This post is part of "Sunday Set Lists" at The Worship Community.  Click here to see more sets!

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!

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!

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...

Check out more set lists at The Worship Community!

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!

Sunday Set Lists has a new home for the new year!  Check it out over at The Worship Community!

CenterPoint Church 1/3/10

Pre-Service
    -Your Love Never Fails - Bb - Chris Quilala

Opening Set
    -Counting On God - B - Jared Anderson
    -Everlasting God - A - Brenton Brown
    -My Savior My God - D - Aaron Shust

Closing Song
    -Mighty To Save - A - Reuben Morgan, Ben Fielding

First set list post of the new year and it's going to be a quick one!  We had a great service on Sunday talking about CenterPoint's vision for 2010... Pastor Dave reminded us of our "Multiply" vision and what that could mean for our discipleship process in 2010, it was very exciting!  Musically, we did some favorites this week... we had a rocking band, and they were really on it this week.  We introduced Chris Quilala's "Your Love Never Fails" before the service this week - still deciding whether we'll be bringing that one back as a congregational song or not.

The energy in the room was just incredible... the Spirit was definitely moving!  Awesome morning!

About a year ago, I posted CenterPoint's top songs of 2008 (the 20 songs that we had sung between 4 & 8 times over the calendar year).  It was a really interesting list to compile, so I decided to do it again for 2009.  There were 21 songs that we sang between 5 & 9 times in 2009:

*1. Center (Charlie Hall) - 9
*2. Mighty To Save (Reuben Morgan) - 8
3. From The Inside Out (Joel Houston) - 7
4. Marvelous Light (Charlie Hall) - 7
*5. My Savior My God (Aaron Shust) - 7
6. Amazed (Jared Anderson) - 6
7. Everlasting God (Brenton Brown) - 6
8. More Than Ever (Robbie Reider) - 6
9. Oh The Glory Of It All (David Crowder) - 6
10. Unashamed Love (Lamont Heibert) - 6
*11. Your Grace Is Enough (Matt Maher) - 6
*12. You Said (Reuben Morgan) - 6
*13. You, You Are God (Walker Beach) - 6
14. Blessed Be Your Name (Matt Redman) - 5
*15. Came To My Rescue (Marty Sampson) - 5
*16. Give Me Jesus (Jeremy Camp) - 5
17. Hallelujah (Your Love Is Amazing) (Brenton Brown, Brian Doerkson) - 5
*18. I Will Overcome (Charlie Hall) - 5
*19. Love The Lord (Lincoln Brewster) - 5
20. Not To Us (Chris Tomlin) - 5
21. Your Love Is Deep (Jamie Smith) - 5

The 10 songs marked with a * did not appear on last year's list.  Most of them were "new" to CenterPoint this year (though some are not new songs), but a few were songs that just re-surged in relevance and popularity this year (i.e. "You Said").  9 songs from last year's list do not appear this year, though most of those were just under the cut-off.  I also have to give a big honorobable mention to Jared Anderson's "Counting On God", which received 4 plays this year, but was only introduced in November... I would definitely expect to see that one high on the list next year!

It was a great year for music at CenterPoint!  I can't wait to see what God has in store for 2010!

This post is part of Fred McKinnon's Sunday Set Lists project.  Check out more sets at Fred's blog!

I wanted to share a little bit about our Christmas Eve service, and a Sunday Set Lists post seemed the easiest way to do that... so this is going to be a "twofer" :-P

CenterPoint Church 12/24/09

Opening Set
    -Angels From The Realms Of Glory - G-A
    -What Child Is This? - Em
    -The First Noel - C
    -Away In A Manger - F

Offering Song
    -O Holy Night - A

Closing Songs
    -Silent Night - C
    -Joy To The World - D

We took a slightly different approach to our Christmas Eve service this year.  Lately, it seems to me that a lot of churches put a lot of time and effort into creating the most extravagant, elaborate Christmas production possible.  That's never really been my philosophy, and I don't think it really fits CenterPoint as a community, either.  After the success of our Maunday Thursday service "in the round", we decided to take a similar approach for Thursday night.

We did things a LITTLE bit differently... creating one stage in the middle of the room.  This time, however, we actually closed off the regular stage with curtains, effectively shrinking the room.  That really enhanced the intimate atmosphere we were going for.  Lighting and projection was very minimal, and the entire band for the evening consisted of acoustic guitar, cello, ukulele, and two vocalists.  We did fairly traditional arrangements this year... just felt right.

Dave's message was a first-person portrayal of Simeon, continuing in our Christmas series.  He really throws himself into these first person messages, and the result on Thursday night was really powerful and engaging.

Ultimately, it was a wonderful time of worship... and the attendance was much higher than we expected, so that "littler" room felt really full!


CenterPoint Church 12/27/09

Opening Set
    -Hallelujah (Your Love Is Amazing) - G-A - Brenton Brown, Brian Doerkson
    -Give Me Jesus - Bb - Traditional (Jeremy Camp Arrangement)
    -Breathe On Me - C - Clint Brown

Closing Song
    -Center - E - Charlie Hall

We made a conscious decision this year to carry our Christmas series through this past Sunday.  In past years, we've done a one off message to end the year, but it has really felt like a loss of momentum.  I liked it this way much better.

Pastor Dave finished up "The Christmas Journey" series with a message about "Discoveries" - the things that we find a long the road that mold and shape our faith and lives.  I thought the message was really powerful, and heard a lot of other very positive feedback... it was a great teaching and an excellent way to wrap up this series.  There were a couple of points where Dave stopped and asked the congregation to share examples from their lives (easy to do in a church as small a ours!)... people were very responsive to that!

Musically, we kept things pretty straightforward this week, something that was definitely appreciated by the band, and I think the congregation as well.  We did teach a "new" song - Clint Browns "Breathe On Me".  It's a great old song that I've sung at several of the churches I've been involved with in the past, but had never done at CenterPoint.  I think it will definitely be coming back!

A great time of worship, and a great end to the year... I am SO excited about what God is going to do at CenterPoint in 2010!