I haven't been around much lately, and I apologize for that. It's been a crazy week! Lot's coming down the pipeline, though, so stay tuned! For today, I just want to share a passage that came up in my daily readings last week and has stuck with me. I absolutely love the language here... beautiful poetry from King David.
Psalm 39 (New Living Translation)
For Jeduthun, the choir director: A psalm of David.
1 I said to myself, “I will watch what I do
and not sin in what I say.
I will hold my tongue
when the ungodly are around me.”
2 But as I stood there in silence—
not even speaking of good things—
the turmoil within me grew worse.
3 The more I thought about it,
the hotter I got,
igniting a fire of words:
4 “Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be.
Remind me that my days are numbered—
how fleeting my life is.
5 You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand.
My entire lifetime is just a moment to you;
at best, each of us is but a breath.”
Interlude
6 We are merely moving shadows,
and all our busy rushing ends in nothing.
We heap up wealth,
not knowing who will spend it.
7 And so, Lord, where do I put my hope?
My only hope is in you.
8 Rescue me from my rebellion.
Do not let fools mock me.
9 I am silent before you; I won’t say a word,
for my punishment is from you.
10 But please stop striking me!
I am exhausted by the blows from your hand.
11 When you discipline us for our sins,
you consume like a moth what is precious to us.
Each of us is but a breath.
Interlude
12 Hear my prayer, O Lord!
Listen to my cries for help!
Don’t ignore my tears.
For I am your guest—
a traveler passing through,
as my ancestors were before me.
13 Leave me alone so I can smile again
before I am gone and exist no more.
As always, this post is part of Fred McKinnon's Sunday Set Lists project. Check out Fred's blog to see dozens of other set lists from this past weekend!
Centerpoint Church 1/25/09
Opening Set:
-More Than Ever - G - (Robby Reider, Allan Fuller)
-From The Inside Out - Bb - (Joel Houston)
-Came To My Rescue - Bb - (Dylan Thomas, Joel Davies, Marty Sampson)
Closing Song:
-Fields Of Grace - D - (Darrell Evans)
God has blessed us at Centerpoint with incredible times of worship each week in 2009 so far, and yesterday was no exception! We are winding down our "Choosing Your Spiritual Path" series, and yesterday's message dealt with the differences between Christianity and the other major religions of the world. I thought Pastor Dave did a great job bringing out the truth of Christianity and the Bible without bashing or discounting the beliefs of other religions. Great stuff. We also took communion yesterday, which is always a real blessing to me, personally (though I had to take it one handed while playing keys!).
From a musical perspective, yesterday's service was spot-on. The band really nailed the arrangements and there was an energy level in the musical worship that we don't often reach. Very exciting! We played "From The Inside Out" and "Came To My Rescue" as a medley - something I've been wanting to try ever since I got the Hillsong United "I Heart Revolution" CD. It worked very well, but might have gotten a little long (unlike the CD recording, we played all of both songs), so that will be something to keep in mind for the future.
The mix has been spot on the past couple of weeks, which can partly be attributed to our return to electronic drums, but is more of a testament to our sound techs. Don and Jim have been knocking it out of the park, giving us great house and monitor mixes each week. Great job, guys!
We've got a Creative Worship meeting tonight to plan what promises to be a busy and unique February... I can't wait!
A couple of posts ago I mentioned a new business venture. I've put many hours into this over the past couple of weeks, and today I'm happy to be able to official unveil...
Memories For Life Recording!
Basically, MFL is a teeny tiny recording company geared towards helping folks make high-quality, affordable recordings of their loved one's memories. There's a lot more information on the web site, but I will say that our packages start at $60 and I think we've got a a really interesting, viable product. If you're in the Columbus area (or really anywhere in Ohio), and you think that you or someone you know might be interested in something like this, I'd really appreciate the referral! Our website is www.mflrecording.com, or you can email eric@mflrecording.com.
Dan Kimball wrote a very interesting post last night about the possibilities (or not) of being addicted to blogs and other social media. Very interesting stuff about how our online lives affect our "real life" relationships. You can read the post here.
He's asking for some feedback for an upcoming article, so definitely check it out and weigh in!
In case you need one more thing to read about today's Inauguration...
I admit, I did not vote for Obama, but I fully support him as our president. I thought his speech today was very good (actually I appreciated the entire ceremony), and I will be praying for him as he leads our country for the next four years. Most of all, I am proud that our country was able to overcome racial and cultural differences and elect the candidate that they really wanted for the job. No one can deny that this is an important day in our nation's history.
May President Obama (and all of our leaders) seek God's will in everything they do, and may God continue to bless this great nation.
Have to take a minute to highlight a very cool (and free!) service that I discovered a couple of days ago: http://www.emailmeform.com. This site lets you create infinitely customizable, spam-proof email forms and couldn't be easier. I was looking for something like this because of a new business venture I've been working on (more on that coming soon!), but it's so easy and full-featured that I've used it to create new forms for all of my websites (including this one... check out the "Contact" tab at the top of the page!) Highly recommended!
Dozens of folks post their sets every week through Fred McKinnon's Sunday Set Lists project. Check them out here!
Centerpoint Church 1/18/09
Opening Set:
-Your Grace Is Enough (Matt Maher)
-Today (Brian Doerksen, Sandra Gage)
-You Are God Alone (Billy Foote, Cindy Foote)
Offering Song:
-Ancient Words (Lynn DeShazo)
Closing Song:
-Ancient Words (Lynn DeShazo)
What a great morning of worship at Centerpoint yesterday! We got off to a rough start - weather here was very nasty and a couple of people didn't make it in. On top of that, my car slid into a ditch on the way to work. All things considered, rehearsal started about 40 minutes late, BUT... my band was absolutely killing yesterday. We got through all of our music and ended rehearsal on time, and then had a great service!
Our pastor was in the third week of his series on "Choosing Your Spiritual Path", and "Ancient Words" was a perfect song for his message. We had never sung it at Centerpoint, so the team sang it during the offering, and then we had the congregation join us at the end of the service. Our instrumentalists put a really interesting spin on this song, and it sounded very cool. I was definitely pleased, hopefully God was, as well!
On a related note: last night I played keys for a high school worship night at Linworth Road Church, where my roommate works. It was a powerful time of worship and I was blessed to be a part of it! All in all, I got to play a lot of great music with a lot of great people yesterday... excellent!
There's been a lot of talk lately about the uses of Facebook, Twitter, and other such sites for ministry. I find it all to be very exciting, since I'm an avid user of both services... but a lot of folks still haven't jumped on the bandwagon. Recently, though, there was an explosion of sorts of Centerpoint folks signing up for Facebook. That alone was exciting to me just because of the networking possibilities. I have to say, though, it's been more than that. It's been exciting for me these last few weeks to see the increase in communication that's taking place. For my own part, I've been able to keep in touch with more folks throughout the week in ways that I never could before. Anything that builds community is a good thing! Yay Facebook!
Just a couple of random thoughts (late) on a Friday night... big news coming later this weekend!
Many times I've heard people say that they wish they could hear the Psalms in their original musical context. I've said it myself. The lyrics of the Psalms are so moving, it's impossible not to draw a mental picture of God's people worshiping passionately. I'd like to hear that. A couple nights ago, I saw another fascinating example of Biblical worship while reading Matthew:
Then Jesus left Galilee and went north to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Gentile woman who lived there came to him, pleading, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! For my daughter is possessed by a demon that torments her severely.” But Jesus gave her no reply, not even a word. Then his disciples urged him to send her away. “Tell her to go away,” they said. “She is bothering us with all her begging.” Then Jesus said to the woman, “I was sent only to help God’s lost sheep—the people of Israel.” But she came and worshiped him, pleading again, “Lord, help me!” Jesus responded, “It isn’t right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs.” She replied, “That’s true, Lord, but even dogs are allowed to eat the scraps that fall beneath their masters’ table.” “Dear woman,” Jesus said to her, “your faith is great. Your request is granted.” And her daughter was instantly healed.
-Matthew 15:22-28 (NLT)
"But she came and worshiped him, pleading again, "Lord, help me!" What did that worship look like? What actions and words did she use in her worship that caused Jesus to reconsider His response to her? One woman, alone on a road with Jesus, worships Him and He hears her cry. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for this conversation.
May God grant us the type of passionate faith and moving worship that this woman had.
There's been a great debate in the worship community for years about acoustic vs. electronic drums in worship. I won't lie, as a drummer, I've always been partial to acoustic kits (most drummer are, I've found), but as a worship leader and (especially!) as a sound tech, I can definitely see the benefits of electronic kits as well. This is a question we've dealt with at Centerpoint as of late, and I thought I'd share a little bit of our story and our results.
For the first 4 years of it's existence, Centerpoint was a portable church that met in an office building. Obviously, acoustic drums weren't really an option in there, so they bought an electronic kit (long before I came to the church). A Yamaha DTXpressII, I believe. Pretty decent for the time (almost 6 years ago), but nothing anybody would really consider to be an adequate replacement for a good acoustic kit, soundwise.
Fast forward to this past October. 5 years of constant set up and tear down (not to mention 250+ services!) have taken their toll on the old drum kit, and it's in pretty bad shape. We've moved into a new facility that seems as if it might be able to handle an acoustic kit (if we baffled it well). And, the piece de resistance: these guys started using our building on Sunday nights and offered us the use of their kit and baffling. Hard to turn down. Well... three months in we've realized something - you can muffle and baffle the kit all you want, but in our warehouse worship space, it just doesn't work. It's too loud. Putting my drummer hat (and even my worship leader hat) back on, that breaks my heart. The acoustic kit was a nice kick for our live energy on stage, and I like the sounds. Eventually, though, we all agree that it makes sense to go back to electronics. Except that we can't really go back to our old electronics... which brings me to today.
An hour and a half at Columbus Percussion and several rounds of playing on the various options currently available later, I and two of my drummers unanimously (and overwhelmingly) settled on the Yamaha DTXTREME IIIS, and I couldn't be happier. This kit really blew me away. It looks like this:
Simply put, this is the best experience I've ever had with an electronic kit. I went in thinking V-Drums and mesh heads, but they don't hold a candle to Yamaha's new stuff. Two things really made this kit stand out:
1.) The cymbal pads. Not only do they have some of the most realistic cymbal sounds I've heard, the cymbals themselves are great. The ride is a 3-trigger (edge, body, bell), and the ride and crash both choke very realistically. On top of that, this is hands down the best electronic hi-hat mechanism I've seen. Moves and feels more like the real thing than anything else out there.
2.) The drums are actually tunable. No more digging through menus to adjust sounds. If you want your snare to pop a little more, you turn a knob on the pad, and the drum tunes up. If you want a little more depth out of your floor tom, you can take it down the same way. This was the feature that put me over the top on this kit.
On top of that... the sounds are great. All of the essential Yamaha kits are there (The Birch Custom Absolute and Beech Custom Absolute impressed us the most). On top of that, we were able to buy a floor model that was used by a Yamaha rep for a clinic at the store and has some extra presets and songs loaded. Very cool.
This morning I knew that we needed a new electronic kit for Centerpoint. This afternoon I reluctantly went downtown to see what they had. Tonight, I'm extremely excited about what we came home with. So are my drummers, which is the most important thing! I can't wait to hear these rocking on Sunday!
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