Eric Frisch - Musician & Worship Leader - Blog

Great Video...

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:05:34 -0800

One of the funniest things I've seen in a while...

My Voice is Higher Than Your Voice! from 8BIT Network on Vimeo.

8/29/10 Set List

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 21:42:45 -0800

This post is part of Sunday Setlists at The Worship Community. Check out dozens of other sets here!CenterPoint Church 8/29/10Opening Set:
    -You, You Are God - C->D - Walker Beach
    -Blessed Assurance - D - Traditional
    -Give Me Jesus - Bb - Jeremy Camp Version

Closing Song:
    -Holy Is The Lord - G - Chris Tomlin

Just a very quick set list post in the midst of another very busy band camp week! This Sunday was the first of two outdoor services that we're doing this year at our property down the street from the building where we meet. These are some of my favorite services each year, as they allow us to do some really different and creative things artistically. This week we kept things very acoustic and a little more traditional, and we were lucky enough to have an upright bass player join us, which added a really cool layer that we've never had before. Pastor Dave continued his Amos series with a message about turning back to God, and we did a fun little camp style skit to open it up.

All in all, a very fun, worshipful and unique service. Looking forward to doing it again next week!

My Workspace

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:29:56 -0800

Had intended to share something a little "bigger" tonight, but my allergies really have really had me under the weather the last couple days, so we'll do something quick and fun instead. Earlier tonight, John over at ChurchCreate posted this "Group Hug" assignment - share a picture of your workspace RIGHT NOW (no pre-picture manipulation allowed). This was the picture I submitted:

The only thing missing there is my Droid Eris, since I used it to take the picture ;-) Kind of an anomaly not to have a giant glass of water there, as well, but whatever. The point was to be in the moment! Not surprisingly, my non-Mac infested desktop was in the minority among those posting on a ministry blog.

A Leap Of Faith

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 21:01:21 -0800

Our church is stepping out in faith. For some time now we've felt the call to multiply - to expand beyond our current walls and multiply new sites. Kind of a crazy idea for a church of 130, but we really think that it's what God wants us to do. After spending a LOT of time in prayer and discussion, we decided to move forward towards planting a new CenterPoint campus in the fall of 2011. After further prayer, fasting and discussion, we feel that God is calling us towards the Westerville area for that new church. Personally, I think that's awesome... I've lived in Westerville for the past 6 years and have always had a heart for the area. The slightly crazy part of the whole story is that God is stirring something even now. A couple of weeks ago, we realized that a year is too long to wait, that God is moving now and we need to follow Him in it. Therefore, we've decided to launch a new ministry in uptown Westerville starting on September 12. It's going to be a service specifically geared towards students from the University, and I couldn't be more excited! There is still a lot of work to be done, and I'm more than a little nervous about what will happen, but if God is in it (and we believe that he is), then it cannot fail. You can check out the website for the new ministry here if you're interested (another great Weebly site, if I do say so myself :-P):

http://www.nailsuptown.net

I feel so blessed to be a part of a worshiping community that isn't content to rest. It's been truly incredible over the past weeks and months to see the unity in the congregation as we take this leap of faith. I believe that God is in this, and I hope that He will bless it. I know that I'm terribly excited about it all! We will need many prayers, but I can't wait to start this new journey in two weeks.

8/22/10 Set List

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 20:07:16 -0800

This post is part of Sunday Setlists at The Worship Community. Check out dozens of other sets here!

It has been a LONG time since I've written anything on this blog. This summer has really gotten away from me in a lot of ways. I have been on the road a lot and I'll admit that many times, I just couldn't gather the energy or drive to write when I was home. I also had the pleasure of having quite a few experiences (beginning with the All About Worship Retreat that I wrote about in my last post) that I've honestly found difficult to put into words for this page. Perhaps there will be some more accounts from the summer coming down the road. In any case, I've decided that it's time to get some new stuff up here, and I can't think of any better way to start that off than with a Sunday Setlists post, so without further ado...

Centerpoint Church 8/22/10

Opening Set:
    -Our God - A - Chris Tomlin
    -Reckless Love - A - Eric Frisch, Mark Homkes, Tina Baker
    -Your Love Is Deep - E - Dan Collins, Jami Smith, Susanna Bussey

Communion/Closing Song:
    -How He Loves - Bb - John Mark McMillan

We had a really great time of worship at CenterPoint yesterday! Musically we had a really good morning. The band was very tight yesterday, and I was very lucky to have strong vocalists on the team, since my voice was pretty well shot with allergy troubles. We introduced Tomlin's "Our God" for the first time, and it went over very well. In fact, I was really amazed by the way the congregation was singing yesterday (not just on that song, either). Very inspiring to hear a group of people crying out to God together in praise!

Pastor Dave has been in a series on Amos for the past five weeks. It has been a difficult series in a lot of ways, but I think it's an important message that most churches (including ours) often skip over in their teaching. The really cool thing about this series has been the single stark contrast that we're able to draw between Old Testament times and today - that Christ has come and we can leave our sins behind us! To demonstrate that idea, we celebrated communion yesterday, which was very poignant.

God has been doing some very cool things in our church over the past few weeks and months (more on that coming in another post!), and this Sunday was no different. Very exciting! Praise God!

All About Worship Retreat, Day 1 Recap

Sat, 29 May 2010 22:25:37 -0800

I really thought I'd write this entry earlier. It's been a week since I got back from the All About Worship Retreat. In some ways, it feels like I've just gotten home, and in others the retreat seems years away already. It seems like that's how these things usually go. It also seems that experiences like the one(s) I had last weekend are very difficult to describe to people who weren't there, but I'm going to take a shot at it anyways. My hope is to recap one day of the retreat each of the next three days. Hopefully I'll stick with it!

The first day was interesting. I took MegaBus rather than spend the hours driving or cough up the money for a plane ticket. In the end, it was a pretty good experience, but it entailed leaving Columbus at 10:30 AM the morning BEFORE the retreat started, detouring to Chicago for about 8 hours and then driving through the night to Kansas City. Needless to say, by the time the retreat actually started, I was TIRED. Despite that, God lifted my spirits the second I got to the church. There were so many people at the retreat that I have known online for some time but haven't met in real life until this event. To actually shake hands and realize that people are actually real was such a great experience. I also made quite a few "it's a small world" connections, which was pretty cool.

The retreat officially started at 4:00 with a quick "orientation" from the All About Worship guys, followed by some time in small groups. The small groups were more or less regional, and there were several other Ohio folks in mine. Pretty cool. Our small group leader was Mike Kim, who I wasn't familiar with before the retreat, but found to be an awesome guy!

Dinner the first night was provided by Jack Stack BBQ. I was pumped to have some real KC BBQ and it did not disappoint! After dinner we had our first general session. We were led in worship by Darrell Evans & Michael Farren, and heard the first of four teachings from Dwayne Moore. I had met Dwayne at a smaller event he did here in Columbus last year and was pumped to hear him teach again. Dwayne is really connected to the Spirit and His leading. I'm amazed at how much truth God has spoken to me through him in the very short time we've spent together. The music was awesome, too... one of the things that was really cool about this particular event was that it was intentionally small. We had worship leaders from all over the country who came from very different churches and backgrounds and levels of commercial success, yet we were all able to gather together and worship together authentically and talk about God. Really incredible. Every time we came together for a general session, it was so obvious that God was working in the room.

After the general session, we took a quick break before coming back together to be led in worship by Joanna Reyburn-Mays. She is one of the worship leaders at the International House Of Prayer in Kansas City. Very reflective and free.... not a style that I have a ton of experience with, but I was really able to relax and just be in prayer at the end of a long day. I got back to my hotel around 10:30 and slept like a rock... never even woke up during the night. Which brings us to day two... but that's another entry for tomorrow!

5/2/10 Set List

Mon, 03 May 2010 08:37:55 -0800

This post is part of Sunday Set Lists at The Worship Community. Check out more sets here!

CenterPoint Church 5/2/10

Opening Set:
    -Blessed Be Your Name - A - Matt & Beth Redman
    -You Are Able - G - Christy & Nathan Nockels
    -He Knows My Name - E - Tommy Walker

Closing Song:
    -Today - A - Brian Doerksen, Sandra Gage

It has been a couple of weeks since I've posted a recap. I'll admit that recently, I haven't had much of a drive towards blogging (I go through phases on whether or not I feel like writing). I expect that I'll continue to post my set lists each week, but may not get into much explanation unless a service really warrants it... as yesterday's certainly did!

Yesterday we started a new series on Ruth called "From Famine to Feast". It's basically a series all about having faith in God's faithfulness; about trusting God to provide for us because we are faithful to Him. Yesterday (at least from my perspective), I felt like God was telling us to prove that we were practicing what we were preaching! We had two different folks who didn't show up as scheduled for rehearsal. Both totally innocent mistakes, but it still left us in a bit of a bind. Fortunately we were able to cover the positions and the service went well. I couldn't help but think, though, about the connection to the message. Do we really trust God to provide what we need, even in the context of the worship service where we're preaching about it? The point was made very well, at least for me!

The service itself went very well. We taught Christy Nockel's "You Are Able" - an awesome song that's right on point for this series and the congregation responded to it very well. I was actually pretty amazed at how quickly they caught it. We also had an excellent drama presented in two acts (one to open the service and the other just before the message). It used two actors that were new to our drama ministry, and their performance was very strong... really made the point. Great week!

The Smallest Church In Ohio

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 12:53:30 -0800

Earlier this week I took a trip to Southern Ohio to help my brother move back home from college for the summer. Along the way, we stopped off to see the self-proclaimed "smallest church in Ohio". Now if you've read this blog for long, then you know that I'm interested in tiny buildings and minimalist lifestyles, so this was pretty fun for me. First, a couple of pictures (click on an image to enlarge):

The church is 10x14 and open 24/7. As far as I can tell, they don't hold any formal services, but leave the place open primarily as a prayer chapel for travelers. There is a large Bible on the pulpit and several smaller Bibles & Hymnals in a basket on the floor. In the front there are two large containers, one marked "prayer requests" and the other marked "answered prayers". There is also a bulletin board in the back covered with prayer requests and notes, and a small collection box in the front (wide open - it had a few pennies in it when we stopped). There's seating for eight (not too big) people... I figure if you had it "standing room only", you could probably get 10-12 folks in, including someone up front. The church is really well taken care of, somebody is obviously putting some time into it's maintenance!

All in all, it was a very nice stop and a very cool little church... I would love to go back sometime when I have time to just sit and pray for a while or maybe take my guitar or ukulele in and play for a bit.

4/11/10 Set List

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 14:53:50 -0800

This post is part of The Worship Community's Sunday Set Lists Project. Click here for more sets.

CenterPoint Church 4/11/10

Opening Set
    -Everyday - B - Joel Houston
    -Fields Of Grace - D - Darrell Evans
    -Here I Am To Worship - E - Tim Hughes

Closing Song
    -Holiness - G - Scott Underwood

This week was a refreshing one for me. I was on a trip to New York City until about 7:30 on Sunday morning (that post is coming soon!), so I technically took this past Sunday off. In reality, it meant that I got to go to CenterPoint for worship on a Sunday morning with (virtually) no responsibilities for the first time in two and a half years. It was great to be out in the seats during the set and just be able to enjoy worship! Josh led worship and did a great job! Not a whole lot else to tell about this one... Dave started a new series about men and women and we had a hilarious Adam and Eve drama. It was a nice smooth morning, and a great week off for me!

40 Days Of Water Recap

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 07:54:08 -0800

I wanted to post a quick recap of my 40 Days Of Water experience that ended last weekend. In the end, I gave up 67 items for a total savings of $81. That's a lot more than I saved last year, which either means I undervalued some things last year (yikes!) or that my habits have gotten worse in the last year (also yikes!). Any way you look at it, though, $81 is a lot of money. blood:water mission says that they can supply water for one person for one year with $1. Looking at it from that perspective, I either gave 80 people water for a year, or one person water for their entire life! Pretty cool, but still a small ripple in a very big ocean of need. That's where THIS number comes in: $31, 714. That's the total amount raised for Ugandan water projects through this years 40 days. Incredible! That number translates to water for 350-400 people for their entire lives! I feel very humbled to have been a part of such an awesome, life-changing campaign! And while I've definitely enjoyed having other things to drink over the past week, I'm hoping and planning to keep my habits a little more under control this year in solidarity with those who never have the option.

PS - Just because the 40 days is over doesn't mean you can't support blood:water mission and the very important work they are doing in Africa. Click here to donate.