Lifepoint Worship!

Welcome Back!

2010-01-15T15:36:00.000-08:00

Sorry, I haven't updated this blog in such a long time!

If nothing else I'll keep this updated, and looking back I'm trying to figure out if it would be better to scarp the whole thing, or too refresh this site.

For now, I will proceed here whilst I work on some other options.

So welcome back to the Lifepoint Worship blog, Worship from a drummer's (and occasionally anyone else who i can get to do an article's) perspective.

Easter Wrap-up

2009-04-13T09:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday (Easter Sunday) was an amazing day!

We've been taking part in a 21 day fast leading up to Easter and had an awesome worship experience Saturday night. where we celebrated with the Lord's supper.

Steven and Jonathon did a fantastic job leading worship.

Then yesterday was....

Setlist:
Oh happy day
Happy day

All around the world

Grace flows down
Amazing Grace
Lift high
Jesus paid it all

*You found me

Glory in the highest.

One of our band members happens to own a Hammond Organ, So the service kicked off with some ocking organ right into Oh happy day, from which we flowed directly into happy day.

All around the world is a rocking worship song from Elevation Worship, and having the organ in it just added another layer of depth to the song.

Grace flows down was a new one to me, but an amazing worship song, followed by the first verse of Amazing grace which led into Lift High which we cut short and then went right into Jesus paid it all. <- This was such a powerful moment the whole band dropped out and out four worship leaders all proclaming "Oh praise the One who paid my debt and raised this life out from the dead"

You found me served a double purpose, we used it over offering, but also as part of our promotional package for the service we had a video shoot with Jonathon (who co-led worship the night before) to this song so it was a tie-in for people who had seen it.

Finally we closed out the service with Glory in the highest, complete a team of volunteers foring a choir, another very powerful moment, about midway through the song when he choir came out, people everywhere stood up and joined us in worship, it was such an inspiring moment.

I was just humbled (and giddy, truth be known) that God allowed me to take part in this service (as I was originally scheduled to have off, I'm so glad it ended up working out the way it did).

Worship team:
Mia, Jeremy, Tom, Tammie, Elizabeth, Me, Ben, John, Bill + Choir
Sorry Choir, (I'm going to name who I can remember, but if I missed you i'm terribly sorry!) Jeanie, Dave, Willie, Tiffany, Leigh, Holly, Phil, Tim.

Are you ready?

2009-03-05T09:09:00.001-08:00

Lifepoint's first Staff Songwriters retreat is this weekend, getting ready for some exciting music projects very soon.

Spring errr... Winter cleaning....

2008-12-09T08:56:00.001-08:00

Sorry for long lack of posts, though my personal blog hasn't fared that much better, going to be doing some cleaning and re-organizing around here, and I'm planning to keep this blog here, even though I've been debating migrating my personal one over to wordpress with blogger as a mirror, still trying to figure out design before i do any major jumps like that... also Lifepoint worship has been doing some restructuring (in a good way)

Missing Set lists:

2008-10-15T09:14:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've been rather busy as of late and I'm afraid I've got a spot of catching up to do, so here's our set lists from the last few weeks:

Set List Sept 14"
We Shine
Salvation's Chorus
How He Loves
Performance song opener: Not My time by 3 doors down

We had an interesting day this day, due to a medical emergency we had to switch worship leaders last minute (like the night before) and the team did an awesome job dealing any problems that might have cropped up as a result.
Band: Tom(WL), John(D), Ronnie (EG), Dave(K), Elizabeth(P), Ricky(B)

Set list: Sept 21
Point of Difference
Everlasting God
Let me Sing
Performance Song opener: 100 years by Five for fighting

Band: Jeremy(WL), Steven(K), Elizabeth(P), Bill(B), Anne(V), Ronnie(EG), Matt(D)

Set list: Sept 28
We Cry Out
Sing to the King
Famous One
Performance Song: Live like you were dying (Vocals by Steven)
This was the week or our Elevation trip, so I sad-to-say missed the service, however I did get to attend the practice so I know it had to be amazing!
Band: Tammie(WL), John(D), Bill(B), Ronnie(EG), Dave(K), Elizabeth(P), Steven(AG), Jeanie(V), Mia(V)

Set List Oct 5:
Happy Day
Breathe on Me
Your Grace is enough
Band: Jeremy(WL), Elizabeth(P), Dave(K), Matt(D), Bill(B)

Set list Oct 12:

Salvation's Chorus
Let Me Sing
Glorious One
Lift High

I know what you're thinking, you're thinking Matt it looks like you did a song set from the Louder than Creation CD fro Northpoint... well we did. Why? Two words, multi tracks.... ok perhaps a bit more explanation is required here. We had a scheduling conflict with the drummer who was going o play that day, (and I was out of state for a conference), so I started looking for another drummer to fill in for us, seven people later I had five no's and two no-call backs, so we re-planned the worship to one that we had multi-tracks for (blog post on those to follow at later point), I was praying that God would provide a drummer, but I wasn't going to just sit idle at the same time, perhaps it was a lack of faith on my part, I'm not sure.

Anyway to make a long story ever longer... (sorry I'm verbose I know!) He did provide and Glenn Williams? (memo to self, get the name from Jeremy) did an awesome job on the drums last week, Thanks Glenn! Rest of the Band: Jeremy(WL), Bill(B), Ronnie(EG), Elizabeth(P) and Mia(V).

Set list 09/08/08

2008-09-17T04:31:00.000-07:00

Central:
Solid Rock
Lift High
Breathe on me
One life to love (Performance song by 33 miles) - Okay THIS was awesome!

Band:
Bill, Justin, Dave, Elizabeth, Jeremy, Matt, Jessica

Downtown:
Salvation's Chorus
Amazing Love (You Are My King)
Amazing Grace
Band:
Ricky, Ronnie, John, Mia

Set List 08/31/08

2008-08-31T21:06:00.000-07:00

Ha! Went ahead and got this post done ahead of schedule so all that's left is to tweak any comments I may need to make about it.

So Downtown's got a drummer now (other than me), but I like the idea of all of our worship sets in one convenient location (helps me fill out CCLI reports), so I'll probably still continue posting both campuses sets here (or I'll get one of the guys from downtown to post them here)

Set List: Lifepoint:
Salvation's Chorus
Breathe on Me - (Todd Fields) This is one of my favorite worship songs... (come to think of it I think I've said that about every song on the Northpoint's Louder Than Creation)
How He Loves
Lay it down
Let Me Sing
Band: Jeremy, Ronnie, Tammie, Bill, Elizabeth, Leigh, Mia, Me

Set List: Lifepoint Down Town:
Mighty To Save
Salvation's Chorus
How He Loves
You Alone
Band: Mia, Ronnie, Tammie, Ricky, Me

Set list 08/24/08

2008-08-27T06:44:00.000-07:00

Well starting next week I'll have a little less commentary about our worship songs (unless something strikes me) unless we're introducing a new song (Oh yeah, we are how about that...), anyway this was Brandon's last week of leading worship at our Downtown Campus and so I'll be posting worship sets for both campuses for the time being, but that won't start until next week. I'm really looking forward to what God's been doing both at Main Campus and Downtown Campus, it's been an awesome adventure and it's going to get even better.

Right, before I jump into the set lists' wanted to say welcome back to Jeremy (Our admin and worship arts Pastor) who's been on vacation and wearing other hats for the last three weeks (working with host team, preaching, you know little things like that).

Set List:
Performance Song: Unwritten (Natasha Bedingfield) - When we started there where it all began the premise was simple, The Church didn't start with hundreds of people it started with Jesus and his disciples, but we wanted to make the point that the story of the church was still going on today, so of course, "The rest is still unwritten." (At least until we get to Revelations, but that's another subject matter entirely).

You Are (Todd Fields) - One of my favorite faster paced worship songs, there is so much truth in this song. This one is from the Nothpoint Live Album

Lord of All (Kristian Stanfill) - We did this song for the first time the last time Jeremy lead worship, it's another awesome song from the Louder than Creation worship album (Northpoint).

God of This City (Andrew McCann, Boyd Aaron, Ian Jordan, Peter Comfort, , Peter Kernaghan, Richard Bleakley... We did the Passion'08 arrangement of the song) - Theme Worship song... kinda funny in the 4 weeks we've done this song we haven't done it the same way once, thought I think this last week (literally, as the series is over) was the most fun I've had with it.

Amazing Grace/My Chains are Gone (Traditional/Tomlin) - This followed the "Fix You" video, wanting to add some amazing worship to follow that amazing video.

Other Elements: The Fix You (Coldplay) Video: Josh (Our Downtown campus pastor and video/graphic arts director) designed an AWESOME testimonial video with snippets from letters we've received interviews we did and audio clips from the other sermons in this series, the end result was a heart stirring video that I HOPE he puts up for Creative Chaos tomorrow so I can link it.

EDIT: It's up and available for view HERE

Just an AWESOME worship set, Thank you God for letting me be a part of this movement to reach people far from You.

Band: Jeremy, Ronnie, Steven (Keys this week), Bill, Elizabeth, Me, Vocals: Tammie and Kimberli (Nee-san!)

No gear broke, but I've "retired" the JAck Dejohnette sticks I were using a bit to loud when I play aggressive and switched to the Dennis Chamber series.

Set List 08/17/08

2008-08-20T08:29:00.000-07:00

I had originally started this setlist post with a bit about being "In the Zone" but I ended up moving that to my personal Blog, sorry!
So to my much joy we opted out of a performance song this week in favor of another worship song! Now don't get me wrong I enjoy doing the PSs and I think that we do them in a way that really connects people to the message that Pastor brings, but I love to spend time worshiping in music.

Right, I'm already a week behind so here's the set list:

Enough (The Barlow Girls Rocked out version) - a Classic that we haven't done in quite some time it was great to bring this one back, and it flowed right into:

Glorious One (Steve Fee) - Normally we use the multitrack for some extra synth loops and what not, but as we had a female lead, the key would have been off so we did this one organically (well, at least click track free) and it rocked!

My Romance (Rick Pino - Jesus Culture Arrangement) - Just as awesome when rocked out as it was acoustic. So glad we did this song.

God of this City (Andrew McCann, Boyd Aaron, Ian Jordan, Peter Comfort, Peter Kernaghan, Richard Bleakley... We did the Passion'08 arrangement of the song) - "Theme" Worship song,

I've been really good about NOT breaking sticks lately, so nothing to report here.

Band this week: Tammie (lead), Steven (Acoustic Guitar), Justin (Lead Guitar), Bill (Bass), Dave (Keys), Elizabeth (Percussion), Me (Drums) Vocals were Jessica and Mia

Set List 08/03/08

2008-08-14T08:02:00.001-07:00

This week's worship set was a lot of fun, but much different than norm.

As we're currently in our "Where it all began" series looking at where the church has come from and where it's going we decided to do some hymns... mind you not in the normal fashion.

Tom did an amazing job leading worship and the band was just wow... I've gotten a lot of good feedback about this and everyone enjoyed Tom's arrangements of Saved/Nothing but the Blood and Pow'r in the Blood.

Setlist:

Saved (Dylan/Third Day)

Nothing but the Blood (Traditional?) - Tagged into Saved and wow did it work.

Pow'r in the Blood (Traditional?) - Mind you our version was not the typical it was... funky? Jazzy?.... I'll have to see if the mixdown turned out ok becuase I WANT a copy of this!

How Deep the Father's Love (Stuart Townend) - am amazing worship song.

God of this City (Andrew McCann, Boyd Aaron, Ian Jordan, Peter Comfort, , Peter Kernaghan, Richard Bleakley... We did the Passion'08 arrangement of the song) - Again the theme for our series, this's week version was a bit more grooving than last weeks (of course last week was an acoustic set).

Band this week was: Tom, Ronnie, Bill, Elizabeth, Dave and Leigh on vocals (Who did an awesome job!)

Broken Gear List was: Nothing! but one pair of my Weckl sticks has just about had it.

Set List 08/03/08

2008-08-11T07:25:00.001-07:00

Well yesterday was a different experience for me...

On occasion we'll do an "Acoustic" Worship set everyone seems to like them, and it gives set-up & Tear-down teams (not to mention myself) a bit of a break.

The difference is this the first acoustic set that we've done where Elizabeth (our percussionist) was here to play. The last two acoustic sets ended with me being a big baby with bruised hands for a week or so. (Our percussionist had been on vacation for BOTH other times). The end result was I got to sit back and relax and enjoy the service... (Everyone in my department is now falling off their chairs and laughing as they all know full and well that I was not sitting back relaxing). Actually I did get to take part in most of the worship, and hear some of Pastor's message which was a very nice change, but one thing that I was able to do, which is something that I really should be doing more often is that I was able to observe the service. Reid over at North Point's Music Blog mentions this in his post this week, and I found it informative and convicting... now don't get me wrong I love to play, but as I found myself evaluating the serivce (And later told Pick about this) I came to the conclusion that I need to be off at the minimum of once (preferably twice, perhaps even more) a month to evaluate worship and what's going on the stage, as it's part of my job to protect the environment.

Okay, enough of that, let me get to the worship set:

Setlist:

Everlasting God: (Chris Tomlin) - We normally do the Todd Fields/North Point Arrangement of this song, but as it was an acoustic set, I'm not sure how to label it.

Lift High: (Eddie Kirkland) - As amazing as this song is with the full band, I think it's everybit as powerful, perhaps more so in an acoustic set.

My Romance: (Rick Pino - Jesus Culture Arrangement) - Generally I try not to introduce more than one song at any given week, but Mia (Who was leading Worship this week) brought this song to me asking if we could do it, after experiencing it on Sunday morning I'm so glad I said yes, this song was annointed!

God of this City: (Andrew McCann, Boyd Aaron, Ian Jordan, Peter Comfort, , Peter Kernaghan, Richard Bleakley... We did the Passion'08 arrangement of the song) Our "theme" worship song for this series.

Worship Team this week was: Mia (Worship Leader), Tammie (BGV), Tim (BGV), Bill (Bass), Justin (Acoustic Guitar), Ronnie (Acoustic Guitar), Dave (Piano) and Elizabeth (Percussion).

Matt's busted gear list this week: None as I wasn't playing.

Lessons Learned...

2008-08-08T08:12:00.001-07:00

Okay, so this post is going to both the Lifepoint Worship blog, (Check it out if you haven't yet) and my personal blog (Which again, I would encourage you to checkout if you haven't seen it yet).

But as this past week we did an acoustic worship set there are few lesson's I've learned as music director that I'd like to pass along to you.

Point number one: It's really important to be off stage and evaluating worship on a regular basis. (Ironically Reid just talked about this on North Point's music blog, the same day I talked to Pick about the issue).

Point number two: Acoustic sets, are well recieved by the people attending the service (at least the few we've done have been), however, they are much harder on the music team.

Point number three: When you normally have a male worship leader, and switch to a female lead do not forget that every song will need to be re-keyed, and allow lead time for this to happen rather than wait for practice to role around.

We've had other churches come to see how we do things at Lifepoint and one person commented that it seemed like we had it all figured out, well we don't but we're always learning how to do things better, (hmm this gives me an idea for another post),

Set List 07/27/08

2008-08-03T22:04:00.000-07:00

And Once again it's Sunday before I manage to get this past week's set list up... Bad music director, no biscuit!

So this past week we wrapped up our Outlaw series, worship was great performance songs (that's right 2) were a lot of fun.

Set List:
Good 'Ol Boys
Happy Day
Lord of All
Salvation's Chorus
Wanted Dead or Alive

Yes Good 'old boys the opening from The dukes of Hazard, it was a lot of fun to play, and the one song I got to sing both services.

Happy Day is the newer version that we did a couple weeks ago (Last week?) I'm working on incorporating the old gospel version of the song with the new one, and then I found out that Tomlin's already done that, this week, however was just the newer version.

Lord of All is a New song (for us anyway) by Kristian Stanfill It's a really cool moderate paced worship song (From North Point's Louder than Creation Album).

Salvation's Chorus is a fast paced worship song that's a lot of fun.

Finally our final performance songs was Bon Jovi's Wanted Dead or alive. This rocked, great guitar work by both Justin and Ronnie on this song.

Band was: Pick, Ronnie, Justin, Anne, Bill, and Myself.

One other thing that was really fun this week was that I was able to sing during the run-through. (Mainly because Jeremy was saving his voice due to the Bon Jovi song), and that was one of the hardest thing's I've done to date... Drum and fill-in lead worship at the same time.

Oh, and speaking of filling in, Anne also filled in on Washboard (Good 'Ol Boys) and Synth (Dead or Alive) this past week.

Matt's Busted Gear List: Nothing! (Can you believe it?)

Set List 07/20/08

2008-07-21T04:51:00.000-07:00

Our mission at Lifepoint is very simple, to reach people far from God so that they can experience His plan for his life.

(Short post this week, sorry)

As such every so often we have, what we refer to as a "Salvation Sunday", it's not that Pastor doesn't give a message to lead people to Christ every week, (far from it actually), it's just that every series (or every other series) we do our best to program a service to bring people to a place of decision. On weeks like these we are very particular on our worship sets, even more so than a normal (I'm not sure if that word ever applies to Lifepoint though) Sunday, and I've been known to spend hours planning those.

So with that in mind here's our set list:

Salvation is Here (Hillsong) - A nice fast paced worship song with an amazing bass line. (See Below)

Mighty to Save (Hillsong) - One of our favorite worship songs, because it's so true!

Performance Song: Renegade (Styx) - Okay this Rocked. Pure and simple.

Lift High (Eddie Kirkland) - The reason I picked last week to premier this song was so that it would be familiar to people for this week. An AMAZING worship(ful) song that has readily become one of my favorites.

Matt's (Busted) gear list: 1 Vic Firth HD2 Drumstick. (Yup, that's it!)

Band: Ronnie, Justin, Tom, Dave, Ricky, Me.
Tom did an awesome job leading worship, the man's got a vocal range that I still find amazing.
So who is Ricky? (As you'll note that this is his first appearance on the LC worship), Ricky it Bill's (One of our amazing bassists) son, who normally serves on the tech-team. And an amazing bassist, Salvation is here has (for worship music) one slick bass part and he nailed it, the kicker? Kid's been playing for 3 months.

Set List 07/13/08

2008-07-13T16:18:00.000-07:00

Wow what an amazing day today was. (Believe it or not about half of this was actually written Sunday afternoon, the rest took up till now)

We did a worship song that I've been wanting to do for months now, it's (surprise) from North Point's Louder than creation album, "Lift High" by Eddie Kirkland. (More on that in a minute), it was a service crafted for powerful worship, (wait till you see the line up).

Here's the Set List

We Shine (By Steve Fee) - When we first did this song it was more as a performance song than a worship song, (Even now I consider it more of a Shouted declaration not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just not a normal worship song... but then again, when was the last time I was worried about normal...) But the huge response we got from it, (I mean no kidding, 300 people shouting that they belong to Jesus is awesome!) meant it had to be added to our Worship rotation.

Lift High (By Eddie Kirkland) - This is an amazing Worship song. When we went to the Drive conference at North Point this song was part of the worship set opening night and had me (literally) in tears during worship. And it seemed to connect well, plus Pick did a really good job introducing the song. This has been on my "MUST DO" worship list since I've heard it and I was glad we were able to share it with the rest of the church.

How He Loves (Originally by: John MacMillan, Jesus Culture arrangement) - This was actually a song brought to my attention by Josh the Pastor of our Downtown campus and creative director. The Entire Cd (We Cry Out) is awesome worship! But this song is a huge impact worship song. With such vivid imagery in the lyrics. "If Grace is an ocean, we're all sinking" I get shivers singing that.

Performance song was Calling All Angels (By Train) - The song wasn't a perfect fit for the outlaw theme that is our current series, but it was a perfect fit for the message. And it was a LOT of fun to play.

Matt's Gear (got busted) List; 2 (Peter Erskine signature) Drum Sticks, 1 13" head (Old original Tama head replaced by a new Evans G+ coated) 1 16" head (Old original Tama head replaced by a new Evans G+ coated)(But for all that, I'm still not happy with the way that floor tom sounds, so I'm going to switch it our with my 16" Mapex floor tom.

Band: Ronnie, Justin, Jeremy, Bill, Dave, Tammie, Me

Set List 07/06/08

2008-07-07T05:20:00.000-07:00

Wow yesterday was amazing... even the fact that between the AC issue and the stage lights it felt like it was a million degrees on stage it was an awesome day.

Okay finally took the time to find this link it's for the New (well in context anyway) Northpoint Music CD "Louder than Creation" which contains most (if not all) of the new worship songs we are integrating into our lineup. And it looks like if you sign up you can get the single free, (and if you look you can get a free let me sing core package)... (something I wish I had seen before purchasing said core package... oh well) for you worship leaders out there it means you get a free set of charts and a demo track of the song. The song in question is Let Me Sing (Which was part of the set list this week).

Speaking of which our set list this week consisted of:

Point of Difference (Hillsong) - I think from the United album, it's a fun high-energy worship song and one of Pick's (Our Worship Pastor)'s favorite songs.

Solid Rock (Traditional/Passion: Hymns Ancient and Modern Arrangement) I think most "church" people know this song, being from that traditional "church" background I know I did, the arrangement Passion did with the song is great! It's still very simplistic, but with a 6/8 (almost, but not quite a swung 6/8) feel, verses the old 3/4 that you find in old church hymnals... And the versus has a tom/kick riff that to me (as a drummer) almost feels tribal.

Let me Sing (Todd Fields/North Point Music, see above) - This is one of those amazing worship songs that you (at least we) don't get tired of, I mean we have done it three times in the last four weeks...

Happy Day (Kristian Stanfill) - No, not the one you're thinking of, yet another song from the North Point Louder than Creation album (have you bought it yet? What are you waiting for!) Pick, (see above) lead worship for the FCA Powercamp... (Fellowship of Christian Athletes for those with Acrophobia) and this was a huge connect, as it was with us this week. High energy (My arms were exhausted by the end of it) with an almost disco-ish drum beat, (much better than that though)...

No performance song this week, we took a much needed break from performance songs... they're a lot of fun and usually a very good connect to the message, but they can be a bear to pull off, (some more than others) so this week was a break from that.

Oh This week's gear casualty list:
1: Peter Erskine Signature drumstick
1) 14" Cobalt River (ie: Uber cheap) crash cymbal.

Band This Week: Bill, Justin, Anne, Mia, Jeremy, Dave, Me.

It goes to eleven

2008-07-02T11:32:00.000-07:00

Okay, if you look up, near the top of this blog is the Worship team logo, (at least the temporary one I've come up with) it started off as a joke from the fake rockumentary spinal tap, but the more I thought about it, the more appropriate it seems...

Wait here's the deal, we serve a God who is more than enough right? A God who always has more then what we would need, wouldn't going to eleven be perfect for that that? or am i just delusional?

Set List 06/29/08

2008-06-30T08:49:00.000-07:00

We kicked off our new series "Outlaw" this Sunday.

And looking at are worship set this week I could have called it "Todd Fields" Sunday.
Who is Todd Fields? He's one of the worship leaders (and song writers) from North Point Church, they've got such an amazing worship team down there, I highly recommend both of their albums (North Point Live, via itunes, and louder than creation, via the Northpoint music website).

You Are (By Todd Fields)We've been doing this one for a fair piece of time now and it's still one of our favorites, especially as a high-energy opening song tot he worship set.

Salvation's Chorus (By Todd Fields) I love this song! Sing for joy all people of God indeed!

Let me Sing (By, you guessed it Todd Fields) From the first time we've heard this song I think everyone on staff/volunteer staff has loved this worship song. And it's such a true song, you know? I don't want the rocks who don't have saving grace to be singing praises louder than myself.

Performance Song: Man of constant sorrow, (From the motion picture O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and by various other artists) I must admit that prior to practice on Thursday I was very nervous about this song, but after practice I was couldn't wait. I got to play washboard (Of course our percussionist is on vacation this week!) and I got to sing! (long ramble removed to time constraints). It was so much fun to do, about the only thing missing was the bales of hay and the bib overalls.

Band: Ronnie (Playing both electric and rhythm acoustic for PS) Justin (electric and lead acoustic for PS) Bill (Bass and vocals) Tammie and Leigh (Vocals) Jeremy (Worship lead and acoustic) Dave (Keys and PS vocals) Me (Drums and PS vocals).

Set List 06/22/05

2008-06-25T05:31:00.000-07:00

Well hopefully by the end of the week someone who WAS at the service on Sunday will post here, but for now he's the set list from this past week.

Glorious One - Steve Fee
Everlasting God - Tomlin/Fields
Famous one - Tomlin
Performance Song - My Hero - Foo Fighters, (which from what I've heard went over really well).

Set list 06/15/08

2008-06-15T17:27:00.000-07:00

Today was both fun and amazing worship... though it was kind of odd.

Now this week Dave our TD fixed the mix going to my in-ears and I had a very good mix, and worship sounded amazing, more so made by my amazing group this week.

Our performance song was All Star by Smashmouth, a fun song that took me back to my high-school days (dating myself now), but it was fun and it connected well. Justin (one of our awesome guitarists) filled in the vinyl scratch sound by scratching on his guitar strings, and Elizabeth (Our Percussionist) added flair to the instrumental with bells, that timed perfectly to Ronnie's (Another one of our amazing guitarists) guitar solo.

So in programming we were debating over the whole do you stand people up for a fun bopping head song, or do you reserve that for worship? Anyone have some thoughts on the matter?

Worship set this week was Not to Us/Here is our King, By Tomlin/Crowder, however we did the North Point Arrangement from the North Point Live album. (Do you have this album yet? you should!)

We then did Let me Sing by Todd Fields (North Point again, surprise! this time it's off the Louder than Creation cd, [think North Point Live Volume 2] which is not [at least last time I checked] available via itunes yet, but if you don't ) This is an amazing worship song... (would someone buy me a thesaurus, I need new words!) And at one point when the band get's quiet I could hear people singing, Our production director Kristen, and Tech Director David said it was incredible.

We finished up our worship set with Famous One (see last weeks post) I'm not sure if it was inspired from let me sing, but it was just powerful worship especially with Famous One.

Well I'm out next week, but i'll post the notes I can gather plus what I can tell from the mixdown.

See Pick, it't not butterfly kisses, but we could have followed suit...

Worship team this week was
Jeremy, Bill, Ronnie, Justin, Anne, Elizabeth, Me

*So what inspires you to worship this week?

Set List 06/08/08

2008-06-09T04:20:00.000-07:00

Well today was an eventful day, a day that'll go down in history, a day that was err... ummm a day!

Okay so two days have past since I started this post and I decided to leave my post worship high/pre-energy drain crash rambling thoughts at the beginning of the post.

Boomin - Something that we've been working on doing is switching around when we do our performance song (that is, if we do a performance song) and this week (and most likely for the rest of the series) we kicked off the morning with the performance song. It's a Toby-Mac song and it's high energy, Josh our Campus Pastor for downtown did the rapping parts of it. AND we finally got those blasted canons to fire off!

We Cry Out - One of the newer songs that we've gotten from the Jesus Culture CD, like their other worship is phenomenal, it's a fast paced rock/worship song with awesome lyrics, "Oh God we cry out for your mercy, oh God we cry out for Your Grace..." Ironically I got this worship album for the song "How he Loves" and just found the entire cd to be amazing worship. If you ahve itunes try this.

Salvation is Here - a Hillsong song that we’ve done, it’s a fun song with an awesome bass part. I wish I could say more about this song, but by the time I finally sat down to write this my mind is on this morning’s worship set rather then last weeks. (that’s right this post sat unfinished for an entire week, bad, music director, no biscuit!)

Famous one - Our "theme" worship song for the series it’s one that we pulled out of the “archive” ironic because at the old “traditional” church I went to (cough cough) years ago it would have been considered ultra contemporary. And I don’t want to take away from the worship value of the song because it’s a great praise song, it’s just a bit of perspective for me as a musician. It is of course by Chris Tomlin and we’re doing the live passion version of the song.

Band was Jeremy, Ronnie, BIll, Dave, Elizabeth, Me. Vocals were Tammie, Mia (And Josh for boomin).

Set List 06/01/08

2008-06-02T05:11:00.000-07:00

Did I miss a week? whoops, with all the excitement of memorial day weekend (read, I slept in on Monday and lazed about the whole day) I forgot to post last week's set list. Sorry.

(Side Note: I do understand that Memorial Day is a day set aside to honor our nation's fallen heroes. And trust me that is not something I take lightly... I still can't read through any volume of the CMOH awards without choking up, however the fact remains that I slept in).

So moving right along to this past week.

Wow, Our last week at Parkside Elementary (until perhaps we go multi-site, but that's a whole new pack o'picks) we wanted to go out with a bang so we (the creative team) had Pastor agree (by the way, for the official record I have no idea who would do this to his office) to put the worship set at the end.

Why you may ask?

So we could end with worship, Steve Fee's "We Shine" to be exact. We wanted to end in a huge celebratory feeling. We rented 2 confetti cannons and set up several hundred balloons to fall... (side note: I assume that's where the balloons used in this came from... I would also like to point out that I was there tearing down until the very end and I drive a compact car that would not have even remotely held that kind of number of balloons).

Well apparently Northpoint wasn't the only ones going through issues this week (see Reid's post here). As I was having in-ear issues. Perhaps Murphy reared his head, or perhaps God wanted to remind us to focus on him and not on the celebration of a building, or perhaps He does indeed have a sense of humor... I'm not sure, (personally though I think the focus, at least for us on stage was worship... the fact that I played my heart and and was ready to collapse at the end attests to that fact) but we never did get the blasted cannons to work during the service... they worked AFTER the service when we tested them, just not DURING the service. (Yes, we do know what went wrong, I take responsibility because I'm the one who knew how to connect them and didn't do it). Neither did the balloon drop work first service.

The balloons did fall for second service and the effect was awesome!

Set list:

Salvation's Chorus (Todd Fields, from the new Northpoint Live Album "Louder Than Creation")

Let Me Sing (See Above)... Technically we didn't perform this song, we played it behind a video, but I want to bring it into worship rotation soon (it's AMAZING worship!) so this was a great way to introduce it.

Salvation's Chorus (We did it Again, at this point I think people had learned it and joined in more on it). This song has quickly become one of my favorite fast (tempo) worship songs. The second chorus which is the one that gets echoed is almost a cheer, but I love these lyrics, "Weary ones join in the song, Amazing Grace has found us here, Son of God King Jesus Reigns, Praise his Name, Shout and sing, Holy One, King of Kings, By His Grace, we are free, no more shame, praise His name" And we'll be seeing a lot more of it, trust me...

Mighty to Save (Hillsong, "Mighty to Save") Mighty to save is just a powerful worship anthem, it's one of our worship songs that we consider a heavy hitter, want people to feel worship? pull out Mighty to Save, (gee that sounds kind of cheesy). It has long been nearly everyone on staff's favorite worship song, and was just awesome to do. (Side note, expect a few new worship songs that I feel will have the same effect coming out in the not to distant future... if you have the Louder Then Creation album tracks 3, 4, 5, but especially number 11), No I'm not getting rid of Mighty to Save, I'm just saying that these new songs are POWERFUL worship.

Finally We Shine (Fee, "Fee" also "Northpoint Live Volume 1").
We (Meaning Jeremy and myself, Bill too I think) Have been wanting to do this song for nearly 2 years. It's a hard hitting fast past declaration that's more shouted then sung (at least for the chorus). Josh made an amazing video to go with it instead of the normal mouse clicking done in pro-presenter so it synced perfectly (used a click track). I've seen them (Northpoint/Fee) do this song live and they play it with eigths, on the CD it's 16ths... guess which one I chose to copy? Yeah... my arms felt like rubber afterwards. So worth it though, people came up to me afterwards saying how amazing it felt to shout out "We Are the Redeemed" and were asking when we've be doing the song again... though I think next time I may wuss out and play it like his band does live... Probably not, I'm insane like that.

Worship Team this week had Elizabeth, Bill, Ronnie, Jeremy, Anne and Myself, we were also joined by most of our vocal team, for We Shine.

I really think Salvation's Chorus connected, but I'm also super glad we did Mighty to Save, I don't think I've mentioned this to our worship team but at Drive I had an epiphany... (First of all I'm not sure if I spelled that right, and second of all I'm not sure if I'm using it in the right context) but while there I experienced worship so powerful that I felt it, I had tears running down the sides of my face and just felt God's presence in the worship, and right there I decided that I want other people to experience worship like that, it's an amazing feeling and one that I pray that people who worship with us at Lifepoint would feel. Mighty to Save is one of the Songs I think that does that so well, (As I almost didn't want to put it in the service).

... right there was more I wanted to say, but It's 1:30 in the AM and I wanted to go into work early tomorrow.

Remember to have fun while you're out there slogging through life (last week was a tough one) after all, isn't God the Author of Joy?

Set List 05/18/08

2008-05-19T07:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a high energy service, Josh brought a power-packed message and the Band was rocking.

We kicked off the service with You Are by Todd Fields
We followed up with God of Second Chances by our own Jeremy Pickwell immediately followed by Glorious God by New Life Worship I really like this worship song, it was a repeat for first service, but a first time for second service. (see last week's notes.

God of Second chances is an awesome song, that we like to joke is never the same song twice. I'm thinking about producing a loop to go along with it so that Jeremy will have no choice but to do it the same way.

Our Performance song this week was a cover of clocks by coldplay... kind of.
(No comment, nope, none at all, sorry if you missed it, then you missed it). All I can (or will) say about it is that it was absolutely awesome.

Creative experiment...

2008-05-14T12:06:00.000-07:00

So like I mentioned before welcome to the Lifepoint Worship blog, I'm hoping to add a few more bloggers to this one. In addition to myself drummer/music director I've got Clark who covers a lot of the technical side of a worship service and hopefully will have one of our worship leaders soon.

Set List 05/11/08

2008-05-12T08:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Mother's Day and we really wanted to go for the weepy effect, so we hit the moms with a sappy video and then closed the message with a song "Never Alone" By Jim Brickman and either Sara Evans or Lady Antabellum (sp?).

Mia did a smashing job with that song, (Better than the original in my opinion). And our vocals did amazing with the back-up on the song.

Our Worship Set list was:
1st Service:
My Savior Lives By New Life Worship
Glorious God By New Life Worship
Amazing Grace By Tomlin

2nd Service:
My Savior Lives By New Life Worship
Amazing Grace By Tomlin

We had to not do Glorious God because of service time constraints, but I'm adding it to next week's roster because I felt that it was very powerful. Band was Ronnie, Bill, Elizabeth, Myself and Jeremy, Vocals were Leigh and Jessica (with Mia singing the one song).

2nd Service's Amazing Grace was... well... amazing. I distinctly remember Todd Fields (one of the Worship leaders at North Point) talk about how occasionally they can only do one or two worship songs and that at first they (their team) was asking how can you worship with only one or two songs? Well having done a two song worship I found that it can still be really powerful, (which is, by the way what they found).

Oh and Speaking of Northpoint there's a ton of songs off their new album (Louder than Creation) that we want to do and will slowly be incorporating into our set list so get ready to rock out and praise our Glorious God.

Oh and have I mentioned how amazed I am at our band and tech team? We were plauged with technical issues (including the MAC crashing again... apparently this one was dropped, sent back for repairs, returned and is still having issues, now if it were a pc...)

~M

Welcome

2008-05-09T06:39:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the online home of Lifepoint worship!
A blog for the worship team members of Lifepoint Church regarding technical, musical, worshipful and various other topics.