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CenterPoint Church 3/7/10

Opening Set
    -Meet With Me - A - Lamont Heibert
    -Song Of Hope (Heaven Come Down) - A - Robbie Seay Band
    -Amazed - D - Jared Anderson

Offering Song
    -Reckless Love - A - Eric Frisch, Mark Homkes, Tina Baker

Closing Song
    -Reckless Love - A - Eric Frisch, Mark Homkes, Tina Baker

This was a fun week at CenterPoint.  We introduced our songwriting project to the congregation and played the first complete tune, "Reckless Love".  The song is based in the story of the Prodigal son (which we've been studying now for about a month).  It was very cool to be able to do an original tune, and the congregation responded to it very well.  Hopefully this will be the first of many songs that come from this project.

Dave's message this week focused on the part of the story that often gets overlooked: the elder son.  He talked about parallels between the elder son character and the Pharisees that were listening in Jesus' time, and also related the idea to our modern day Christianity.  It was definitely an important message, and one that I think we all forget about far too often!   To help drive the point home, we opened the message with a clip from "The War".  I wasn't familiar with the film until we decided to use it, but the clip was right on point.

The band did a great job this week, especially with the new tune.  The rest of the set was pretty familiar, and we also repeated "Song Of Hope", which we taught last Sunday.  I thought the mix was excellent this Sunday, as well.

This post is part of Sunday Set Lists at The Worship Community.  Click here for sets from all over the country!

CenterPoint Church 2/28/10

Opening Set
    -Marvelous Light - A - Charlie Hall
    -Song Of Hope (Heaven Come Down) - A - Robbie Seay Band
    -My Savior, My God - D - Aaron Shust

Special
    -When God Ran - C - Benny Hester

Closing Song
    -Fields Of Grace - D - Darrell Evans

Sorry for the delay in getting this up... The Worship Community has been having server issues this week and the blog carnival just got posted this morning.  In any case, here's what we were up to this Sunday at CenterPoint...

We're still in our series on the Prodigal son story.  This week's message focused on the characters we usually focus on in that story: the son who runs away from home and the father who takes him back.  This was probably the more "familiar" message of this series for folks, as the rest of the series focuses on aspects/people that we don't often dwell on.  We did an in-house drama this week about actors shooting a movie of the son's homecoming.  It was pretty funny, and it really drove the point home that many people would have a lot of trouble with the kind of love, forgiveness and acceptance that the father shows in this passage.

We also accented the message with the song "When God Ran".  I did it solo at the piano, and I think it went pretty well.  I had a great time getting it ready and putting my own spin on it a little bit.  Aside from that tune, our music was pretty upbeat and rocking this week.  The band did a great job and the mix in the house was fantastic.  We introduced "Song Of Hope" for the first time and got a good response to it.  We also used a loop with "Marvelous Light" that we haven't had before.  I thought it added a lot, and will definitely hold on to it for the future!

Great service as we continue in this series.  Looking forward to this week!

It's been a while since I've let my tech-geek side come out here on the old blog, so I figured it was about time I let him stretch his legs.  This past December I made the leap into smart phone territory.  I had been using Verizon's mobile web app extensively on my last two phones and was primarily looking for a richer internet experience.  My (not so) new (anymore) HTC Droid Eris has definitely provided me with that, and quite a bit more.  I've been very impressed with the way this phone has increased my productivity and efficiency when I'm not at my desk.  Being able to buzz through a bunch of emails during downtime at a symphony rehearsal has given me more time to do other things when I get home.  I'm all about it.

One of the reasons I decided to go with an Android phone instead of an iPhone or the like was because of the open source aspect.  I like most of what Google's been doing in the past few years, and there OS seemed like a natural fit for me.  It has been.   Another thing that has been awesome is the Android App Store.  Admittedly, the store is not as well stocked as Apple's, but there are still a lot of valuable and fun things to download, and most of them are free!  I know I have readers who are also on the Android bandwagon, so today I thought I'd throw up a quick rundown of my 5 favorite free apps.  Here we go!

(one quick disclaimer that these screen shots aren't mine... they were compiled from around the internet)

5. Advanced Task Killer Free

This is an indispensable tool.  Actually, if you're using Android, you probably don't need me to tell you about this one.  Everything you do on Android opens an app.  Almost none of those apps close when you leave the program, so your phone can get bogged down pretty quickly (sad news for speed and battery life).  This app lets you kill all that stuff running in the background.  Simple and necessary.

4. The Weather Channel

The Eris comes with a great little weather widget right on the home screen, but it links up to AccuWeather online for more info.  Nothing wrong with that, but I've always appreciated The Weather Channel... use it on TV, online, on my desktop, so why not on my phone?  TWC's android app is simple and straightforward and gives you the info that you need.

3. Ethereal Dialpad

This one goes in the "just plain fun" category.  A very simple little synthesizer.  Just select a scale and a "scene" of sorts and you're good to go.  Drag your finger across the screen to see and hear the synth come to life.  Great way to kill time, and the sounds it produces are very pleasing and relaxing.  Some of the visualizations are a little lame, but a couple of them are absolutely mesmerizing, plus it's free!

2. Lightning Bug

I just discovered this one a couple of days ago.  It's a surprisingly full-featured sleep machine and alarm clock that I've used every night since.  You select one of five scenes and then blend in different sounds (I've been using "Beach At Night" with rain, lightning, and waves crashing).  Set a sleep timer and it fades it's volume down at the end of the time period.  It also has an alarm clock that lets you access all the major features of the built in alarm, but much more intuitively.  I used to have an alarm clock that did this and have missed it recently.  Not anymore!

1. Bible

YouVersion.com is pretty much awesome.  Their online resources are top-notch, and the newest version of their Android app brings most of that functionality in.  Now you can log in with your account and follow all of the reading plans, versions, etc. that are available online.  The only thing still missing is an option to download Bibles for offline use (something that's been available on the iPhone app for some time now).  Any way you look at it, YouVersion is revolutionizing the way people read and study the Bible, and I'm glad they're sinking time into their Android development.  It pays off for people like me!

So there you have it!  A little bit of what's been taking up my time lately :-P  Nerdy tech post: complete.

This post is part of the Sunday Setlists project at The Worship Community.  Check out more sets here!

CenterPoint Church 2/21/10

Opening Set
    -Everyday - B - Joel Houston
    -Creation Sings - A - Eric Frisch
    -Center - E - Charlie Hall

Closing Song
    -Came To My Rescue - Bb - Joel Davies, Marty Sampson, Dylan Thomas

Another great service at CenterPoint yesterday!  This was the second week of our series on the prodigal son story.  This week was actually centered on the two parables that Jesus tells before the actual prodigal story in Luke 15:1-10.  Since both of these parables involve leaving behind many to find one that is lost, we decided to have a little fun at the beginning of the message.  When Dave got up to preach, he "noticed" the absence of one of our members, then asked the congregation to hold tight for a minute and walked out the back door.  As he did, this video started to run:

Unfortunately, I had to reduce the quality to get it to fit in Weebly's upload limit, but I think you get the idea!  People cracked up.  It was a great piece and an excellent way to illustrate the point of the message.

Musically, we had another excellent week.  Timon lead worship, which freed me up to play keys (and a little bit of electric guitar).  The band was really grooving this week, and the vocalists worked together well.  Our set ended up being several songs that are well liked in our church, but haven't been played in a while.  We had a great response, which is always a blessing to the team as well as God!  We used a loop for the first time on "Came To My Rescue" thanks to this site.  It really helped fill out our usual arrangement and made it so that I didn't have to play the pad through the chorus.  Good stuff!

Looking forward to what we have coming up for the rest of this series!

Ash Wednesday is this week, which means that the Lenten season is almost upon us.  Lent has traditionally been a season of prayer and fasting, and the folks over at blood:water mission have come up with an excellent idea for this time of year in their 40 Days Of Water campaign.

I participated in this last year, and will be doing it again this year.  I'd like to encourage you to participate as well.  It's a simple idea: drink nothing but water for 40 days & donate the money that you save to blood:water towards their efforts in Uganda.  Most of us never really think about how much we spend on beverages in a day or a week, although it can be quite significant.  Most of us have never had to worry about if we would be able to find clean drinking water, or how far we would have to walk to obtain it.  By drinking nothing but water (something that is readily available to us), we are able to offer those less fortunate an opportunity to have that same opportunity.  Would you consider joining me in this effort beginning on Wednesday?

This post is part of the Sunday Setlists project at The Worship Community.  Check out more sets here!

CenterPoint Church 2/14/10

Opening Set
    -You, You Are God - C-D - Walker Beach
    -Holy Is The Lord - G - Chris Tomlin

Communion Song
    -Your Love Is Extravagant - D - Darrell Evans

Closing Song
    -Your Love Is Deep - D - Jami Smith

This was a fun week!  We celebrated both baptism and communion this Sunday, so I decided to cut a tune from our opening set for time... this was also an acoustic week for us, which is also a good time.  Just two vocals, congas, acoustic guitar, and ukulele.  Good times!  That said, the band had a little trouble locking in in rehearsal yesterday.  Once we got to service time, everything ran smoothly.  I also thought that the team did a great job of navigating the on-the-fly transitions during communion and the flow into the closing song.  Everything felt really good.  This was the first week in a LONG time that we used floor monitors instead of in-ears (always a fun time for the sound folks :-P).  I thought Jim's mix was really crisp and clear... actually all of the technical elements of this service seemed to flow smoothly, as well.  No complaints!

Pastor Dave started a new series yesterday about the prodigal son story.  This series is going to be 6 weeks long, so it will take us right up to Palm Sunday.  We have a lot of really cool creative elements planned, which I've very excited about, but yesterday we kept it pretty simple (especially since we had both sacraments).  The message was basically just a retelling of the story, a set up for the rest of the series.  I'm really excited about what God is going to do with this one!

It was a unique and refreshing time of worship!  Lenten post coming later today...

Wanted to let everybody know that I finished another loop last week for the song "Your Love Never Fails".  This loop follows the Chris Quilala/Jesus Culture arrangement, but has been transposed to G (their recording is in Bb).  This has been posted on the "Media/Store" page, as well.  Enjoy!

Loop: "Your Love Never Fails"
Key: G
Tempo: 114 BPM (4/4 Time)
Form: Follows Jesus Culture recording on Your Love Never Fails

Listen:

Download:

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CenterPoint Church 1/31/10

Opening Set
    -More Than Ever - G - Robbie Reider, Allan Fuller
    -Glorious One - C - Steve Fee
    -From The Inside Out - Bb - Joel Houston

Closing Song
    -Came To My Rescue - Bb - Joel Davies, Marty Sampson, Dylan Thomas

First, apologies for not being around on the blog the last couple of weeks.  There has been a LOT going on and life has just gotten a little too crazy to facilitate writing much.  That said, I've got lots of good stuff coming up in the next couple of weeks, including posts about new and exciting gear, great new music, spirituality in Avatar, Haiti, 40 days of water and more.  Stay tuned!  Now, on to the matter at hand...

We had a great time of worship yesterday to close our four week "Just Walk Across The Room" series.  I know I've stated this in previous posts, as well, but I really have been impressed with this series from Willow Creek.  The prepackaged materials, combined with Pastor Dave's insights and stories, have made for a very dynamic series with practical, real-life content.  Great stuff.  This Sunday focused on "Grander Vision Living", basically the idea that even our greatest moments of human life are eclipsed by what God offers us, and by what we in turn can share with others.  It was a very powerful message and I hope that our folks will really take the suggestions to heart and use them in their lives!

Musically, it was a pretty standard week, but the energy in the room was really great.  We've been working on getting our FOH volume levels a little more standard.  We use a SPL meter, and have had a high range established for some time now, but the last few weeks I (and other leaders) have noticed that we're running awfully quiet, so we're trying to get a basic minimum volume policy in place, as well.  Since we play on a "silent" stage (in-ear monitors, electronic drums, amps in isolation cabinets offstage), it's really important to have a certain amount of sound headed into the house.  It really helps the feel of the set when we get to a certain threshold.

I've noticed a definite increase in the preparedness of our team lately, which has been a really good thing.  Our rehearsal time is very limited (~1 hour, right before the service), so when everybody comes in ready to go, things run much smoother.  I know a lot of it has to do with the fact that people just have more time this time of year, but I'm definitely hoping that it continues!

All in all, yesterday was a great morning.  I'm looking forward to meeting with the Creative Worship Team tonight and putting together our next series, which is going to be based on the Prodigal Son story.

Check out dozens of other sets at The Worship Community!

In addition to the regular CenterPoint recap, I'm also sharing my set from Cedarville last night.  Yesterday was our first service of the year down there.

CenterPoint Church 1/17/10

Opening Set
    -I Am Free - C - Jon Egan
    -Your Love Is Deep - E - Jami Smith
    -You Said G-A - Reuben Morgan

Closing Song
    -They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love - Gm - Traditional

We ended up skewing a little older yesterday... it was actually pretty fun.  We didn't have a lead guitar for this service, so things were very keyboard driven.  The band was really on yesterday... simple arrangements, but things were really locked in well.  We closed with "They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love", which is not at all the type of tune we usually play (even when we do hymns), but it was so perfect for the theme (see below) that I just really felt we needed to do it (in light of the week's global events, that tune and "You Said" both became even more poignant, although they were planned earlier).  We put a nice big heavy backbeat on it and it worked just fine.

As I mentioned last week, we're working through Bill Hybels' "Just Walk Across The Room" materials right now.  I'm definitely liking this series (a lot more than I've liked any of the other "series in a box" stuff we've done over the years).  Yesterday's message focused on what it means to build authentic, loving, Christlike relationships with those around us.  Really solid stuff.

The Spirit was really moving in the room yesterday morning.  Everything flowed very smoothly, but there were several times in the service where we felt the Spirit direct things in a slightly different direction than we had planned.  It ended up being a very powerful time of worship, and God's presence was really felt.


Cedarville United Presbyterian Church - 1/17/10

Opening Set
    -Lord, I Lift Your Name On High - G - Rick Founds
    -God Of Wonders - G - Marc Byrd, Steve Hindalong
    -We Fall Down - E - Chris Tomlin

Closing Song
    -How Great Is Our God - A - Chris Tomlin

This was the first of 2010's monthly Bread & C.U.P. services in Cedarville.  I've been playing there for a couple of years, but leading now for about six months.  The congregation and I are definitely starting to get more comfortable with each other... I'm inspired by their singing and passion for praise.  Definitely looking forward to what God is going to do through that group in the months ahead!  Yesterday I went down a little early and did a percussion clinic of sorts for some of the kids.  Showed them some different instruments and how to play them, and then wrote some very simple parts for them to play along with me on "Lord, I Lift Your Name On High".  Normally, I can't stand that song, but it worked well for this.  It was also easy to work them in since I normally play without a band for this service.  It was definitely a fun night!

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CenterPoint Church 1/10/10

Opening Set
    -Your Grace Is Enough - G - Matt Maher
    -Blessed Be Your Name - A - Matt Redman
    -Breathe On Me - G - Clint Brown

Closing Song
    -You Are My King (Amazing Love) - E - Billy Foote

Yesterday we started a new series based on Bill Hybels' "Just Walk Across The Room" materials.  So far, this seems to be some really solid stuff about practical, relationship based evangelism (something that I'm all about).  Dave's message focused on "The Single Greatest Gift" - the idea that telling someone about Christ (in an appropriate way) is the greatest gift we could give them, just as it was likely the greatest gift that most of us received.  Good stuff.

Josh led worship this week and did a good job.  I love leading, but it's also really nice to just be in the band from time to time, which is what I got to do yesterday.  I was on keys, and it was nice to be able to focus a little more on creating some different textures, instead of pretty much just clunking along on the chords.  We had trouble locking in with the click track for "Your Grace Is Enough" (both in rehearsal and the service), but other than that, the music went really well.  We played "Breathe On Me" again (we just taught it a couple of weeks ago), and the congregation really seems to be connecting with that song.  Really cool to see!