2011 Archives - Chris From Canada

Archive - 2011

Top 13 Songs of 2011

December 30, 2011 in worship with 3 Comments

I couldn’t let the year end without a legit Top 10 list, so here you go! I was going to give you the Top 10 but the bottom 4 were all done the same number of times so I needed to include all of them. The 13 songs we did the most at OBC this year –

Our God Is Mercy – Brenton Brown, Eoghan Heaslip, Nick Herbert

Glory to God Forever – Steve Fee, Vicky Beeching

Our God – Matt Redman, Chris Tomlin, Jonas Myrin, Jesse Reeves

Your Kingdom – Chris Vacher, Joshua Seller

Christ Is Risen – Matt Maher, Mia Fieldes

Everlasting God – Brenton Brown, Ken Riley

Here I Am To Worship – Tim Hughes

Holy Is The Lord – Chris Tomlin, Louie Giglio

Hosanna – Paul Baloche, Brenton Brown

Joyful (One Who Saves) – Brenton Brown, Jason Ingram

One Thing Remains – Brian Johnson, Christa Black, Jeremy Riddle

Stronger – Ben Fielding, Reuben Morgan

Greatness Of Our God – Reuben Morgan, Stuart David Garrard, Jason Ingram

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

My Top 11 Posts of 2011

December 29, 2011 in blogs,canada,funny,ideas with Comments Off

Ha! You & I both know you don’t need another Top 11 post of anything right now.

Happy new year!

For being a good sport, here’s a video of Canadian icon Don Cherry playing his piano desk –

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

Bob Kauflin – Piano in Contemporary Worship

December 14, 2011 in tools,worship with Comments Off

If you’ve been around the blog for a while, you’ll know that I appreciate Bob Kauflin and what he offers the worship leader community. If you haven’t read his book, Worship Matters, you need to change that.

Bob posted outlines and video from a workshop he led recently which I thought I’d share here. I know that I have piano players in my own church who are trained classically but can’t understand how I put chord shapes together, how to read chord charts, when not to play, etc. Bob does a great job outlining some of the ways that a piano can fit into a band mix really nicely for contemporary worship.

Here are links to the original posts –

The Piano in Contemporary Worship, Part 1

The Piano in Contemporary Worship, Part 2

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

Chris Tomlin – Coming back to Canada!

December 13, 2011 in concerts,worship with Comments Off

I’m excited that Chris Tomlin is coming back on tour in Canada and if I’m honest I’ll say that I’m actually a bit more excited to see All Sons & Daughters will be coming with him. This is a tour you will not want to miss!

All kinds of details available from our friends at Unite Productions.

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

Augustine’s Christmas Prayer

December 7, 2011 in christmas,prayer with Comments Off

Let the just rejoice,
for their Justifier is born.

Let the sick and infirm rejoice,
for their Savior is born.

Let the captives rejoice,
for their Redeemer is born.

Let slaves rejoice,
for their Master is born.

Let free men rejoice,
for their Liberator is born.

Let all Christians rejoice,
for Jesus Christ is born.

- Augustine of Hippo (AD 354-440)

James 1:17 “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

Reconnect Tech Conference

November 24, 2011 in tools,worship with Comments Off

Back in August a friend of mine posted what she thought was an innocent little thought on twitter -

Thinking that we really need a tech conference here in ON for our church volunteers
August 26, 2011 10:56 am via Twitter for iPhone ReplyRetweetFavorite
@janettie
Janette Marie

Little did she know that the response to this tweet would be so fast and encouraging that there is now a team of 20+ worship pastors & tech directors working towards making this need for a church tech volunteer conference in Ontario become reality.

The Reconnect Tech Conference will happen Friday, April 27 & Saturday, April 28 at Calvary Pentecostal Assembly in Cambridge, ON. The focus of this conference will be geared specifically towards tech volunteers at smaller churches in Ontario – you may not have a ton of volunteers or a ton of dollars but you’ve got commitment, desire and the willingness to be part of a great team.

Registration for the Reconnect will open January 9 and you can keep up with all of the conference on our website – www.thereconnect.ca

You can also follow updates on twitter @reconnecttech and on facebook/reconnecttech

Interested in helping to put this event together? Looking to join as a sponsor or partner? Comment here or send an email to info@thereconnect.ca and we’ll get you connected.

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

Square Pegs In Round Holes?

November 21, 2011 in ideas,worship with 2 Comments

Sometimes there are songs which come around that say all the right things, hit all the right notes, put an old thought inside a fresh melody but.. for some reason.. I just can’t picture using them on a Sunday morning with my church.

It can feel like these songs are square pegs that I’m trying to fit in to the round hole of Sunday morning.

“Death In His Grave” by John Mark McMillan is one of those songs. I love the song, I love the lyric, I love the melody. Yet I haven’t been able to wrap my head around using it on a Sunday morning.

Not these guys. Major kudos to Church on the Move for not only putting together an incredible performance but for putting several pieces together to make it work – the intro video, the screens, the look of the stage, the singers, the instrumentation.. everything. What a great song.

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

Lead Worship Like A Boy Scout

November 17, 2011 in ideas,worship with 2 Comments

As a kid, my mom wanted to make sure that my brother & I had significant male role modeling in our lives since she was raising us on her own. Beavers, Cubs and Boy Scouts were a normal part of my life until I was 12 or 13 and I’ve got tons of memories of camping trips, earning badges, spending time with other kids my age and the constant reminders to be prepared.

I haven’t given much thought to my Boy Scout days in any significant way lately but that encouragement to be prepared has come in handy more than once lately.

What does that have to do with being a worship leader?

On Sunday morning, our band started a song in two keys. Not ideal, obviously.

Most of us were playing in the correct key, some of us were playing in a different key. No names shall be revealed :) We had tried the song in two different keys at rehearsal but somewhere along the way there was a slip-up when it came to communicating which key was the right one for Sunday morning.

So.. imagine that situation for you on a Sunday morning. What do you do? Do you try to get everyone on the same key? Do you stop the song? Do you run off stage?

We can’t have contingency plans for every single possible thing that could go wrong – What if the power goes out? What if my guitar strap breaks? What if the drum shield falls over? BUT.. As leaders, we can be prepared to be the one to step up if – and when! – something goes wrong.

So in our “one song, two keys” case, what did I do? We stopped the song. I politely and sheepishly admitted to the congregation that we had screwed up, thanked them for showing us lots of grace and letting us start over in the right key.

Everyone chuckled, embraced the moment and when we came back in with the song the second time do you know what happened? They sang louder! They gave us their vocal encouragement by lifting their voices together, knowing full well that the worship team is a bunch of humans who make mistakes but are prepared to handle those mistakes with grace and confidence in a way that serves the congregation.

What about you? Have you had a moment in your worship leading recently where it really helped to be prepared?

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

A Little Encouragement

November 9, 2011 in ideas,worship with Comments Off

I had coffee this summer with a new friend who leads worship at another church in town. We had lots to talk about and our conversation quickly turned to our own worship teams – people who are incredibly committed, love the Lord, love to serve the church and overall a group of people who just have a ton of fun together.

We started talking about finding a way that we could gather worship ministry volunteers from churches all over our town as an opportunity to encourage them and to provide them with a way of meeting one another. If you are involved in worship at a smaller church you know that it can be frustrating to come up against an issue and feel like you’ve got nobody to turn to. For many churches in our town, the same people are planning and leading worship services every week and there really isn’t a way for these people who are all passionate about the same kinds of things to get connected.

So we decided to do something about that.

To give you a bit of a picture, I live in a town of about 35,000 people with maybe 50,000 people in our region. We are pretty rural, lots of commuters. Most of the churches in/around our town would normally have between 100-250 people attending on a Sunday morning and ours is the only one with a worship pastor/director on staff.

This past Saturday we hosted a breakfast at our church and invited worship team volunteers from any church in our town to come. We ended up having close to 40 people attend from 6 or 7 churches – definitely not every volunteer from every represented but that wasn’t the goal for this first one.

We started at 8:00, welcomed people with Starbucks and a chance to just mingle and talk. Some women from our church put together an incredible (no joke – it was incredible!) breakfast for us to enjoy. I encouraged people to sit with people from different churches at their table. We wanted to mix up the groups a little bit.

After some time to talk and eat, we spent some time working through a few questions we had prepared. We gave tables a few minutes to talk about the question around the table and then asked them to share answers with the other groups. A few examples of the questions we talked through -

How do you learn new songs as a team? How do you teach new songs to your congregation?

How do you involve and encourage multiple generations when you lead worship?

Besides music, what are some other elements you include in the worship portion of your services?

All in all, this was a great way to encourage people who love what they do but who can easily get discouraged. It was a great way to bring people from different churches together and to begin building some bridges between some of the congregations in town. Definitely lots of energy and excitement for this to happen again and I’m sure we’ll get there.

Have you been a part of any events like this? How have you benefited?

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

Church Techs – read this!

November 4, 2011 in tools with Comments Off

I came across this great series of posts on Mike Sessler’s blog, Church Tech Arts. Mike has four posts written for church tech volunteers and you should read them. Worship leaders, you should read these so that you’re reminded of the value of your tech volunteers and how to show them they are appreciated. Tech volunteers, you should read these to be encouraged in your role and to remember the importance of what you do.

Here are the titles and links for each post with a quick snippet. Click through and read the full posts on Mike’s site.

Church Techs: Thank You!

Being a church tech is hard work and the truth is, very few people can do it. Even fewer do it well. When you serve the church with your unique skill set, it is a sweet offering to God. He is pleased with what you do and He is pleased with you.

Church Techs: We Get To Do This!

What you do helps bring people into a closer relationship with the God of the Universe. That is a special and sacred calling; and not everyone gets to do that.

When we exercise our collective gifts and abilities, God takes it and does something extraordinary. He meets with his people and changes lives.

Church Techs: We’re In The People Business

Even though we’re geeks, and perhaps because we are geeks, we really need to be intentionally about staying connected with the Spirit. Most of us aren’t by nature people people, right? So when it comes to dealing with volunteers, other staff or church politics, we really need some help.

Church Techs: We Need Help

Now, as much as I treasure my friends and value their encouragement, I’ve learned if we really want grow and be more effective in our ministries—especially if we want to do this for a long time—we need someone, or a few someones to help us. Sometimes we call these people mentors, other times spiritual directors or coaches.

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

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Chris Vacher Married to Sonya, dad to Avery, Emmy, Isabelle and Anderson. Director of Worship at Orangeville Baptist Church near Toronto. Founder of WorshipRises and doing my best to follow Jesus in the midst of it all.

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