Preparing for Sunday, 12/2/12 (1st Sunday of Advent!)

Hey everyone,
Christmas trees are going up, lights are appearing on eaves, the rain and cold are coming more often, and the stores are gettin' busier and busier.  Here we are at the first Sunday of December, and the first Sunday of the Church season of Advent. If you're not aware, Advent has been celebrated by the Christian church since about the 6th century, over the four Sundays leading up to Christmas. "Advent" means "coming," or "appearing," and is a time when we reflect on the wonder of Christ's first coming into our midst to bear our sin, and we reflect with (hopefully) great longing toward his 2nd appearing, when He'll come to finally receive His Church to Himself, and establish His coming kingdom on the earth.

I don't need to get into all the liturgical aspects that some churches incorporate into their corporate gatherings for Advent, but I do want to encourage a purposeful time of reflection over the next several weeks, as we sing Christmas-themed songs of reflection and worship, and reflect on the Gospel in a unique way. Hopefully the month of December is rich for us as we gather to worship as a local church, and as we dive into the glories and depths of the Gospel. May the Christmas season for our church family last longer, and have even more significance than a one-day celebration.

I'll be posting more specific thoughts on Advent, and on Christ's incarnation, etc., as we go along. Check back often for Advent resources to aid your worship this season.

Looking forward to kicking off our Christmas worship gatherings tomorrow morning. Here's what we'll sing together:

1. Joy to the World (Unspeakable Joy)
2. Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus
3. Angels We Have Heard On High
4. O Come All Ye Faithful

FOR THE TEAM: Practical Tips For Church Vocalists!

Here are a few tips for church vocalists from the Musicademy, an online guide for church musicians and singers. These are great, practical things to consider as all of us who sing try to consistently do our job better on Sundays, and for the sake of leading our church to sing.

A couple things:
1) I don't know that I care completely for the "abandoned worship" comment under tip #4. I don't mind a whole-hearted attitude in our church singing, and some spontaneous riffing is totally appropriate at times; but so often church folks use that term "abandoned worship" to refer to the "forget about everyone around you, personal worship experience." There are some theological problems with this. When we gather, we always keep in mind the people around us in the congregation, seeking to build them up and love them. We should never be so abandoned that we forget that they're there. Anyway - maybe this is just a semantics thing. Point #4 is great, though.

2) I really like the last point, on expressiveness. I'm a big fan, on our team anyway, of encouraging genuine expressiveness, not fake enthusiasm. You don't have to clap on stage, or close your eyes in a "holy pose" during singing; but it's important that everyone on the team is visibly engaged with the songs we're singing, and not looking bored or flippant while we're up there leading. As leaders, we should fight to be genuinely engaged with our songs and our congregation, whether it's an anthem of joyous praise, or a minor-key lament. That's part of the challenge in leading a church to sing - we have to fight to have soft hearts, engaged for real with our hymns and songs, because it's good for us and our gathered congregation takes its cues from the folks leading from the front.

All that to say, here are the tips for church vocalists!

1. Blend
   One of the keys to good Backing vocals is learning to blend so however many vocalists your have it sounds like one voice. So watch the lips of the worship leader or lead singer and try to match their starts, stops, phrasing, volume tone and vibrato.  
2. If more than one BV stick to your harmony part
   If you have multiple BV harmonies try not to cross over into another range. So if you are singing lines above the melody don’t go below it if another BV is taking that part.
3. Riffing
   Vocal riffs are kinda like lead guitar runs. They feel great for the person doing them but can be so easily inappropriate if overdone or used in the wrong place. So choose your moments wisely, maybe use riffs on ‘out there’ moments to encourage abandoned worship. Even if your riffs are great too many of them can get irritating really fast. 
4. Don’t upstage the lead vocal!
   Again the BV’s role is to support the lead vocal. Most people in congregations aren’t that musical and actually get confused if they can’t follow a clear lead so be careful that your BVs don’t do anything to cut across that melody.
5. You don’t have to close your eyes and adopt the holy pose
   One of the most worshipfully helpful backing vocalists I ever saw used to subtly use sign language as she sang to help her express the lyrics. It wasn’t supposed to be for anyone else’s benefit but her own and the gestures were very discrete but because it was genuine worship it was a very beautiful thing. Whatever gestures you make just be natural and mean it and sincerity will come across.

Preparing for Communion, Thanksgiving Eve, 11/21/12

We'll gather this Wednesday night for our annual Thanksgiving Eve 3 Fold Communion service. These are sweet times to be together as a local church, a local concentration of the bride of Christ; so make every effort to be there if you consider yourself part of our church family. We'll sing some hymns, and participate in the Lord's Table together. To help prepare, here is a quote by Rick Holland, about the dire importance of taking Communion as part of your local church:

"Communion is the best safeguard against doctrinal error, the best defense against apathy and lethargy, the best motivation for love and excitement for the Redeemer, and the best window into the depth and accessibility of gospel truth...God understands we forget. That's why He put Communion in our path...How do you uneclipse Jesus? You hold precious His death and remember His greatness. How do you hold that He is precious? By examining your life and seeing your sinfulness and loving His sacrifice on the cross on your behalf."

And we do this by participating in Communion together. Doing this isn't an option, or an "extra" for a Christian. God designed this aspect of fellowship with Christ and with one another to be "the best safeguard" as Holland says, against sin, error in doctrine, and indifference toward Jesus. It's incredibly important for us to make it a priority to be there, to engage with one another, to examine our hearts and confess sin, and to sing loud and well in praise to our Savior.

We'll sing the following songs tomorrow night. Prepare thy voice!

1. Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus/When I Survey The Wondrous Cross Medley
2. There Is A Fountain Filled With Blood
3. Near The Cross
4. Jesus Thank You

Preparing for Sunday, 11/11/12

Hey guys!
a few things: first, I won't be leading the music tomorrow. Eric Durso will take over, since Jenny and I are awaiting our new baby's arrival. Our due date was this past week. Could be any second now, so the guys on staff had me go ahead and trade off with Eric this week, to avoid the last minute, 3:00 AM Sunday morning call to Eric to come lead after all.

Weeks like this are great for our church, because we never want to slip into "personality-driven" church mode. We have leaders over certain areas of service and ministry within our church family, but sometimes those folks are taken out temporarily or indefinitely, or permanently for various reasons, and ministry continues! The body of Christ continues to share gifting with one another, to build one another up as we meet together. So tomorrow will be a great time of corporate, gathered worship of God.

Jordan will be preaching from 1 Corinthians 8:1-13, talking about food offered to idols, and how our freedoms in Christ are ultimately for caring for one another. We are free, in Christ, to give things up for the sake of not causing weaker Christians to stumble, and for the overall encouragement and building up of the Church.

We'll sing the following songs in our gathering tomorrow:

1. Your Grace Is Enough
A call to worship God, on the basis of His grace. We are saved from our sin by God's grace alone, and made a part of God's family, the Church, also by His grace alone. We aren't earning anything with God by meeting and singing together tomorrow - Christ has paid the sacrifice for our sin already, so we're called to gather, build each other up, and enjoy God, in and through Christ because we're fully saved and accepted by God, by His grace.

2. My Hope Is Built
This hymn rejoices in the perfect sacrifice of Jesus - that all the sacrifice due for our sin was paid by Christ. His blood, shed for us, saves us to the uttermost. Christ is our Solid Rock, even through every "high and stormy gale." Nothing can shake us, or snatch us from Christ if we're saved in Him.

3. Come Thou Fount
Another hymn, this tune opens with the plea for God to "tune our hearts to sing [His] praise." We need God to shape our hearts and continue to give us the right desires to worship Him, be satisfied in the Gospel, and to find all our hope and joy in Christ and His death and resurrection.

God, tune our hearts tomorrow to have deep joy in You, and You alone.

Preparing for Sunday, 10/28/12

Hi guys,
we're preparing to gather as a church family tomorrow morning, for a time of gathered, corporate worship. Hope you're thinking ahead, to make the most of that time. If you look back one post, there's a quote from David Mathis, about coming to church ready to serve others rather than be served. Always good to consider in our process of preparation how we'll serve and edify our brothers and sisters. Hope this post can be a short resource to help you prepare in other ways too.

Start with the Scripture passage that Jordan will be preaching on. Follow the link to read the passage ahead of time, hopefully making some observations and prayerfully asking God to reveal new treasure from this passage tomorrow morning. Jordan will be preaching on 1 Corinthians 7:25-35, focusing on being single and serving Christ. Keep this in mind for tomorrow: being single is not a second-best option for a Christian's life.

In addition, we'll take communion together after the preaching tomorrow, as a response to the proclamation of God's Word.

We'll sing the following songs:

1. Blessed Be Your Name
2. Before The Throne Of God Above
3. The Wonderful Cross
4. Christ Is Risen (after communion)

I want to point out something in just one of the songs this week. In "The Wonderful Cross," we'll sing the sometimes-neglected 3rd verse, that says, "Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast/Save in the death of Christ, my God/All the vain things that charm me most/I sacrifice them to His blood." This verse is a prayer for God to help us never boast in anything, except what Christ has accomplished for us on the cross. Our righteousness is not ours, but Christ's, that is substituted to us if our faith is in Him as our Savior. And so, the verse ends saying that the vain things in life that we like to boast in and find pleasure in, we sacrifice them to God. We give control over all things to Christ, holding everything loosely because whether we have blessings in this life or not, we have the ultimate blessing - life in Christ - that cannot be shaken or removed. 

Let's rejoice together tomorrow in the abundant life that Christ secured for His own, by His death and resurrection. See you then.

David Mathis on Corporate Gatherings

A few posts ago I put up a quote by David Mathis, elder at Bethlehem Baptist Church in MN, and executive editor at DesiringGod. His thoughts here are just great, on the mindset we should have as we enter a time of corporate worship as a church. Give this a ponder:

We're prone to get this backwards. We come to worship thinking that we're somehow giving to God, and we subtly expect we'll be receiving from others. We desperately need to turn that pattern on its head.

The God we worship is one not "served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything" (Acts 17:25). And when he came in the flesh, he did so "not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45). Beware coming to corporate worship to serve God. But by all means, come on the lookout to serve others. Worshiping God and building up others aren't mutually exclusive but come to their fullness together.

We give to one another as we together come to receive from God our soul's satisfaction. We kill both the vertical and horizontal of corporate worship when we come looking to give to God and receive from others.

Preparing for Sunday, 10/14/12

Hey everyone,
been a couple weeks since I've blogged. Hope this post finds you well and ready to prepare a little bit for tomorrow's worship gathering. Jordan will be preaching on 1 Corinthians 7:10-16, a part 2 of last weeks sermon dealing with marriage and divorce, and how Christians are especially called to live in light of these situations. Click the link above to read the passage ahead of time, so our time in Scripture is as rich as possible. The more preaching I listen to, the more I'm convinced I need to regularly prepare my heart ahead of time to listen and be taught, edified and convicted by the proclaiming of God's Word.

We'll sing the following songs tomorrow:

1. Happy Day
A rousing tune, calling our hearts to rejoice in "the greatest day in history" when Christ accomplished his sacrifice and payment for our sin, for all who come to Him by faith. The song also looks forward to the "endless joy" and "perfect peace" prepared for us, that Christ will bring us into one day as we spend eternity in glory with our King.

2. How Great Is Our God
This one is especially valuable as a setup for our 3rd song of the morning. We'll also tag a chorus of "How Great Thou Art" on the end of this one, so be ready to belt that out when we come to it.

3. The Power Of The Cross
Here's how "How Great Is Our God" sets us up for this hymn. "How Great" talks about God's splendor and majesty, His greatness, and the fact that God is also triune, "Father, Spirit, Son." Then our 3rd song here will say in its 3rd verse, that the earth became dark and the ground "quaked as its Maker bowed His head." God the glorious Creator, the Name above all names, became flesh, dwelt among us, and bore all of the wrath we deserved for our sin and rebellion against Him. Hopefully the order of songs this morning gets us fairly deep into the Gospel truths of what Jesus accomplished as God's sacrificed Son.

Hope to see you tomorrow morning! Get your voice and your Bible ready.