“How Big Is Our God” – 1 Kings 19
Call to Worship
Holy Is The Lord – G
Unchanging – G
In Christ Alone – D
Meet & Greet
Announcements
Offering
Yahweh – Hillsong – B
Message – “Big Enough To Restore”
Restore My Soul – Andi Rozier – E

This was the third week of our series looking at the life of Elijah and how God’s big-ness is displayed over and over again in his life. After looking at the “showdown at high noon” last week, we see an Elijah who is afraid, depressed, angry and totally without hope. How quickly Elijah goes from the mountaintop (literally!) experience of seeing God do the incredible to the desert (literally!) experience of questioning God’s call on his life.

Three things from this past Sunday -

1. Our pastor, Earl Marshall, talked last week about worship and how our worship & our expressiveness is not done to call down the presence of God in to our midst but, instead, is done as a result of the fact that God has come down to be in our midst. Our singing, raising hands, bowing down, etc is not done so that God will come and be among His people but, rather, in response to God having come to be among His people. That is a massive distinction! The prophets of Baal from 1 Kings 18 were dancing, shouting, slashing themselves so that their god would be among them. The church expresses itself in worship in response to God already being in our midst.
   We moved that idea along from last week by beginning this week’s service by singing two songs that talk about raising our hands, bowing down, expressing ourselves in worship because of who God is and what He’s done. I opened our service by reminding people of what we are doing and why we are doing it when we gather – that even our gathering is a response to the new life we have been given through Christ.
2. We taught “Yahweh” – not sure if the song was too high or too hard or too something else but it didn’t seem like people engaged. We’ll give it another shot. There are a couple other songs on the new Hillsong CD that I’d consider teaching our church. We’ll see.
3. “Restore My Soul” is a great song by Andi Rozier. The verse melody is known from “When I Survey” and, I think, other Irish folk songs. The lyrics of both verses and the chorus fit the theme and direction of our morning perfectly – that when God is doing the work of restoration in our lives, we must be directed back to the cross for true comfort and to be reminded that the great call on our life continues despite our distraction.

Last Sunday we began a new series at OBC that is taking us through the life of Elijah. We’re asking the question “How big is our God?” and looking at the life of Elijah to see how God’s big-ness is displayed in different ways. I’ll do another post on this but one of the beautiful things about this series is that LifeChurch has already done an Elijah series and offers all of their graphics, videos and logos for free through their Open site. Ridiculously helpful! This is the second time we’ve used LC graphics and I’m so thankful that God has allowed them to release resources like that.

On Sunday we looked at what is probably the most well-known episode from Elijah’s life – the “high noon” showdown with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel from 1 Kings 18 & 19. Our pastor, Earl Marshall, did a great job of setting the scene for this confrontation and explaining that this is really biblical theatre at its finest. There is the immediate of what is going on – Elijah versus the 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah – as well as the showdown between Yahweh and Baal. Behind these two layers there is also the third level of confrontation where the prophetic “word of the Lord” confronts each one of us as we read the story, hear the words of Elijah and see the display of God’s power.

Here’s what our service looked like -

“How big is our God?” – Sunday, September 20, 2009
1 Kings 18 & 19
God of Wonders – G
Psalm 96 – Responsive Reading
Holy, Holy, Holy – C -> D
Hosanna (United) – E
Communion
Wonderful Cross – D
Offering – E
Message – ‘Big enough to worship?’
You Are God Alone

Three things to hilight from this service -

1. I was off stage this week. I try to do that every 6-8 weeks and turn over rehearsal and leading to other very competent people who serve in our worship ministry. Lots of reasons for doing this but here’s a real easy one – if the only time I was off stage were the weeks that I was on vacation, I’d spend too much vacation time worrying about whether or not Sunday morning went okay. By doing this several times a year I’m able to do consistent development with our leaders, musicians and AV teams. And – believe it or not! – everything went just fine (actually, better than fine) on Sunday without me being on stage leading our people.
2. We did an extended opening on Sunday. Moving right from ‘God of Wonders’ in to the Psalm 96 responsive reading (both of those elements had really nice energy and created some good momentum at the beginning of the service) I came up on stage and spoke very briefly about what it means that God is holy. We sing or say that word and have an understanding of the other-ness or uniqueness of God and how He is set apart but it sometimes can be a word that is too ‘big’ for us to really grasp. I encouraged our congregation to remember that in every attribute, every characteristic, God is holy, set apart, like no other. The love of God is unlike any other love – His love is holy. The grace of God is unlike any other grace – His grace is holy. Mercy, faithfulness, justice, on and on and on – in each of those, God is holy. Going from that into ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’ moved things along nicely and helped establish our theme for the morning.
3. We had a great morning even if the services were a little “full” as things tend to be in September in church world. Not sure what we can do to ease the overflow of startup information during the first few weeks of the fall but I’d be interested in hearing how people balance the desire to have information communicated with the reality that we only have 80 or 85 minutes of gathering time when we meet. We are very focused in the kinds of things we hilight from the platform but there’s just lots of things that fall in to that category – mission-critical, church-wide, strategic, etc etc. All good things, just too many of them brought to peoples’ attention all at once.

So while I enjoyed being off stage for the singing part of our service, I’m looking forward to being back on this week and leading our church on Sunday morning. Lots more recaps and confessionals like this over at Fred McKinnon’s site. Check them out.

U2. SkyDome. Toronto. 60,000 of my closest friends. My wife beside me the whole time. Doesn’t get much better than that. My first – I’m hoping not last – time seeing U2 live and from what I hear these guys are on the top of their game.

The show ran 2+ hours and U2 pulled out all the stops – the local Toronto references to Yonge Street and the Toronto International Film Festival, old and new favourites and of course the ridiculous stage setup nicknamed “The Claw”. Everything about the night was impressive – the look of the SkyDome with the roof wide open and the CN Tower looming overhead, the ridiculous LED screen above the stage, the live concert DVD quality content that showed up on those screens, the audio mix, on and on and on.

A couple of strange moments – at the end of one song Bono’s wireless mic began losing signal and there was a good amount of static for 15 seconds or so. I’m sure someone got fired. Then towards the end of the first set, things turned a little and became less about “the show” and more about U2′s message. For this tour, the band is focusing on raising awareness for the situation in Iran as well as in Burma and they used two songs – Sunday Bloody Sunday and Walk On – to do that. To be honest, I’m a bit beyond artists using their platform to simply “raise awareness” for issues without giving the audience an opportunity or an encouragement to be mobilized in some way. It seemed to lessen the original significance of those songs and the Walk On moment, particularly with the volunteers holding up masks and walking the stage, came off a bit high school talent show for U2.

(Hit the pause button. I’m not saying that the two issues they are hilighting are not worth the awareness. I’m saying that the WAY Bono and U2 did it seemed to be very disconnected from the rest of the night.)

All in all, this was a night I hope I’ll never forget. It was worth every dollar, every moment, every bit of lost sleep once we finally pulled in to our driveway at 2:30 in the morning knowing our kids would wake us up four hours later :)

If you want a bit more of a play-by-play of how the night progressed, here’s my twitter feed from the show –

#Toronto #theclaw on Twitpic">#Toronto #theclaw on Twitpic" target="_blank">#U2 #Toronto #theclaw

#panorama on Twitpic">#panorama on Twitpic" width="631" target="_blank"> The roof is open at SkyDome for #U2 #panorama

iPhone battery is proving to be pretty lame compared to BB Pearl I switched from. Not sure if it will last.

The biggest question I’m left with after the #U2 show: What am I spending my life on? Thanks fellas.

What are you doing tonight? This is where I’ll be!

I’ve never seen U2 live but four years ago, after U2′s last tour stop in Toronto, my wife and I decided that we would go see them the next time they came through. This is that next time! So tonight we’ll be at SkyDome with 50,000 of our closest friends and one really great Irish rock band.

The incredible part about tonight is that the weather is going to co-operate for the roof to be open! The only time the roof has ever been open for a concert at SkyDome is when Bruce Springsteen was here back in 2003. They had the roof open last night and it looks like they’ll be able to do it again tonight. U2 has been talking all along about doing everything they can to make the stage “feel” as big as the stadium and now that we’ll be under the stars in downtown Toronto, this will be a night I will remember for a long time.

Lots of reports last night of cell phone signals being totally jammed in the stadium (probably partly because of people sending photos to Twitpic, etc) but I’ll see if I’m able to get some photos and send them along. Check the Twitpics over on the sidebar or follow along on twitter tonight – @chrisfromcanada

Thanks to everyone who commented, tweeted and facebooked the Chris Tomlin giveaway. I used random.org to choose a winner and the lucky person is..

Dan Brubacher!

Congratulations Dan! I know you were excited about seeing this show and here’s your chance. I’ll have the Unite Productions guys get in touch with you to work out the details for your tickets and your copy of the Chris Tomlin CD.

PS I know the post says 19 comments and the randomizer image says 20 – there was one comment from Renee that included her twitter/facebook links but it wouldn’t show up on the post for some reason.

“Worship Team Director” from Integrity Music

Worship Team Director is a complete training and presentation tool for worship teams that instructs team members how to play and sing songs at home in rehearsal and performance. WTD comes complete with instrument specific instructional and practice material as well as enhanced performance media to allow any size worship team to effectively work from practice through to performance.

The Gateway Worship Collection includes all the powerful songs from both Gateway releases: “Living For You” and “Wake Up the World”.

Songs Include:
Come Thou Fount, Come Thou King – You, You Are God – Living For You – Only One For Me – No Sweeter Name – Every Breath – Revelation Song – Bound – Reason I’m Alive – Overtaken – New Doxology – New Doxology Anthem – The Lord Reigns – Real – God of My Days – You Are Good – Alabaster Jar – We Cry Out – Save Me – When I Speak Your Name – We’ll Make It Loud – Wake Up the World – Call Your Name – Beautiful

The Band Pack Box Set Includes:

Five Band DVDs
# Drums / Percussion
# Bass / Acoustic Guitar (2 copies)
# Rhythm / Lead Electric Guitar
# Piano / Keyboards

Vocal Parts DVD (2 copies)
# Lead
# Tenor
# Alto
# Soprano

Media DVD
# Mix-enhancing Audio
# Split Tracks
# Click / Song Cues Left, Instruments Right
# MPEG Video Presentation Files, Includes Mix Enhancements

Each DVD volume is available to be purchased separately.

RSS folks – hit the blog on this one, for sure! I really want you to see the new look.

I’m guessing there are still some issues to figure out. Let me know in the comments what’s broken. Is the Internet Explorer version still all jacked up?

For the anal retentive ones in the group, yes the pictures behind me in the video are a little crooked. Apparently Macs are not genius enough yet to figure out how to fix that :)

Alright – so head over to the blog – www.chrisfromcanada.com – and have a look around. Leave some comments and let me know what needs to be fixed. Thanks everyone!

Chris Tomlin is coming to Canada this fall and I’m teaming up with my friends at Unite Productions to give you the chance to be at the event for free AND win a copy of the new Chris Tomlin CD, “Hello Love”. Chris Tomlin and his band will be joined by Kristian Stanfill for shows in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton and Calgary. You can find more details by visiting the Unite Productions website here – www.uniteproductions.com

So here’s how this contest is going to work. The tickets are only available for the shows in MONTREAL, TORONTO or SASKATOON. If you live in one of the other cities and are interested in going, you better move quick because the show is either sold out or very close! Alright.. So we’ve got two tickets available to one of those three shows – Montreal, Toronto, Saskatoon – as well as a copy of Chris Tomlin’s new CD, “Hello Love”.

How can you enter? Let’s do the contest this way -

1. Leave a comment on this post and include the title of your favourite Chris Tomlin or Kristian Stanfill song.

2. Post about this comment on Twitter, Facebook or your own blog and then come back here and post a second comment with a link to your tweet, blog or Facebook post. That will count as a second entry.

3. The winner will be announced on September 16 and I’ll email that person that day.

Remember – this contest is only for the Chris Tomlin shows in Montreal, Toronto and Saskatoon so it would be helpful if you were able to go to one of those shows :)

Let’s do this – enter away!

“You Are” by Mark Roach is on iTunes here or you can check out more of Mark’s website at www.markroach.com

My wife & I are jumping on board the Great Ship Apple very shortly and I was going back and forth on whether or not we should buy twitter friends!

What’s the general vibe on AppleCare for MacBooks? Good decision? Do most buyers get it?

And here are the incredibly helpful replies that came back –

good decision

hey man stongly suggest. The plasic on the mouse pad can crack on the macbooks. Mine is in getting repaired!

Apple care rocks.

I didn’t buy it when I bought my iBook in 2005, still running smoothly. Also have 2 year old MacBook, replaced HD in it. The great thing about it, is that you have one year after purchase to decide if you want to buy it or not.

I would buy it again for every Mac I ever get ever again.

great decision.

apple care is a must get. my superdrive has gone out 2x’s and they replaced it and had it back in my hands in 32 hours.

Def get AppleCare no question. Has saved me and my employer thousands over the years. Apple designs amazing gear but parts manufacturers aren’t flawless. Displays can go bad…logic boards can short out.

i get it for home, we don’t at church, 20+ macs, we play the odds there

Once again, the collective wisdom of twitter proves to be very valuable!