Sunday Summary – Music: June 21, 2009

OK, you’ve heard me drone on and on about having something ENGAGING at the top of the service. Sometimes it’s a peppy Opener, or at least a semi-captivating individual doing a welcome. Followed by some great worship featuring some kickin’ tunes. Of course

This week was no exception. To celebrate Father’s Day we did something that we first did at DRIVE, and that we stole from the show “Ellen”.

Yep – Blindfolded Musical Chairs, hosted by the always funny, engaging, and occasionally pleasantly irreverent Clay “Scrog Dog” Scroggins.

We had pre-selected 4 fathers out of the audience – not plants or ringers, just guys that we asked to play about 10 minutes before each service.

The best part were the pictures of funny eyes on the blindfolds!

You can’t NOT laugh. Good times…

WORSHIP:

So once everyone’s had their funny bone tickled, it’s a whole lot easier to sing. It seems like crowds come alive after something in the opening slot has really caught their fancy and helped them let their hair down. That’s another great reason to have something light, fun and engaging right at the top of the service – it actually HELPS worship!

However, Blindfolded Musical Chairs and a video welcome by Andy, streamed from Browns Bridge, ate up a lot of time, so we only did two songs. But every once in a while, that okie dokey.

So we did:

All Because of Jesus

Everything

It was a great mix of energy and passion, old and new. A song that’s getting a little old in the tooth and another that’s caught on over the last couple months. And strong songs for each worship leader – always a plus!

EAST BAND – Mike Gleason, Brad Long, Danny Grady, Scott Meeder, Pat Malone, Jared Hamilton, Ryan Stuart

WEST BAND – Todd Fields, Brad Avery, Brad Gage, Brad Bretz, Chris Arias, Karyn List

So yeah, we had 4 Brads – 1 on East and 3 on West. Next time we’ll shoot for all on one stage

Sunday Summary – Music: April 10 & 12, 2008 EASTER!

A few years ago we tried something out of the box – before we had the ability to broadcast Andy live…

Due to the other campus’ strong desire to have Andy do an Easter message on Easter (and not a week delay like all other messages), along with an attempt to solve our Easter Sunday morning crowd dilemma, we tried something radical on a Good Friday:

We did an Easter service on Good Friday – the exact same one as was going to be done on Easter Sunday.

It gave a chance to record Andy’s message AND a chance to help offset a few thousand people from Sunday morning.

Remember, it was the same thing Friday night as it was on Sunday morning.

Well, the experiment worked, and we’ve kept up that practice at the Alpharetta campus for a few years now – and based on this morning’s Easter Sunday crowds, we won’t change that anytime soon…

That said, the service over the last few years has taken on way less of a formal, solemn Good Friday vibe, and a far more “up” tone, celebrating Christ’s conquering of death. Although we’ve done our best to incorporate some elements that reflect the whole Easter.

This year we opened with Andy giving a short welcome, a couple announcements and roadmap of the service, and then invited folks to just sit and listen for a few minutes…

Then we went into Charlie Hall’s song “Mystery“, which is absolutely incredible. During the bridge build up, a video started (created by our incredible media team!) that showed historical art depictions of Christ, each one landing on the quarter note beat. Interspersed was text on how Christ came to save the whole world.

As the drums hit the 8th note builds, the picture then turned to photos of people from around the world and continued to intersperse text reflected the lyric of the song.

The building bridge of that song is powerful enough, but the video and stage lighting elements added to the experience 10-fold. GREAT job by all our lighting, video and media teams!!

We then went straight into worship without skipping a beat. Someone in one of our meetings played “Human” by The Killers (a great song, if you’re a fan…), and someone noticed that you could sing the verse of “God Is Alive” over top of it and it was super cool!

So we gave Jared Hamilton, our part-time Music Assistant, the task of creating a similar sounding loop at the same exact tempo and key as “God Is Alive”, which was going to come straight out of Mystery.

The loop ended up sounding very cool, and added a new depth of energy that was really palpable in the room.

By the way, we purposely raised Mystery 1/2 step up to Bb and God Is Alive down 1/2 step to – you guessed it – Bb! Kinda like a smooth flowing medley

After G.I.A., we went into “Stronger” by Hillsong – a tune we introduced last week that has a message and lyric that fit in really well with Andy’s talk.

But we did end the worship set with “Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)” – a tune strategically picked to connect with the first-time guest (of which there many on Easter!”.

It’s so cool to break it down in a few sections and listen to the audience sing, and sing loud!

Then, after the message and as a response, we did a shortened, moodier reprise of “Stronger”, which ended up being quite powerful following Andy’s invitation for folks to make this the day they put their faith in Christ.

Now you see why it was important for us to introduce that song last week and also sing it in this morning’s worship set!

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Anyway, everyone was a trooper, doing 1 service 4 different times (plus a ton of tech rehearsals and run-throughs!).

East Band: Todd Fields, Steve Thomason, Ben Snider, Earl South, Ashley Appling, Christ Arias, Ryan Stuart

West Band: Eddie Kirkland, Brad Long, Danny Grady, Scott Meeder, Richard Meeder, Mike Bielenberg, Rosie Pinkermann

Thanks for working so hard all weekend, folks! I believe God did some amazing thins in the lives on the people that came on Friday and Sunday!

Sunday Summary – Music: March 15th, 2008

Well, I was away this past weekend, so I’ll give you the 2nd hand reports…

We didn’t do any openers or closers – which usually makes for a simplified week, and this was no different. However, a couple of the tunes were newer, which means that not all the musicians had played them yet.

That brings up an observation. With our musician and Worship Leader schedules – like ‘em or not – it can often mean that at a Wednesday night rehearsal there are guys in that week’s band that have played a tune a bunch, and sometimes others have not played it at all.

And what makes our musicians great is that the guys that are more experienced with a tune are quick to aid the ones that haven’t played it. They’ll kindly offer notes or suggestions based on their own past experiences. Pretty cool.

Alrighty, so here’s what we did – nothing elaborate or crazy, just a good, effective time of worship…

Salvation’s Chorus by Todd Fields

Hands of the Healer by Eddie Kirkland

Everything by Tim Hughes

I’m really digging that Everything tune. I’m a big Tim Hughes fan. Have I said that before? Not sure…

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East Band – Mike Gleason, Trey McKnight, Earl South, Scott Meeder, Jeremy Moyers, Mike Hines, Chris Arias

West Band – Todd Fields, Ryan Stuart, Pat Malone, Ashley Appling, Danny Grady, Bill DeLoach

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Who are you a big fan of?

Sunday Summary – Music: Feb 8, 2009

This past Sunday was great, at least for me…

It was a Married Life Live weekend in the West Auditorium, meaning I got to hang out Friday, Saturday and Sunday and play great music with great friends, who happen to be incredible musicians…

Talk about a treat!

Are we exhausted? Sure.

Worth it? You betcha!

And we had a great time on Sunday morning, as well. It was relatively straight forward, musically speaking, with a little twist at the end.

For worship we brought back a new song introduced a few weeks ago – “Let God Arise”. This is a newer Tomlin tune that might be old hat for some of you, but we just introduced it this year. I actually like it – it’s kinda fun, and real easy to grab hold of. But don’t be afraid to make it rock!!

After that we transitioned into Blessed Be Your Name, the Matt Redman tune. We wanted something older that was real familiar and also supported our current “Balanced” sermon series. We don’t normally program worship to go with a sermon, but in this instance it worked.

We also pepped it up a bit last year, doing it at 120 bpm with a pretty driving loop, almost verging on a dance or techno vibe. That helped it go seamlessly from the high energy of the first song.

We ended the set with a new song, “Everything” by Tim Hughes. I won’t lie, this might be my new fave… And no, not just because it’s piano-driven

I spent a couple hours last week programming the strings on it, so got deeply imbeded into my brain. So that might have had something to do with it…

But the chords are simple yet tasty, and the melody of the verse and chorus is super easy, which always makes for a good tune for the crowd to pick up on quick.

The only downfall, I’d say, are the 1 million different verbs in the verses. That’s a lot of lyric to remember! Weeping, crying, laughing, waking, walking, gnashing, screaming, running, falling, slapping, whimpering, typing, watching, driving, voting, procrastinating….

We then brought it back in a shortened form as the closer, but only doing 1 verse and the out choruses, and in a more mellow tone – taking out the loop and tambourine, and having the band keep a more meditative, contemplative groove.

We’ll definitely be bringing that one back!

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East Band – Kristian Stanfill, Alex Nifong, Danny Grady, Joe Thibodeau, Chris Arias, Brad Gage, Rosie Pinkerman

West Band – Mike Gleason, Steve Thomason, Daryl Lecroy, Pat Malone, Ashley Appling, Chrystina Fincher, and me!

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Here’s East at the 12:45 service:

What’s YOUR favorite new song?

Sunday Summary – Music: January 18, 2009

I tell you – you want to get out of a rut? Shake things up, baby!

We’re all still adjusting to the learning curve of having Andy’s message live at all 3 campuses, and the growing pains associated with that.

If you’ve attended North Point, Buckhead Church of Browns Bridge over the last few weeks, hopefully you’ve experienced a seamless and satisfying worship service. Just know that there’s been a whole lot of planning and miracle working behind the scenes to make that happen!

Just like a good Quaterback and Offinsive Line can call an effective audible, so too have our 3 campuses been learning to adjust quickly and effectively.

Now obviously good planning means a minimal amount of chaos on Sunday, but still, the need and ability to be flexible in the small (yet crucial) things has presented itself as a more important skill set for our producers, Worship Leaders, musicians, and production volunteers.

Fortunately we work with some absolutely amazing people, so it’s been more of a fun adventure than a tragic endeavor!

It’s the balance of the host campus planning ahead and (also trimming as needed – including live!) so Andy is on stage and speaking about 3-5 minutes before the other 2 campuses need. The other two campuses buffer the message on a TiVo-type device, and then begin playback as needed.

BUT!!! The other 2 campuses also need to be prepared to stall / stretch if the host campus is late or if there’s a technical issue.

So that was us this week!

We planned some lengthy stuff at the top of the service that needed to be done anyway (a missions video, lots of beginning-of-the-year announcements, worship, baptisms, and even a prepared tag of a worship song).

Unfortunately a 3rd worship tune got left off that list, but some of the other stuff had to be done (missions video, announcements, baptism).

We did:

You Are by Todd Fields

Wonderful The Love by Mike Gleason

So we mixed up the tunes a bit – one familiar tune and one relatively new one. We also realized that the last couple weeks’ music have been a bit in the melancholy department, so we did a fast tune and an upper-mid tempo one. And one was written by one of yesterday’s Worship Leaders, and the second was written by the other WL.

See how much thought we put into song selection! And that’s just for two songs!

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East Band – Todd Fields, Ashley Appling, Pat Malone, Brad Avery, Ryan Stuart, Me

West Band – Mike Gleason, Mike Hines, Jeremy Moyers, Rachael Gillis, Earl South, Wayne Viar, Chris Arias

OK, a few stage shots from East during announcements (fed from West).

Ashley Appling (drums), Pat Malone (bass)

Brad Avery:

Todd Fields, Ryan Stuart:

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What are YOU adjusting to this New Year?

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