There was no youth group yesterday, so I committed to playing big church with Autumn. Kristian, the drummer I’ve been fortunate to have also filled in on drums. Our set this week looked like this:

Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee – Passion version
Hosanna – Brooke Ligertwood (Hillsong United)
Father Let Me Dedicate – Passion version
Take My Life – Traditional/Tomlin (Passion version)

This Sunday was quite different as there was a lot of talking about ministry opportunities throughout the church and ways to get involved. There were also videos and interviews of people that show how God can take simple ideas and turn them into reality. Next week, it’s back to youth group as we kick off the new school year with our “move up” Sunday.

It’ll be good.

d

part of Sunday Setlists at FredMcKinnon.com

Yesterday was a sad night. It was a good night, but it was also sad. It was the last youth group for our seniors who graduated this year, and thus it was the last time that the team that I’ve been blessed to lead for the last fourteen months got to play together as two of the team members graduated this year. For our setlist, we talked as a team about which songs over the past year have been our favorites to do and which ones felt like they had the most impact. We talked and decided that our set would be:

The Time Has Come – Joel Houston (Hillsong United)
Marvelous Light – Charlie Hall
How Deep the Father’s Love For Us – Stuart Townend
From the Inside Out – Joel Houston (Hillsong United)

Yes, The Time Has Come is a pretty new song, but it’s one that we’ve really taken a liking to. It was also good to play it again this week as it got a little more ingrained in the memories of everyone. Like I’ve mentioned before, Marvelous Light has gained a lot of momentum in the months that it’s been a part of our list of songs. I still think that this song has the best pre chorus ever in saying, “Sin has lost its power. Death has lost its sting. From the gave You’ve risen victoriously.”

As a team, we’ve only done How Deep the Father’s Love for Us once, and that was when we led all three church services back in May. But it was a song that we liked, and it’s a great song to take a deep breath and just rest in the words of the song. We did it in a way that allowed a seamless transition into From the Inside Out, and Inside Out is a song that our team could play with our eyes closed and no preparation we’ve done it so many times. It’s definitely one of the top songs in our youth group and pretty much has been since introduced almost two years ago.

I’ve been amazingly blessed to lead this team and am very thankful for the time we’ve had to play and worship together. I pray that God will do big and mighty things in the lives of our seniors as they head off to college in the next few weeks.

The first youth group of the new school year is in two weeks and we’ll be in the process of raising up younger musicians to be a part of the team.

I’m excited to see what’s to come for this team.

d

Okay, so you know these “Sunday Setlist” posts I’ve been doing these last several weeks? Well, the main directory (so to speak) of all of the Sunday Setlist posts can be found over at fredmckinnon.com and this last Sunday was the one year anniversary of worship leaders from all over blogging about their sets and sharing them for all to see. Since it was the one year anniversary, there was a celebration and prizes to be randomly given away to those who either commented with or blogged a Sunday Setlist post, read the one year anniversary entry here. You’ll notice that at the bottom of the post, amidst all of the links by all of the worship leaders who blogged about it this week, that I am at number 28.

Anyway, I woke up this morning to find this tweet:

I won! I immediately went to check out the deets and sure enough, there it was. Under “Today’s winner is…” was my name, my blog, and my twitter.

Can you say awesome?

So now I have these five cd’s on the way:

Matt Papa – Your Kingdom Come
Lanae Hale – Back & Forth
Matt Papa – Scripture Songs Vol 1
Jason Gray – new record releasing this fall
Downhere – new Christmas CD releasing this fall

I’m super stoked about this and can’t wait for the cd’s to arrive! I’ll probably do another post when the stuff gets here, maybe a review of the music, maybe just another “ohmyIcan’tbelieveIwon” post. We’ll see. Thank you, Fred, for everything that you do via your blog and ministry.

And for the cd’s of course .

d

I’m exhausted. Today was a serious “bring it” day at our youth group gatherings tonight. We had a very high tempo, high intensity set along with the same setup we had last week with two electric guitars instead of one electric and one acoustic. Our setlist tonight looked like this:

The Time Has Come – Joel Houston (Hillsong United)
All Day – Marty Sampson (Hillsong United)
Tell the World – Marty Sampson (Hillsong United)
(detecting a pattern here?)
Hosanna – Brooke Fraser (Hillsong United)

Like I said: high tempo, high intensity. This was the first time our band has done The Time Has Come at youth group, we practiced it a little bit last summer but we never played it during a set. This song was a song that was done at CHIC, so students knew it pretty well already, which is always nice when you have a new song and half of the people already know it. It was awesome, for our first real time playing it together, the team did a really good job with it.

Yes, we did All Day last week. But we did it again this week to get it lodged in the heads of everyone a little bit that way it’s familiar when we play it in the future. I love this song. It’s simple, it’s real easy to follow, it’s loud.

Tell the World was also a new song for us. We don’t normally do two new songs in one week, but with most people already knowing The Time Has Come, I think it was okay to introduce this one, too. Again, the team did a great job with this song.

I was super excited to do Hosanna, because Krista was going to lead it, and she did an absolutely awesome job with it! It’s awesome to have a female singer on the team, it opens up new songs and arrangements and I think it benefits everyone. The organ pad that Jordan played really added some great texture to this song as it carried it through the verses the way an acoustic guitar normally would. Also, Jonathan played a sick bass riff during the verse that was way cool.

There it is, a seemingly short Sunday Setlist compared to the marathon day that was last week. It was a great Sunday, and I’m very blessed to be able to do what I do here.

d

Another Sunday Setlist post recapping the worship set this Sunday at Church. The hub for all of things Sunday Setlist can be found over at FredMcKinnon.com.

Today was an epic and epically long Sunday for me. I played acoustic guitar and co-led the 5:00 service with Autumn and then led worship for both of our youth groups.

The 5:00 service was just me on guitar and Autumn on piano. It was really neat for me to play and lead a set with Autumn, just the two of us, because of how she’s really the one who has taught me just about everything about what it means and what it looks like to lead worship. Our set looked like this:

It Is You – Newsboys
Unchanging – Chris Tomlin
Everlasting God – Brenton Brown
//dismiss kids – greeting//
Desert Song – Brooke Fraser (Hillsong)
//sermon//
It Is Well – Traditional
Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus – Traditional
//offering//
Oh You Bring – Matt Crocker (Hillsong United)
You Never Let Go – Matt Redman

We each led four songs, Autumn led three of the four before the sermon, and I led three of the four after the sermon. The time after the sermon was really, really powerful. It was this recognition that no matter what is going or has gone on in our lives, God is still God. It was a really cool moment and the presence of God was right there with us.

Oh You Bring was a new song for us. It was the first time for us playing it in a service and despite it only being the two of us, the arrangement and instrumentation we did on it made it work. All in all it was a great service, and it was really cool to do a simple arrangement, vocal and harmony rich set with the person who taught me basically everything I know.

After the service, however, the day was just getting started. There were still two sets to play for our junior and senior high youth groups. We did a different setup at youth group tonight. We switched to two electrics instead of one acoustic and one electric, we had a female singer on stage with us (who did a great job!), and then had our keys, bass, and drums. Our sets for youth group was as follows:

Dancing Generation – Matt Redman
All Day – Marty Sampson (Hillsong United)
Mighty to Save – Reuben Morgan and Ben Fielding (Hillsong)
Overcome – Jon Egan (Desperation Band)

Our team did a great job with these songs. Dancing Generation and All Day were fun and loud. Mighty to Save and Overcome were powerful and worshipful.

It was a great Sunday. However, it was a long, long day. Between practices, sound checks, and actual services, I was at the church from 1:30 to 9:00. I don’t regret any part of the day, but I can’t do this every Sunday.

But today was oh so totally worth it.

d

Here’s another Sunday Setlist post recapping this evening’s worship service. The hub for all of the Sunday Setlist posts can be found at FredMcKinnon.com. Now, let’s get to it.

Today, I played in big church instead of leading our youth groups because CHIC is going on right now and most of our senior highers are in Tennessee taking part in that. So I got to play guitar and sing in big church today, which I love doing. It’s nice being a part of the band when you’re not the leader and not the one in charge of everything. I love leading, but it’s also nice to follow the leadership of someone else once in a while.

The setlist for today looked like this:

O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing (traditional). This was the first time I had done this song the traditional way, (not Crowder’s version). Autumn and I traded off a little bit on this song with her leading verses one and three and I sang lead on verse two. I like being able to do this kind of stuff where two different people sing lead at different times during the song.

For Who You Are into Jesus Messiah. Like the last song, Autumn and I went back and forth leading it. I led the first time through it, Autumn led the second time through, and then I picked it up again at the bridge and went until the end. From there, we did a major tempo change and transition into the chorus of Jesus Messiah and did the second half of the song.

Yesterday Today and Forever. This is a Vicky Beeching that we do pretty regularly. It’s a very good up tempo song talking about God’s faithfulness and unchanging…ness. I enjoy playing this song, but I’d like to sit down and work out some more interesting guitar parts for it, because I feel like I play the same riff for 2/3 of the song.

Fairest Lord Jesus (traditional). This was right after the sermon and was a very quite, reflective song with just piano. Ricky sang harmony on it and it sounded great.

Exalted (Yahweh). This song is pretty new in our church and is off of Chris Tomlin’s Hello Love CD. This song was great as it perfectly fit with the sermon (talking about God’s name, Yahweh), and it felt like it really connected. There’s something really cool and powerful about singing “Yahweh, holy is your name.”

Blessed Be Your Name. The last song of the service, after the offering. I led this one and forgot one of the words, but it was okay. I think this song is known well enough that it doesn’t take too much leading. One really cool part was when we got to the bridge and David, our drummer did a syncopated, half-time feel beat that was really, really cool.

There you have it. The Sunday setlist for July 12, 2009.

It was a good Sunday, I was happy to be a part of the team leading the evening service in worship.

d