Sunday Set List: 8/2/09

My first blog since Thursday!

It feels so good to be back. Let’s get started.

This past Sunday was a GREAT one! Chris Moerman was back with us for the second week in a row. It was good to have him with us back-to-back weekends since he is becoming a once a month guy for us. Anyways, July 26, Chris did a great job, and he did another great job this past weekend. Let me tell you what went on…

This weekend was sort of an acoustic set. It wasn’t entirely acoustic in that Cody Preston played some lead with a sweet Stratocaster running through his Vox AC30 and an amazing vintage Fender amp his dad used in the 60’s. And Ty Faulk was on keys, and he brought a nice Rhodes which he played through a Fender Deluxe, and his usual keyboard he plays through Reason, I think it what he uses. The only other guy on stage was Doug singing background for Chris. A little side note about Doug. He is the ONLY volunteer in the band. Yeah, he’s that good!

For this weekend we actually took EVERYTHING off the stage except what was absolutely minimally necessary. In other words, there were just avioms, amps, and guitar stands. We did put the amps on stage this weekend which really added a cool look to it. We have 2 amp boxes backstage that we always put them in, but for this weekend it just seemed right, and it looked cool. I’d like to try that some more in the future too. So the stage was very bare, and the worship set was very intimate.

We started off playing “Jesus Messiah” by Chris Tomlin. Chris Moerman led this song for us for the first time last weekend and the people really caught on. It was great to have Chris lead us in that song again this weekend. Like I said before, he really knows how to explain a song and make it easy for everyone to worship through it.

After “Jesus Messiah” Chris took some time to really invite people to worship. One thing he said that I loved is that we wanted to do something very simple with the music and clear out he stage to help create space for everyone to worship. It was beautiful and spot on to what God was getting ready to do through yesterdays worship.

One thing a lot of worship leaders forget is that they don’t have a lot of time to talk, so every word they say is very important. Chris gets this better than nearly anyone I’ve ever heard lead worship. He doesn’t say a lot, but he says it just right. I think I have a man-crush on Chris.

We then went into “How He Loves” by John Mark McMillan. If you don’t know this song, you should. Nothing against David Crowder Band; I love their music, but they don’t have the best version of this song out there. Check out John Mark McMillan or Eddie Kirkland’s arrangement. We do the Kirkland because it’s my personal favorite. But this is a beautiful song and Ty’s Rhodes sounded AMAZING on this song. He played all the lead parts and Cody actually just played rhythm. If you ever do this song, find a guy with a Rhodes to do it, trust me. Also, Doug sounded great on this song too. He hit those high melodies like he was their daddy! His range always impresses me.

Next we sang “It is Well with My Soul” the hymn by Phillip Paul Bliss I believe is the guy’s name. We did the arrangement Shane and Shane did on the Passion:How Great is Our God album. It’s just such a beautiful song, and it was specially requested by Chris. A little side note here: Brian Preston and I do most all of the planning of the worship sets, but I always talk to the worship leader to get their ideas on the set and make sure they’re cool with each of the songs. So Chris asked if we could do this one, and it went off in that place! It was great to see people worshiping like mad to a great song, especially the second verse that talks about our sin being “nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord oh my soul.” Yeah, it was sick.

After the main part of the worship set in the first service, we did a couple of baptisms. We started doing videos for every person who gets baptized to tell their story of how they came to give their life to Christ. We got to hear two amazing stories of how God redeemed two people yesterday. I love that we did that.

After that, Greg came and gave a great message about serving. I can’t tell you all the great stuff in there, you need to hear it yourself. He talked a lot about our “Give Love Away” we do at Crossroads, which is all about loving those in our community and expecting nothing in return. You can find out more about that at giveloveaway.net.

To end the service we sang “God of this City” which was written by Richard Bleakley but we did the live arrangement of it recorded by Chris Tomlin. This song just really speaks to the heart of Greg’s message. The song is all about how God still has great things in store for our world. This is another song that if you don’t know, all I can say is shame on you. And this is another song that sounded great with Ty on the Rhodes.

So that was our set list for August 2, 2009. So glad we got to do a very intimate acoustic-esque worship set. It was a lot of fun and sounded great!