i am an offering

Sunday Recap

Yesterday was a great day - full of family times, which I really loved.  It was also a good, albeit, slightly stressful day at Living Word.

Our service starts at 9:20.  I had the day off from leading worship yesterday but of course, like most of you out there, I was still keeping an eye out for anything that might be amiss.  Well, 9:20 comes and I realize that no one is sitting at the projection computer.  I quick find Pastor Wade and ask if the person who usually sends the file for projection had sent it or if she was coming.  Minimal panic ensues.  When I say minimal, though, I really mean it - it was quite amazing how much peace I ended up feeling, even knowing that we might not have any words for the screen.

So, after a phone call and a few minutes we realize we have the words on Pastor’s laptop, but no jump drive.  He makes a transition into announcements and calmy asks if anyone has a jump drive.  Someone does and we’re able to get up and running with all of the lyrics with a few, but not many hiccups.  The worship service goes well and God was glorified.  However, He could be glorified even more with a little bit better planning and communication.  Moral of the story - always, ALWAYS have many people in the communication loop when you’re all at different locations.  I’m really looking forward to being in our building early next year so some of these problems will hopefully go away - but at the same time, we need to work harder to make them go away now, so that we don’t face the same problems in the building.

But God was good, and blessed us anyway with great music and great teaching on “You shall not Murder.”  We sang:

• We are Called to Be God’s People
• Bless That Wonderful Name
• Knowing You
• Thou Art Worthy,  CCLI  14789
• The Wonder of it All

And Pastor Wade led us in two choruses of “I Have Decided” after hearing the pianist playing it as a music bed under the prayer time.

Subscribing to This Blog

Many of you are aware and many of you might not be that you can subscribe to this blog to get the content coming to you instead of remembering to visit every day.  Now it’s a little easier as I have added a link to subscribe at the top right corner of the blog.  Just click on the link and your browser or feed reader should automatically tell you what to do with the subscription.  If you don’t have a feedreader - you should get one.  Here is a good one for PC and here is a good one for Mac.

Also, if you happened to subscribe to this blog without using the feedburner link at the top right but used the default feed link, would you mind please resubscribing using the feedburner link at the top right that is now available?  It helps me keep track of visitors to the site and I would really appreciate it!  Thanks so much!

For a long time I’ve subscribed to the school of thought that playing by chord off of lead sheets or chord sheets is a much better way to go for piano players than playing straight from the actual piano music.  You only have to have a couple of pages to turn through, you learn how to play chords just in case the piano music is unavailable, and you develop your ear.  However, there is a problem:  it’s much harder to lead if you don’t have experience.

Without Rhythm and Melody - Chords Don’t Go Anywhere

As I’ve begun to teach several piano players how to play by chords instead of by the piano music I’ve run into a problem that I completely didn’t expect.  Chords, without being driven by rhythm and melody, don’t really go anywhere.  I can tell the piano player to “just play by the chords on this one” and it leads to a great fit when I’m leading from the guitar.  I can carry the rhythm from the guitar and let the piano color and accent the song.  But if I say, “I’d like to you lead this one on the piano,” many of the piano players are not quite sure what to do.  They can play the chords, but haven’t really been taught the rhythms to apply the chords to - so the song lacks movement.  They can play the chords, but haven’t really been taught how to break them up and use passing tones to create interest - so the song lacks character.

What to Do?

I guess that is my dilemma.  I can show the piano players what to do by saying, “Let me sit for a second and show you what I’d like.”  But then they’re just watching me do something instead of actually learning how to do it.  I would love to know what you’ve done to teach piano players how to play chords but play them rhythmically and melodically - able to lead a song well.  Some things I can think of might perhaps be:

• Writing out piano parts for them for a while - then saying, “Okay - your turn to apply it - make up your own now.”
• Having a workshop with piano players on how to do these things - which is something I’d like to do - I just lack the time at the moment.
• Have the piano players listen and watch professionals to try and develop their ear and mimic what the professionals are doing
• Create an online youtube / vimeo video to help train - another thing I’d love to do - again with a lack of time

Are there any other suggestions that could help?

As usual - a great day at Living Word yesterday.

We sang:

• Rise Up O Church of God
• Blessed Be Your Name (Redman)
• How Great is Our God (Tomlin)
• Speak O Lord (Townend / Getty)
• We Are Called to Be God’s People

We had a bit of a glitch with the final hymn - but those things happen.  I was so encouraged by several things yesterday:

• The lady battling cancer continues to raise her hands in worship with a joyous smile on her face.
• A visiting friend of a young teenager in our congregation closes her eyes in worship and I could see her mind exalting Jesus Christ through it.
• A young man raises his hands to God during the Lord’s Prayer (I had to have my eyes open because I was holding my squirmy daughter )
• Finding out that two new regular visitors sing, play the bass and play the guitar

Wade preached a fantastic sermon on the 4th commandment - very convicting and encouraging.  We are able to bring our daughter to the zoo and thouroughly enjoy watching her “ooh” and “oh” and scream in delight at giraffes, squirrel monkeys and many other animals.  Ended the day with a movie with my wife and got to bed slightly early.  A great Sunday.

During the last several weeks I’ve had the privilege of connecting with a bunch of new worship leaders through blogs and various twitter accounts.  Through conversations I was introduced to The Worship Community, a grassroots community site for worship leaders.  It had started out as just a forum a little over a year ago and has now grown into a one-stop resource with videos, the original forum and featured articles from worship leaders all over the country.

One of the coolest things about it is that it is featuring “every-day worship leaders,” those of us that are “in the trenches” in the local church.  As great as it is to see writing and resources from “the big names” it’s so cool to see a bunch of local people featured.

Another cool thing is that I’ve been asked to write for the site!  I’m very excited to be a part of it and so thankful that God has blessed the time spent on this blog to be able to expand and encourage others.  So please, check it out and join the forums or leave a comment on any articles that are there.  It will definitely encourage you!

The holiday weekend is over and I’m back to blogging!  I would have blogged Sunday, but I actually listened to the sermon that day so I decided not to (more in that in a bit)!

Songs we did:

• God of Wonders (Byrd / Hindalong)
• Hosanna (Baloche / Brown)
• O Worship the King
• Cleanse Me

I was so thankful for a supportive pastor on Sunday who took me aside before the service and prayed for me.  We had been going through a slightly difficult situation over the weekend and I was so thankful he showed his support by praying that I would be able to lead worship well.  I was also so blessed by watching a woman who has been battling cancer raising her hands in worship.  I almost had to stop singing.

Pastor Wade gave a great message on the 3rd commandment (remembering the Sabbath (meaning - stop) day and keeping it holy).  It was a good reminder and caused our family to just stop and rest that day and man was it ever a restful day!

A great day at Living Word.