Preposterousness

Worship : 28 June 2009

This post is part of the weekly Sunday Setlists blog carnival over at FredMckinnon.com. Go and check out the other setlists too! A big day...probably not bigger than normal, but Diane and I had a big theological/doctrinal discussion between the services which made the 4 hours in between feel like about 4 minutes. But I'm not gonna go into that here. You've all got lives, and we often have theological &/or doctrinal discussions - they just don't usually effectively last all day. ;) Both services continued our "Let The Word Do The Work" series. Diane noted with the editing that needs to be done for the TV program, this series could well end up getting into double-digits by the time it makes the small screen. Music Sunday AM 1. Can I Have More Of You? (Byrnes) 2. Let God Arise (Tomlin, Reeves, Cash) 3. Lord Of Lords (Fraser / Hillsong) 4. He Is Lord (Fielding / Hillsong) ...then following tithes, offerings, news... 5. Let God Arise (reprise) ...and for the ministry/end of service 6. He Is Lord (reprise) Rachael led today, and did a good job. She's now rostered on to lead once per month, which means that in most months, each of the worship leaders will lead once per month. But back to the music. The transition between the first and second songs was particularly seamless (as I've noted in the past, transitions are something we do well...this one was just really nice, where we started the drum roll which opens Let God Arise as the closing beat for Can I Have More Of You...it drew lots of appreciation from the congregation, and I enjoyed it as it's good to keep trying new arrangement tweaks; often transitions provide great opportunities to do this.) He Is Lord was new for us, and the people worshipped freely and openly, as it is definitely one of the most loved songs from Hillsong's 2008 album This Is Our God. Loved by our congregation anyway. Sunday PM 1. Tell The World (Douglass, Houston, Sampson / Hillsong) 2. Show Me Your Glory (Murgida / Harbourside) ...then following tithes, offerings, news... 3. Who Tha King? (Reddy, Losurdo, Costello / Harbourside) Troy led tonight, and the undoubted highlight was the new rap the youth had put together based on a poem/declaration written by our pastor. It. was. hot, and reminiscent of Run DMC's Down With The King album (and the drums were more than a little like their Walk This Way fusion as well) It will definitely make its way on to our album. A friend noted our album is going to be very varied. It sure is, but that accurately reflects our church too. Hyper eclectic. Worship+ 1. Stronger (Morgan / Hillsong) 2. You Are Here (The Same Power) (Pankratz, George / Hillsong) 3. Who Tha King? (reprise) Short and sweet tonight as the message went a fair bit longer than our evening services often do (though I had no idea at the time - it didn't feel long), it was still a great time of soaking worship with all of the singers taking turns leading...though Troy's voice was spent by the time of the rap reprise, so we danced for that instead. Lots of fun. Other Stuff Half way through the practice/soundcheck this morning, it became evident there was a problem with front of house sound. That problem was that there was no sound. Oh dear. Turns out there was a 'problem' with the digital processing unit. I quickly did some bypass wiring to get sound in some of the FOH speakers, emailed my company's database to release an unlock code for me for the unit, and spent some time after the service resetting and getting the wires back in place. Potential for being frazzled and stressed was nicely averted by the confidence I knew I could (a) rig up a suitable alternative, and (b) ultimately fix the problem. What did the weekend hold for you ?

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Worship : 7 June 2009

This post is part of the weekly Sunday Setlists blog carnival over at FredMckinnon.com. Make sure you check out the other setlists too! Just in case you haven't seen my last post...Diane and I weren't at church today. We were traversing New South Wales, but if you want to see a little more of that, you can visit my last post, or wait until we have some pics up...if we got any good ones... In the meantime, here's the setlist for Sunday morning. I don't know what they played Sunday night, I'll undoubtedly find out evenually. 1. Salvation (Seeley / Planetshakers) 2. No One Like You (David Crowder*Band) 3. Redeemer (Murgida / Harbourside) 4. Where You Go, I'll Go (Johnson, Mohr / Bethel) In other news, a big announcement was made at church today. From the beginning of the new financial year (1 July), we're going to have a new name. Of course, there's lots of varying opinions about the impact changing your name can have on a church, and just a couple of days ago we had a great discussion with one of our very best friends (first met via Twitter, and who knows about this stuff) about some of the pros and cons. Conclusion : God is bigger than a church name. So what is it then ?... Well, ever since I found out what it was going to be (by virtue of being on the leadership teams which voted for the change), I've had a tweet worked out for how I was going to introduce it to the twitterverse. So here it is:

Our church is changing its name. I voted for Awesomesauce Church...but the sauce had to go

Yep. This is gonna be fun. Seriously though, I'll share a bit more of the reasoning behind our new name in coming weeks...prorably.

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Worship : 31 May 2009

This post is part of the weekly Sunday Setlists blog carnival over at FredMckinnon.com. Make sure you check out the other setlists too! The church is still on a high from the conferences and guest speakers from the past few weeks, but more than just being on a high, we're excited about what doors God is opening for us, and closing others too. It's been great having a quiet-ish week since then to soak all of it in, and prepare for moving forward - wherever that may be. Today's AM message was drawn on 2 Cor 8:7 (shown in the Amplified translation below) :

Now as you abound and excel and are at the front in everything - in faith, in expressing yourselves, in knowledge, in all zeal, and in your love for us - [see to it that you come to the front now and] abound and excel in this gracious work [of almsgiving] also.

and looked at what those things we are told we excel at mean... The PM message expanded on some of the themes from the morning, partly focusing on the Hebrew word for prosperity "shalowm". The more I think about how to describe the message, the less able I feel to do so in a short space...so I won't. There was lots there. Like there always is. Music Sunday AM 1. I'm Not Ashamed (Andrew, Thomas / Hillsong) 2. Can I Have More Of You? (Byrnes) 3. Lead Me To The Cross (Fraser / Hillsong) 4. Where You Go, I'll Go (Johnson, Mohr / Bethel) ...then following tithes, offerings, news... 5. No One Like You (David Crowder*Band) ...and for the ministry/end of service 6. Where You Go, I'll Go (Johnson, Mohr / Bethel) Rachel led for the first time this morning. She's 17 and has been in the main team since she was 14. She's been a song leader, as opposed to a worship leader, for just on 2 years and tt was great to see her rise up a level into leadership from being a singer and No.2 keyboardist. She'd been deep in prayer about it all week, and though a little nervous, she has such a well-developed dependence on God that she did a beautiful job leading the worship today. It's only the beginning :) Sunday PM 1. For Your Glory (Pringle / C3) 2. Saving Son (Murgida / Harbourside) ...then following tithes, offerings, news... 3. Shout You Praise (Orosa, Araullo, Reddy / Harbourside) ...and then for Worship+ after the service 4. For Your Glory (Pringle / C3) 5. More Than Life (Morgan / Hillsong) 6. With Everything (Houston / Hillsong) 7. Let It Rain (Farren) Julie led tonight. She's 15. Rachel, who led this morning, is her elder sister. I've said it before, but I love seeing our youth rise up as leaders. Our pastor said he remembered her as a toddler. She took it all in stride (she's not one for attention), and did a beautiful job leading us into the throneroom. Worship+ was quite probably the best it's ever been as a worship encounter. Invigorating. Taking a cue from Steff, a Sunday Setlists blogger who often includes videos of the songs in her sets, I thought I'd include this one, the title track from C3's 2008 album. We've been doing this for several months now, and it's a great upbeat song - lots of dancing happening. C3 may not be as famous as Hillsong or Planetshakers, but many would be aware of Phil Pringle's Christian City Church international network. Semi-interesting aside : Phil Pringle and Brian Houston grew up together in New Zealand, so I'm told by a very reliable source. Amazing to think that two of the main church leaders from the southern hemisphere were childhood friends...

Other Stuff: No-One Like You was new for us. It went really well...except that the words for the projection were typed up in an el bizarro manner apparently, so were very hard to follow. Diane will #prorably get around to fixing those soon... Finally, my twitter followers may know that the front fill speakers I mentioned last week were indeed a problem...they'd been blown. Unfun. No-one's sure how it happened; no-one ever is. Thankfully, working where I do, I was able to wangle some of our hire stock and get the issue fixed until ours are repaired. How about your weekend ?

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Songs, Hills and Hillsong

Um, actually, there's nothing in here at all about hills. Except to point out, if you didn't know, that Hillsong is so named because it's in the Hills District of Sydney. It used to be called Hills Christian Life Centre. The Hills district is also a little bit hilly. Anyway, back on track... A number of weeks ago I mentioned in a post that at some point I may talk about why we do so much Hillsong music at Harbourside. I have also alluded to some of the reasons in the past as well, but today I'm going to lay them out for you...just to clear up any possible confusion... 5 Reasons why Harbourside Christian Life Centre use of a LOT of Hillsong music. 1. First and foremost, our Pastor loves them. So do our people, though I'm generalising of course. I love them too, though I can be even more specific and say that in general (?!), I love Reuben Morgan's and Brooke Fraser's songs the most. 2. We are part of the Australian Christian Churches, which is the 'new' name for the Assemblies of God in Australia. Hillsong is the largest church in our denomination, and produces the most music (though Planetshakers aren't far behind). 3. While we are not Hillsong, or part of the Hillsong Network, we are (or have been*) open in 'marketing' our church as 'like Hillsong' when talking to people about what they can expect. It therefore makes sense to include music by the only worship team to regularly have Top 5 albums in this country. Come to think of it, unlike the US, they are just about the only Christian artist to have Top 100 albums period. Excluding bands such as The Fray, of course. 4. Despite a lot of things I read about their music being difficult for congregations, our congregation love the weird timings and the lack of predictability (though being unpredictable can become predictable). For instance, I am a fan of Chris Tomlin, but often I find his stuff quite safe (read: commercial). There's nothing wrong with that. I am Mr Commercial Pop. But I'm also a little bit twisted and have very diverse tastes. I prefer what a lot of other people do - like Jesus Culture, but even more than that, I prefer Kim Walker. Period.** 5. Finally, and probably most importantly, we are encouraged to bring our own music. Music borne from the encounters we have with Christ on a daily basis. That's why we're recording a worship album this year. I'm producing it. Our first studio session is this Saturday. Yay! Who is your favourite worship artist? Do you find it resonates with others too? * The reason I qualified that statement : we are moving away from where we have been, and becoming less programmed. Hillsong may well be doing this too - the reasons given for some changes to the July conference are to allow more freedom for the Holy Spirit to move. This excites me, so I'm even more keen than usual to be there. ** You may not be aware that the expression "period" doesn't get used in Australia. We call that dot at the end of sentences a full stop. It doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

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Worship : 28 June 2009

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Worship : 31 May 2009

Songs, Hills and Hillsong