Worship in Spirit and in Truth

The Worship Ministry team met last night, and we continued a great dialogue on worship philosophy type issues. One of the things mentioned was God seeking worshippers in Spirit and in Truth (dialogue with the woman at the well). What does God mean? What is He looking for? What does He/will He do when He finds them?

Last Sunday, we did a song called the Stand for our offering song. Let me say this about our offering songs - the main ACT of worship during our offering song is bringing tithes and offerings. I usually do a song that is more presentational OR a song that I'm wanting to teach the congregation so i can start planting it in their brains to sing at a later date. There's never an expectation for the congregation to sing during the offering song . . .

So last week, we did the Stand as recorded by Hillsong United. Great tune. The text of the chorus says: "So I'll stand, with arms high and heart abandoned, in awe of the One who gave it all."

Our pastor, in a Presbyterian Church no less, stood up, with arms high, heart abandoned, eyes closed, and was worshipping during the offering song, and then had this to say.



I think something awesome is happening in the worship picture at Oak Mountain. I'm excited to see where it takes us, and how God directs us in His worship . . .

Monday morning recap for Sunday - March 22. 2009

We [Oak Mountain] were back from spring break this weekend.

we opened our service with Awake My Soul, which is a tune I wrote set to a hymn text by Isaac Watts.

After our call to worship, we sang Hosanna (Baloche), God of Grace and Glory, Break Through (T. Walker), and Draw Me Nearer. We then saw a testimony video from one of our members who has been out of work since November. We went from the end of the video in to Never Let Go (Redman).

For our offering song, we brought back a tune that we did in last year's Palm Sunday worship program called The Stand, as recorded by Hillsong United. Great tune.

Here is the video without underscore (music) from this past weekend.

Intimate Mystery Audio now available

If you attended (or not) the Intimate Mystery Marriage Conference back in February with Dan Allender, the audio is now available for purchase from that conference by clicking here.

Monday morning recap for Sunday - March 15, 2009

This week we had the privilege of hearing from Jerram Barrs. He even preached two different sermons . . .

We opened our service with last week's rendition of Come Ye Sinners . . . with a full band this time.

After our call to worship, we sang Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus, Amazing God by Brenton Brown, Your Love is Amazing, How Firm a Foundation (go and read the text of this hymn), You Are My King, and Immortal Invisible.

Our offering song was a Tommy Walker tune called I Have a Hope.

Monday morning recap for Sunday - March 8, 2009 (on Wednesday)

This past week was a communion week, and Phil preached . . .

We opened with Our God Saves by Paul Baloche.

After our call to worship, we sang All Because of Jesus by Steve Fee, Shelter by Sonic Flood, Great is Thy Faithfulness, and You Alone.

Our offering song was an acoustic, stripped-down version of Lead Me to the Cross by Hillsong, and for communion I sang Come Ye Sinners - a version that offers a very appropriate melody to accompany the text. You can find this version sung by the Robbie Seay Band, or by a group called Cambridge, both on iTunes.

Come Ye Sinners . . .

I'm working on an arrangement of a hymn that I may sing for communion on Sunday. maybe.

I'm destroyed by the third verse -

Come ye weary and heavy laden. Lost and ruined, by the fall.
IF YOU TARRY UNTIL YOU'RE BETTER, YOU WILL NEVER COME AT ALL . . .

Wow

Watch this . . .

Hang in there - it's only 3:00 long. At 2:00 something incredible happens. If it doesn't ring your bell, there's something wrong with your clapper.

Monday morning recap for Sunday - March 1, 2009 (on Wednesday)

What an interesting service last Sunday was . . . the treacherous Alabama Winter Storm 2009 kept quite a few folks away, including about half of the choir, but we pressed on, and had a great worship service.

We opened with Amazing God again - by Brenton Brown.

After our call to worship, we sang Jesus Shall Reign, Sing to the King, Come Thou Fount, Never Let Go (Redman), and Revelation Song (Gateway Worship).

For offering, we sang God of this city by Bluetree.

Video . . .

Will [My Tech Dir] is working on some lighting and positioning for a new video that we're shooting. I went to check on his setup, and we did a demo . . .

Today is HUGE in the music world . . .

Raul Malo is releasing a new album today.

Dear Finale . . .

you're so hard to love. Just when your users get over the ridiculous, unlinked changes you make in Finale 2007, you go and completely reinvent the software, making menus ever MORE difficult to navigate. You move functions around, and actually DELETE major functions . . .

God of This City

Here is the story that I mentioned this morning regarding the song: God of This City.

Nov 2006, Bluetree are heading out to Pattaya Thailand to participate in an event arranged by Belfast missionaries living in Pattaya, Thailand called Pattaya Praise. We’ve no expectation of the event; we were just looking for an opportunity to serve somehow.
We didn’t know much about it before we left, but Pattaya is a dark place. It’s a small seaside town notorious for it’s sex trade. Throughout our time there we heard countless stories of girls who are bought from their parents for a price, sold to the sex industry at ages as young as 5 years old. Arriving in Pattaya the spiritual climate seems to change, it’s hard to define, but there is a very tangible change. On the bus journey in we’d been our usual cheery selves, but entering Pattaya at 10am and turning on to a street lined by girls ready for business, the bus became very quiet. We’re in total shock. It’s a sunny day but it’s incredible how dark it feels.

‘Walking street’ we learn is the epicentre of the sex trade in Pattaya, it’s about a mile long and at night springs to life with neon signs. Thai people are generally conservative in their dress sense — it’s generally considered provocative to bare your shoulders. But on their street the girls are wearing very little, and offering anything you can imagine for a price. It’s easy to look around with human eyes, see the depravity and get angry. You see older men walking hand-in-hand with young girls — as a daddy, that’s hard to take in. It’s easy to get angry, it’s easy to judge — but that’s not our job, so we grit our teeth.

We were in Pattaya to be part of a praise event not far from this street, the soul purpose of which was to worship and show God’s light in a dark place. We wanted to play more than the scheduled slots while we were there, so we found out that one of the bar owners would let us play a worship set in her bar on the proviso that we brought as many from the missions team who would buy coke-a-cola all night. We walk in to the bar which is about the middle of walking street, girls are lined up on the stairs waiting for business. We get set up, we’re really nervous and quite uncomfortable but we kick in to a familiar beat of worship and soon it’s ok. God starts to speak and we started to move in to this spontaneous song. The truth is when you worship in a place, you start to see God’s heart for that place. What would God say to a place like this?

Amidst the depravity God say’s, I’m the God of this City, I’m the King of these people and Greater Thing are Yet to Come, Greater Things are Still to be Done HERE. The song wasn’t written before that night, but we came out of the bar having worshipped with the song that is now the title track of our album — God of this City (Greater things). The song isn’t just for Pattaya — it’s for your city, and it’s true. By faith we must expect that greater things are still to be done.