Sunday Summary - Music: June 29, 2008

Man, what a fun weekend. Jennie and I love it when Michael and Ashley come and stay with us for a few days. Although I think Ella loves it the most! She can’t get enough of those two. We’re certainly gonna have a good time when we all get together with Mom and Dad next week on vacation in Florida. Can’t wait!

So this was a no-frills Sunday. No opener. No closer. No worries, man.

Instead, we got lots of extra time for worship, and we were able to take the crowds to some great, deep places of worship that we don’t often get a chance to do. There can be a lot of power in just an extra, freeing minute or two at the end of a set to say a few words about worship, and follow it up with a few tags of intimate, personal worship. I know that’s a bit of the old Charismatic in me poking through, but it sure beats being song-regurgitating robots…

We also had double Michaels, and both were great.

East - Michael Olson

West - Mike Gleason

BUT!!!!! The week was not without controversy!!!

We started Andy’s series “Letters to the Next President” this past Sunday, and had penciled in Chris Tomlin’s “God of This City” as a closer. However, Andy indicated that the song wasn’t related to where he was ending the message, Eddie and I opted to stick it into the worship set as the 3rd and final tune.

But, we honestly didn’t think it through. Taking it from a worshippy-performancey closer to a full blown worship tune - never having done the song here at all before - was not the right call.

On Tuesday, when I was really listening and learning the song, it felt weird to me for us to be doing it as a worship tune, especially in the 3rd slot. It was lacking that personal, vertical conversation between us as worshippers and our Savior. Normally that doesn’t bug me - we do lots of songs about God. It just felt awkward, especially since we had never done it before. (We like to put new “slow” songs in the #2 slot, so that folks can still worship with a familiar tune in the #3 slot.)

Then on Wednesday, Todd and I got to talking about it, and he had been feeling the same way. Then when Michael Olson arrived, and we got talking about it, he had the same issues. We called Eddie, who was away, and he shared that he’d been feeling the same things.

And so, on Wednesday, just a couple hours before everyone was slated to arrive for rehearsal, we called an audible.

It was a bit of a pain, and a few guys had to shelve what they had been learning and do some last minute woodshedding, but in the end it was very much worth it.

We replaced it with the Starfield tune “Son of God” which Todd covered on our Louder Than Creation CD. It seemed to be a tune that got lost in the sea of tunes that have come out of that project, but it’s a really great song - and a VERY powerful and personal “vertical” song of worship to our God.

Great, great tune. And a real chance to sing personally to our Savior, especially if you freely tag the Bridge and Chorus at the end…

So you can imagine how elated I was when our big boss Julie came up and told Todd, Michael and I that she was glad we switched tunes.

Sometimes you’ve just got to follow your gut.

WORSHIP:

God Is With Us by Michael Olson

Let Me Sing by Todd Fields

Son Of God by Starfield

It was fun doing these 3 together, since Todd, Michael and I all played on these songs on Louder Than Creation .

And now, everyone’s favorite feature: Candid Stage Shots (during the Welcome from the West Auditorium)…

Danny Grady

Michael Olson tuning…

(or staring at his shoes. I don’t know…)

Todd Fields on Rhythm electric/BGV, Wayne Viar on drums, Richard Meeder on bass, Andy on the screen…

—-

East Band - Michael Olson, Todd Fields, Danny Grady, Wayne Viar, Richard Meeder, Me

West Band - Mike Gleason, Danny Howes, Daryl Lecroy, Chris Arias, Guy Strauss, Earl South, Rachael Gillis

—-

POD X3 Live count: 4

—-

Did you personally worship YOUR God this week?

I did, and that makes a world of difference…

Music Dept. Roles…

Les, at one of our international partner churches, is doing some hiring, and asked about job descriptions for Music staff.

You might be interested in my answer… (Or not - I don’t know!)

—

Les,

I’m not aware of any of those descriptions off the top of my head, but I’ll look around…

We’ve actually taken the route of molding jobs (at least within music) to the strengths of our team members. It’s also based on folks outside schedules (3 of our team members are part-time).

Also remember that we have 2 stages (East and West) happening simultaneously. That’s 2 Worship Leaders and at least 10 musicians and at least 2 BGV’s each week. So over the course of a month we book 8 WL slots, about 40 band slots and around 8 BGV’s.

But here’s a brief overview:

Music Director - Eddie Kirkland:

Responsible for overall health and vision of Music Department, overseeing team members, booking Worship Leaders, overseeing song selection, Department budget, assist SPD in service planning, floating live Music Producer

Eddie is also one of our main Worship Leaders and leads 1 or 2 X per month as part of his job duties (meaning he’s not paid extra).

Associate Music Director - Reid Greven:

Responsible for booking all musicians, floating live Music Producer, music technology creation (loops, tracks, programming, etc.) and maintenance, oversee rhythm chart creation, instrument maintenance, liaison to SPD tech teams, assist in song planning, assist in SPD service planning, oversee North Point Music content creation, and all the other stuff…

I also book myself on stage 1 or 2 X per month as a job duty (meaning I’m not paid extra).

Music Assistant / Vocals Director - Karyn List (Part-Time):

Responsible for compiling lyrics and copyright, entering lyrics into Pro Presenter, booking and working with Background Vocalists and special vocals, floating live vocals Producer, rehearsal CD duplication, assist with song planning, benevolence and celebration items for musicians and singers (cards, gifts, etc.), assorted duties as needed…

Music Assistant - Jared Hamilton (Part-Time):

Assist with Rhythm chart creation and music technology, assorted departmental administration duties (check requests, etc.), assorted North Point Music creation and maintenance needs.

Head Worship Leader - Todd Fields (Part-Time):

This is a unique position created to take advantage of Todd’s natural strengths, and would probably not exist without Todd.

Lead Worship at least 2 X per month (as part of his job duties, meaning he’s not paid extra), assist in song selection, North Point Music guidance and steering committee, album project guidance and steering committee.

Todd also has a unique gift as a Pastor / Shepherd to our Worship Leaders, and spends significant time pouring into their lives.

Again, each of these roles have evolved over time to each person’s unique abilities and passions.

In staffing, we’ve seen success in a two step process:

1 - Identify your organization’s / department’s weakness and need.

2 - Identify the individual who, through their own existing day-to-day life, naturally fills that role.

Allowing people to do what comes naturally to them redefines the workplace experience. I tell people that even though my role is not the most glamorous, it’s what flows out me naturally.

Only then do I get to say that “this is not what I have to do, but what I get to do!”

Hope that helps!

…

Sunday Summary - Music: June 08, 2008

Father’s Day…

Dudes - If you’ve got kids, you’ve GOT to get a copy of John Woodall’s sermon from this past week called “Fathering On Purpose”.

He outlines 3 key points to parenting: TEACH, MODEL, PRAY.

Oh wow, it was good.

We also had week 2 of our 3 week Spanish Service pilot series.

And, because lots of other stuff is going on in life today, here’s the Cliff’s Notes version of this past Sunday…

WORSHIP:

East - Mike Gleason

West English - Eddie Kirkland

West Spanish - Duane Nisly

Salvation Is Here

Everlasting God

From The Inside Out (our own custom 4:30 edit)

Great, familiar tunes - and again, reaching back a bit as to assist with the translation burden for the Spanish service. Hillsong has already translated their songs into Spanish, so we have been taking advantage of that, and slowly doing some North Point - based songs along the way.

From The Inside Out is still kind of new (we’ve only done it about 5 times), but the crowd has picked it up really quick! Very surprising… That Joel Houston - he writes some guuud tunes…

CLOSER:

The closer was certainly the high point of the day - at least musically. It was the perfect punctuation to John’s incredible message, and I’m really glad we did it:

Cinderella by Steven Curtis Chapman

Yeah, it’s a little dated, and has a bit of that “Butterfly Kisses” vibe - but GOSH!!

As a father of a little girl, I was a mess. All Tuesday afternoon while transcribing and programming the strings and tracks, I kept breaking into sobs. It was embarrassing.

And I was replacing the lyrics with: “And I will dance with my little Ella“.

Emotional torture… Good thing no one was around…

And then when we finally saw the silhouette video on Sunday morning, we were all a wreck. Mike Gleason, who sang the tune, opted to not view the video at all, just to be able to keep his composure during the performance.

He still hasn’t seen the video…

But I can’t rave enough at how great Mike was doing this tune. Sure, 4 or 5 of our other guys could have sung it as well, but he’s the only one who could deliver the song with such a convincing parental authority. He actually has raised 5 kids to adulthood, and so the performance was not only musically excellent, but from a place of authenticity.

Bottom line: message delivered, and not a dry eye in the house.

At least that’s what it looked like through the strange water that mysteriously filled my eyes…

Okie Dokie - I’ve got to go give Ella a giant hug…

—–

East Band - Mike Gleason, Danny Howes, Brad Long, Scott Meeder, Earl South, Jared Hamilton, Rachel Gillis

West Band - Eddie Kirkland, Duane Nisly, Danny Grady, Jeremy Moyers, Ashley Appling, Brad Gage, Keith Thomas, Rebecca Iraheta

—

What touched YOU this week?

…

(P.S. - POD X3 Live count - 4)

Dreamer - live 1974

Supertramp is my favorite band of all time. Others come close, but Rick Davies, Roger Hodgson and the boys take the cake.

Check out this video of “Dreamer” from 1974. And it’s Live!

That Whirly gets a heck of a workout in this tune…

Awesome.

Sunday Summary - Music: June 1, 2008

Murphy’s Law.

Or God laughing.

One of the two…

3 days after laying out in elaborate detail why we rehearse so much, preparation and excellence, we laid some giant eggs today.

Now every guy/gal has a little slip up here and there, but today seemed to have more than usual, by more than the usual number of folks. Myself included.

For example, I forgot to route the verbal count-off for the 3rd song to the proper channel. Lots of folks heard it in rehearsal, and assumed I would fix it. I, however, was on stage playing, and so I expected to hear it, so I didn’t know anything was wrong.

Until the 1st service when the monitor engineer had the audience mics up and I could hear my recorded voice coming through the main speakers saying a giant “1, 2, 3, 4″ for 3,000 people to hear…

Crap.

Crap crap.

Crap, crap, crap.

So that was, by far the biggest glaring mistake.

The rest came from the curse of muscle memory:

Toddy came in this morning with a weary voice, and asked to do 2 of the songs down a half-step. We obliged, and paid the price…

I’m not blaming Todd, but there’s a curse to take songs you’ve played a bunch of times in one key, and then to do it down a half-step. Open strings are no longer open, finger positions don’t work, voicings change, and the riffs you can play in your sleep all become digit spaghetti.

Most of us had mistakes (we call them “clams”), and I found myself fighting the music, then my mix, then being peeved at the dude in the front row with his arms crossed who just stared at us like we were zoo animals, like he’d rather watch paint dry.

Now I am sorry for letting Zoo-Boy get the better of me, but I guess this was one of those days you just pray that God looks at and honors your heart’s intention, and not your musical output, or attitude towards some ignorant yahoo.

.

.

.

WORSHIP:

Other than the actual music, the worship aspect was actually good!

We had the once-in-a-blue-moon service: One with extra time! No opener or closer, no baptism, and Clay Scroggins was speaking, who usually runs about 5-10 minutes shorter than Andy.

That meant that we had a little longer time for worship, and opted to add some tags to the end of the 3rd song, and more freedom for the worship leaders to share and pray. In all, it was a rare (and WONDERFUL) 17 minutes.

(By the way - we use a countdown clock on the cue/lyrics monitor for the Worship Leaders to see. That’s how we end the East and West Auditorium worship sets at the same time. So a “17 minute clock” means the timer starts at 17:00 and counts down to 0:00. That’s when the WL’s need to be finished with their singing, talking, praying, and verbal transition to the offering.)

Ok, ok - songs…

God Is Alive - Eddie Kirkland and Steve Fee

This is still new and not yet available. Sorry!

Glorious One - Steve Fee

Now considered an “oldie but goodie”

Breathe On Me - Todd Fields , Nathan Nockles, Christie Nockles

Man, this song moves me, even if the Zoo-Boy still has his arms crossed…

After this, the WL on each side tagged the bridge to Glorious One with just vocal and guitar, and then into a couple out-choruses of Breathe On Me, adding some light, warm pads.

Very cool, free, open and worshipful. Very nice. I’d take those 2-3 tender minutes over another bashing song any day.

That’s it - time for a little more tenderness, I’m getting tired of epic ballads for today.

Geesh! I’m in a mood! Must be time to pull up the Light Classical channel on the ol’ Dish Network…

But first, some candid photos taken on East while Jon Williams (doing the welcome) was fed from West…

.

East Band:

Todd Fields, Earl South, Joe Thibodeau, Jordan Watts, Matt Melton, Me

.

West Band:

Mike Gleason, Pat Malone, David Norwood, Danny Grady, Mike Bielenberg, Dee Dee Mailian, and Mr. Motionhouse himself, Brad Bretz

…

What moved YOU to worship this week?

…

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Theology Quiz

Chris Case , my future brother-in-law, posted his results from this Theology Quiz.

Very Interesting!

I’m sure my “score” would have been quite different 10 or 15 years ago.

I wonder what it will be 10 or 15 years from now…

I actually just took the quiz 3 times, and my results changed after doing some research on some of the people’s names and their theologies, and thinking a little longer about some topics. First I was Evangelical Holiness, then Emergent/Postmodern, and finally…

What’s your theological worldview?

You scored as a Reformed Evangelical

You are a Reformed Evangelical. You take the Bible very seriously because it is God’s Word. You most likely hold to TULIP and are sceptical about the possibilities of universal atonement or resistible grace. The most important thing the Church can do is make sure people hear how they can go to heaven when they die.

Reformed Evangelical 79% Fundamentalist 75% Emergent/Postmodern 71% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 68% Neo orthodox 64% Charismatic/Pentecostal 61% Classical Liberal 50% Modern Liberal 25% Roman Catholic 21%

Ohhh, my Charismatic friends are going to be miffed….

What are YOU?

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Sunday Summary - Music: May 25, 2008

Wow - what a great weekend!

And we had church, too…

Yes, the long Memorial Day weekend saw my family in Jennie’s parents’ neighborhood pool. And yes, the first swim of the season is cold, even in Atlanta!

That said, today we’re playing “catch-up” with work, so this’ll be brief.

OPENER:

We finished up Andy’s 5-part series called “Faith, Hope and Luck” this week. This particular series was done at Buckhead Church (one of our campuses) first, and we took their lead. This is rare, but a welcome reprieve every once in a while.

A couple weeks ago they did a song called “Hope” by Twista and Faith Evans. We liked the idea of the song, but they had Kenny Yasuda re-write the lyrics of the rap (the main body of the song) to be more appropriate to the sermon series.

It was great there, and was great here too. My initial reaction was that the rap was hard to follow, especially for 4 minutes, but the Buckhead media guys made a great graphics video that selected key words and phrases of the rap, and laid it over top the camera shots. It gave the listener some lyric anchors which helped the listener journey through the song. Cool.

Not the type of song we’d do a lot, but effective when done strategically and performed well by the right people.

We also had Joni Portee, Monique Anderson and Chantae Cann on BGV’s (who were wonderful), and that helped sell the song as a legitimate Hip Hop / Rap tune.

WORSHIP:

Faithful

The version from Fee’s “We Shine” album is faster than the one on our Louder Than Creation. And we all like the faster version better!

Lift High

Great song, man. Great song.

CLOSER:

Never Failed Me

This is one of Eddie’s tunes off his album. The bridge is my favorite part, and James David Carter and Ashley Appling’s harmonies did the song justice.

—-

East Band - James David Carter, Ashley Appling, Wayne Viar, Earl South, Chris Arias, Danny Grady, Brad Long, Kenny Yasuda, Joni Portee, Monique Anderson and Chantae Cann

West Band - Todd Fields, Matt Adkins, Heath Baltzglier, Brandon Coker, Jared Hamilton

—–

X3 Live count - 3 out of 4 electrics

—-

How many Brats and Ribs did YOU enjoy this holiday weekend?

…

20,000…

The full, official answer to the 20,000 Super Sleuth challenge was “Saturday Night Live alumni (cast and writers) who have passed away, in chronological order“

Congratulations to these folks who guessed correctly, and thus share the title of “20,000th viewer”.

Fredster

Ericmakesmusic

Chris Hannon

Yasmin (nice touch with the Charlie Rocket reference!)

And, as always, a gift basket complete with gasoline gift cards and a Claxton Fruit Cake is (lost) in the mail…

…

Sunday Summary - Music: May 18, 2008

Murphy’s Law or “The Enemy” - either way, this was one for the books…

It’s already a long, long weekend when we do Married Life Live (Friday rehearsal, Saturday rehearsal and show, Sunday AM - 6:45 call, and Sunday night MLL).

So, needless to say, I was already a little numb.

So here’s a glimpse…

- 5 minutes after call time, I called and woke up one of our guitarists. He lives 30 minutes away…

- We decided to shorten the intro of a song, but I forgot to tell one of the Worship Leaders (that one’s my fault)…

- After run-through, we had to call the West band back out from the Green Room to do the closer (again) so we could keep tweaking the mix…

- And the big kicker… Half way through the closer the power supply for the West lighting console died. Yep - that means the Auditorium went pitch-black. All that was left was audio and the words on the screen. Everything else was black. Pitch, pitch black.

Good thing we had the closer memorized!

So about a minute later, once they figured out what happened, Luke sprinted to the back of the room and flipped on the big florescent overhead work lights. It was certainly the right thing to do, but was a total buzz kill. At least for those of us on stage…

There they were: 2500 people - faces staring at us like were animals at the zoo. As though they all came to a Wednesday night rehearsal (to judge us!!).

But Julie Arnold (our Service Programming Director - and boss!) said that the experience ended up being quite the opposite - that it created a revealing. A transparent and authentic experience. People knew something had gone wrong, but that through the recovery that a greater intimacy had been created between the people in the audience and the band on stage.

Anna Houston did the song, and she and the band didn’t miss a beat. Obviously that helped make that experience all the more powerful.

Speaking of the closer, our good buddy and resident “most-incredible-male-vocalist-of-the-year” Ryan Stuart did the closer in the East. Yep, he’s the man.

WORSHIP:

Mike Gleason lead in East and Chrystina Fincher lead in West. Obviously they did a great job - and kudos to Mike for adapting song forms at the last minute!

All Because Of Jesus

Marvelous Light

From The Inside Out

** We’ve found a great 4:30 version of that song - which is important, especially if we want to keep doing it in 3 song sets (as opposed to the 6:15 Hillsong album version…)

—-

East Band - Mike Gleason, Danny Howes, Danny Grady, Joe Lee, Richard Meeder, Mike Bielenberg, Ryan Stuart

West Band - Chrystina Fincher, Todd Fields, Steve Thomason, Ashley Appling, Pat Malone, Me, with Anna Houston on the closer.

What lead YOU to worship this past week?

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Sunday Summary - Music: May 11, 2008

So not everything around here is perfect, and not everything that we do on Sunday morning is fantastic.

This past Sunday was one of those days.

Now worship was great, and one of our guys really lead me personally on a day that I did NOT feel like being at church.

But we did an parody song/rap as the opener which celebrated a certain demographic of volunteers that we’re gonna remember for a long time - and not necessarily in a good way.

And there are even mixed reactions among our own department. Some folks enjoyed it, while most felt quite the opposite. I think we may all, myself included, have turned a blind eye in the wake of our collective DRIVE recovery…

And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.

WORSHIP:

Happy Day

Blessed Be Your Name

Everlasting God

Now let me preface why I was not in a worshipping mood on Sunday. With the chaos of DRIVE and our regular Sunday stuff, I had been in this building for about 2,000 hours over the last 2 weeks, including playing a funeral of a friend and staff member on Friday. My kids barely recognized me when I saw them on Friday afternoon. Add to that my horrible May allergies, and that sums up the desperate need for some down time.

So, needless to say, the earlier 6:00 AM call time (due to no Wednesday rehearsal due to DRIVE) was a shock to the system.

You know what I’m talking about. I’m sure you’re been there. Maybe you’re there right now.

But I’ve been trying to find an appropriate piece of scripture to read over the guys and girls right before they go on stage. I’m also trying to continually remind them that the reason we rehearse so much is that so that playing the actual music becomes second nature, deep in their subconscious. That way our focus during the live worship set can be just that - worship. A purposeful choice they make to enter into worship to our Saviour - and not heads down in charts.

From chart to heart. Learn the music so it’s INSIDE your heart come Sunday morning. Only then will you as a Worship Leader or band member be free to worship and focus on Christ during the service - and be an example of a worshipper to the audience, thus leading them in worship.

But it all starts with a CHOICE to worship.

Ha! Looking back, the irony of the lyric of one of our worship tunes:

My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name

Anyhoo - the verse I shared probably ended up being more for me, even though I was trying to tie it in with another one of that days songs…

Isaiah 40…

25 “To whom will you compare me?
Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.

26 Lift your eyes and look to the heavens:
Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one,
and calls them each by name.
Because of his great power and mighty strength,
not one of them is missing.

27 Why do you say, O Jacob,
and complain, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the LORD;
my cause is disregarded by my God”?

28 Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.

29 He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.

30 Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;

31 but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

So there you go. I’m glad He’s strong, ’cause I am still some tired!

East Band - Danny Dukes, Brad Long, Danny Grady, Earl South, Scott Meeder, Chrystina Fincher, Jared Hamilton

West Band - Eddie Kirkland, Mike Hines, Daryl Lecroy, Ashley Appling, Brad Gage, Trammell Starks, Rachel Gillis

What lead YOU to worship this week?

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iVideosongs on front page of iTunes

So I know you all go to North Point Music (.org!) for all your worship tune needs, but here’s a revolutionary new site for guitar instruction and learning all those new and classic rock songs:

iVideosongs.com

And today their podcast is featured on the front page of the iTunes store!! VERY COOL!

This is a company founded by one of North Point’s veteran guitarists (and Grammy nominee) Tim Huffman. And, just to give you some reference on the magnitude of this, he pitched the concept to Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniack, who loved it, and has been quite involved.

Tim has also used a host of Atlanta’s top musicians to realistically and PROPERLY recreate the catalogue of tunes that YOU learn to. He’s used a ton of guys that play at the North Point campuses, including:

.38 Special alum Scott Meeder

Kansas alum Mike Gleason

East to West alum Ashley Appling

Injected lead man Danny Grady

Studio veteran Pat Malone

This is a huge leap forward in teaching guitar and songs!

And, once again, you’re welcome…

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Famous Sister?

Did you know that my sister, Ashley Olson, looks just like Carrie Underwood?

And, especially since Ashley lives in suburban Nashville, she gets stopped for autographs all the time.

What do YOU think?

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Magical Musical Kitchen

Chris Arias is one of our keyboard players.

He also does a lot of the final mixes for us for North Point Music.

And, apparently, his kitchen is haunted…

Very, very cool, Chris!!!

So what can YOUR kitchen do, huh?

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Sunday Summary - Music: April 27, 2008

Old Friends, Good Friends…

Good, Old Friends…

Candi Pearson-Shelton and Jonathan Shelton were back in town this weekend - they’re at the Orange Conference this week - and so we were fortunate enough to have them lead worship in East this morning.

One thing about female worship leaders - the ladies finally get to sing in lady keys!

Both Candi and Jonathan are fabulous, gifted worship leaders.

(By the way - these two people have been pinnacle in some of the most incredible playing experiences of my life:

Jonathan singing:

Dream On (complete with the high wail at the end)

Where The Streets Have No Name by U2

Candi singing:

Anyway by Martina McBride

I Stand Amazed

And, while we’re at it, our Worship Leader in West this week, Ryan Stuart, has sung a few of those memorable playing experiences himself:

City Of Blinding Lights by U2

Little Wonders by Rob Thomas

OK, OK, on to worship…

WORSHIP:

You Are by Todd Fields

A fave of mine, but man it sounded weird in the female key in East. The capos and inversions needed to pull it off left out a lot of the instrumental power that possesses. Obviously it was still good, and the average attender this morning couldn’t tell from a hill of beans - but I could….

Not bad - just different. Of course, Candi’s vocal power and passion over-road any lacking instrumental girth.

On Christ The Solid Rock

I love that we can do a tune that was first written in 1834, or something like that.

And the 3 part acapella harmonies at the end? Sweeeet.

Breathe On Me by Todd Fields, Christy Nockles and Nathan Nockles

You’ve heard me rave on this one before. Ashley Appling and I both agree that this is the best and most powerful song we’ve ever been a part of recording. Musically brilliant, and this lyric is sheer poetry:

Forever, You are the God of my story

Write every line for Your glory

Breathe on me

It you haven’t bought THIS yet, it’s worth it just for that song alone.

We started Andy’s new series “Faith, Hope and Luck” which dispels many of the myths and definitions of faith and hope, so we closed with Candi and Ryan (on their respective sides) all alone on stage, singing the first verse and a double chorus of “On Christ The Solid Rock”:

My hope is built on nothing less

Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness…

That’s a powerful and almost eerie feeling - one, lone acapella voice filling a big auditorium. A little uncomfortable, but very unique….

East Band: Candi Pearson-Shelton, Jonathan Shelton, Mike Gleason, Ashley Appling, Pat Malone, Bill DeLoach and Brad Long

West Band: Ryan Stuart, Mike Hines, Jennifer Young, David Norwood, Earl South, Joe Lee, Trammell Starks and Danny Grady

-

FYI - All 4 electric guitars were using a POD X3 Live…

-

Are YOU worshipping with friends, or strangers?

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Jennie’s a Stealer!!

So Jennie totally stole my blog idea for today!

So check here…

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