i am an offering

Continuing our look at 1 Peter 2, let’s look at verses 2-8:

“Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him— you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says:
   ”See, I lay a stone in Zion,
      a chosen and precious cornerstone,
   and the one who trusts in him
      will never be put to shame.”
Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,
   ”The stone the builders rejected
      has become the capstone,” and,
   ”A stone that causes men to stumble
      and a rock that makes them fall.”
They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for.”

As mentioned last time, being a “living sacrifice,” (Rom. 12:1-2) requires that we offer everything of ourselves to God.  Peter calls us in this passage to first of all, crave pure spiritual milk.  We are not to crave and long for teachings of this world that will pass away, mystical teachings that appear in many of today’s modern movies, or anything like that, but rather the pure Word of God.  As we do this, we will being to understand who God is and what He has done for us.  We will be able to truly make Him the cornerstone of our lives.

Paul goes on to say that to those who believe (those craving pure spirtual milk) the stone is precious.  To those who disobey the message, the stone causes them to stumble.  Let us lay aside our human desire for modern teachings, and always come back to the Word of God, treating it as an amazingly precious gift.

A couple weeks ago I promised to talk about how the drums and bass work hand in hand in a modern worship team.

This is one of the most important concepts that every worship team should learn.  The rhythm section (primarily the drummer and bass player, but also piano and guitar) must learn to lock together in what is called a “groove.”  The tighter the groove is locked, the more precise energy the song will have.  Even if the song is a slow ballad, if there is a locked-in groove, energy will be there.

So how does this groove get created?  Primarily, from the foundation of the rhythm section, the drums and bass.  Last time we mentioned that it is essential that a bass player understand different styles of music.  It is even more essential for the drummer. Last time we looked at how important it is for a bass player to know and understand music theory.  While it is not necessarily vital that a drummer understand chords within a key, or key signatures, they must be able to have a basic understanding of notes and rhythms.  The better the understanding of how notes and rhythms work, and the ability to read written-out drum parts, the better the drummer will be at locking in the groove with the bass player.

Now, so many times I have been at seminars where a drummer and a bass player will show people how to create a groove and try to explain it, which is well and good, but sometimes you need to see something.  So with the fact in mind that having the ability to read notes is important, let’s figure this concept out in a few steps.

1. Determine the style of the music.  Is it rock?  If so, is it light rock, hard rock, half-time rock?  Is it blues?  Is it funk?  Is it swing?

2. Determine if the drummer and bass player know how to play the style.  If so, play it together and lock the groove in.  Unfortunately, here is where the majority of today’s worship teams get stuck.  They don’t know or understand style, and the music sounds the same song after song, week after week.  So how do you fix this?

3. Find out how to play the style.  Below is a drum pattern for a simple rock beat:

Let’s look at it logically first of all, before we even worry about how to read the music.  What is the lowest sounding drum on the drum set?  The kick drum.  So match the kick drum with the lowest note written out and you’ll see that the kick drum comes the beginning and middle of the first measure.  The snare sounds higher than the kick drum, so we’ll match the middle note to the snare, which comes opposite the bass drum in every measure.  Finally we have the hi-hat, which is every x at the the top of the music, basically playing all the way through except on the snare drum hits.

As far as the bass guitar goes, one of the easiest ways to remember where to play and how to lock into the groove is to match the bass note to the bass drum.  So, the bass player would play every spot that the lowest note hits.  Even if the bassline stays as simple as this, if it is locked with the bass drum, the groove will have a definite energy and glue that stays together.  If it were written out, it would look like this, with the drums on top and bass on the bottom:

It would sound like this.

If you begin to understand the basics of reading notes and rhythms, begin to understand style, and begin to understand how to match the bass guitar to the bass drum, the groove will lock in and create a wonderful glue and energy to the music.

Hello again!  I apologize for being off schedule, but vacation and a crazy week does that to you sometimes.  I am hoping to be consistent and back on schedule from now on.  That said, on to the recap!

Pastor John is back from PLI (Pastoral Leadership Institute) with a fire that I haven’t seen in him for awhile.  It’s exciting to see where God is going to be leading us through him.

The songs we did yesterday were:

Beautiful One (Hughes)
Lord, Reign in Me (Brown)
You are the One (Baloche/Brewster)
Be Still My Soul
How Deep the Father’s Love For Us (Townend)
Lord, Most High (Harris/Sadler)
How Could You Love Me So Much (Zhender)

Out of everything that took place in worship yesterday, the one thing that struck me the most was a question John posed to the congregation during the sermon.  He asked, “If Lord of Life suddenly vanished from the corner of 33rd and Sycamore, would anybody even notice?”

I think that these words are desperately needed at our church (or any church) right now.  What are we doing to reach the neighborhood to let them know of the love and grace of Jesus Christ?  What are we doing to impact our city for Him?  The single most imporant mission we have as Christians is to “go and make disciples of all nations.”  Let’s get out and do it.

I was a bit nervous about this past Sunday, since it was the first Sunday in quite a while without a drummer.  However, I actually found it as a very pleasant respite from a very predominant problem we’ve been facing.  Here’s why it was a respite:

We could actually hear the mix!

This is by all means not a comment against any drummers that play with us, but a comment against the room’s acoustics.  It is so hard in our multi-purpose sanctuary to get a clean mix when a drummer is playing, because the sound gets so muddy.  It was really nice to have a bit of a breather!

With that said, here was the song list:

Rise Up and Praise Him - Baloche
Faithful One - Doerkson
God Bless Our Native Land
Enough - Tomlin
I’m Forever Grateful - Marks
Receive the Glory - Kauflin

Now, onto the real subject of the day!  So often, we as Christians, we as humans, get comfortable.  We get comfortable with routine.  We get comfortable with things going the way we expect them to go.  This can lead to two things happening: 1) When something changes from the routine, we pay more attention and are much more alert. 2) When something changes from the routine, we either get frustrated because we didn’t expect it, or we just plain don’t pay attention.

Unfortunately for me, being honest, when we had a guest pastor yesterday, I fell into #2.  I was used to Pastor John being here and I spaced out, therefore hindering my job as a worship leader.  However, this can hinder many things for anybody.

If you hit the #2 category, ask youself why?  Is it because you have been placing your whole basis on coming to church or listening to a sermon on Pastor John?  This is scary.  We should be listening to God’s Word being preached because it’s God Word being preached, no matter who is the messenger, unless of course, the messenger is speaking against God’s Word.  Then we pray that God would help us to know to challenge the messenger, or to get out of there as fast as possible.

If you hit the #2 category, was it because you were bored or distracted?  This is also scary.  We need to all pray that God would give us a desire to be connected with Him and not bored with the elements of the worship service.

I truly hope that most people fell into the crowd of being more alert with a guest pastor, and I ask that God would help me and any others not to fall into the #2 crowd.