in our service planning process. At the same time, while we are trying to value history, we are also trying to create history. So to hear the congregation pick up a song like “Centre” (not the easiest song to sing through) and actually worship while we’re doing it was awesome. I’m excited about the direction we’re heading in. Of course new songs and writing songs are only a couple of ways that we’re going to create history in this town. Another one of those ways is coming in a couple weeks – you’ll see :)

What history are you creating?

Here’s a link to the iTunes iMix for most of the songs we did -
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewIMix?id=264850254

I’m not convinced that he doesn’t do this simply for the sake of getting a reaction.

I have two daughters – Avery and Emerson – and both are equally interesting, enjoyable and hilarious. Being almost two years old, Avery is really starting to blossom in to a full-blown toddler and it is awesome to watch. Right now the hilight of my life is listening her to say really funny things, like:

Planes go faster than a house.

Mom, is it windy, though?

Go church, see Papa’s gitt-ah?

This morning I was lying in bed and heard her little clock radio come on. That means my wife is getting her up. Go, Sonya! Anyways, the radio is playing away and all of a sudden some Johnny Cash comes on. In case you’re wondering, I LOVE Johnny Cash. So does Avery, apparently, because from her bedroom I can hear that she’s dancing and clapping away to the Man In Black.

Way to go, Avery Lyn! Dancing to Johnny Cash will only lead you to good places in your life :)

What are you dancing to?

We’re beginning a short two-week series called “The Bible: God’s Message To You” and I’m looking forward to it. If you were hanging around during our “After God’s Own Heart” series you may have picked up that there are some significant heart things going on in my life and God has renewed my love for His word and for His church.

This week is all about the fact that the Bible is from God. Next week is all about the message. I’m looking forward to these two weeks – our Associate Pastor, Dan,  and Director of Youth Ministries, Kevin, will be preaching the next two weeks and then from now until Christmas things will get nuts around here – more on that next week but please pray for me and for our church! We are anticipating that God is going to do great and amazing things!!

Sunday, September 23, 2007
“The Bible: God’s Message To You”
Holy Is The Lord – Chris Tomlin – G
How Awesome Is Our God – Chris Vacher & Craig Douglas – C
Jesus You Are Worthy – Brenton Brown – C
Prayer
This Is My Father’s World – Franklin Sheppard & Mary Babcock (their CD rocks!) – D
Center – Charlie Hall – E
Salvation Belongs To Our God – A
Message
Video – iBible
May The Words Of My Mouth – Tim Hughes – Bb
Announcements
Vision

Last week Earl’s vision blurb was on the importance of Sunday morning, small groups and spiritual disciplines to ignite our spiritual lives. This week he’ll be talking about our opportunity to impact our region and our world through serving in ministry. Our vision is to “Transform Our Region, Transform Our World” (we’re a little crazy, don’t you think?!!) and the four components of our strategy to do that are

invest – invite – ignite – impact

and we believe God has given us the opportunity to do those things and we’re EXCITED about it!

What are you excited about?