Worship Set: March 28

Holy Are You Lord - Paul Oakley
Sweetly Broken - Jeremy Riddle
O Glorious Day - Michael Bleecker(?)
Worthy, You Are Worthy - Matt Redman
Crimson Stream - Paul Oakley

Loving this video and song

This is a song and video by Rend Collective Experiment a new band from the UK that I recently heard about on Kingsway's website. Enjoy!

What Do You Say When You Lead Worship? Part 1

What Do You Say When You Lead Worship? Part 1

This is super funny, but also very helpful!

How To Choose Songs For a Gathering

I just came across this excellent article on song selection from Paul Oakley.

Take a look at it here.

Songs - Sunday March 14

Song list from Sunday March 14, 2010:

Let God Arise (capo 2 in G, actual Key A) Chris Tomlin

Our God He Reigns (capo 4 in Am, actual key C#) Simon Brading

Third Day (capo 3 in D, actual key F) Simon Brading

Amazing Grace (capo 3 in D, actual key F)

My Soul is Well (capo 3 in G, actual key A#) Simon Brading

Small Group Worship

Two weeks ago in our small group we had a time of worship that was filled with passion, prayer, and the tangible presence of God. It did not include a guitar, or any music for that matter. It was not lead by a "worship leader" nor was it hyped up in any way at all. It was simple and powerful, and it looked like this:

Tom Valdez was sitting on his couch and the rest of our small group (about 10ish people) were scattered around him in various chairs, couches, etc. I had asked him to lead the worship time by picking a section of scripture that talked about the biggness/goodness of God and to lead a time of prayerful worship around that. He started by explaining that he'd had a pretty crappy week and that when I had asked him to lead the worship time he was a bit skeptical, but decided to go for it. Then he read Psalm 103 and gave a very brief explanation of how these verses on God's love and redeeming character had lifted him out of his circumstances. Then we prayed. We prayed into the truth of these verses. We told God how he had lifted us out of pits, how he was our Rock, how much we appreciated the fact that our sins were removed "as far as the East is from the West." It wasn't fancy, it wasn't flashy, it wasn't hyped...but God was there, by his Holy Spirit, and we sensed his presence and love. We bowed our wills before him and we threw our affections toward him, and he poured out his love into our hearts.

Small group worship times can be pretty awkward at times, but if led well they can be simple yet transformative times. They can include guitars and singing songs from song sheets, they can be raised voices singing songs from our hearts, they can look like what Tom did in our group. There are a variety of ways to have corporate small group worship. The point is, they need to be led. Tom told us what to do, led us through the scripture, and then we were led in corporate prayer together. I would encourage those who lead these times to follow some very simple points as you lead:

1) Tell the group what you're going to do:
(Example) I'm going to read some scripture about the goodness and greatness of God. Pay attention to who God says that he is, or how he responds to us as we go through the scripture. Then we're going to pray our thanks and for those things and speak back those things to him. This isn't about us, it's about praising him.

2) Encourage the group to participate...don't be afraid to be expressive and passionate: 
(Example) Let's not ask God for anything during this time. Let's just lift our voices. (Then start out by going for it yourself...pray BIG prayers, or maybe even prep others by asking them to start out the prayer time beforehand. Just to say, prayer times can look like all the people raising their voices at once...which can be very good, individuals praying, or a combination of the two. Again, let people know what you're expecting.)


3) Lead by example in praying out, singing out, and sharing the prophetic

4) Look for opportunities to encourage people in your group afterward


Small groups are safe places to worship, build community, and practice the gifts of the Spirit. Let's continue to move forward as a church and lead people well into times of expressive worship!

Songs - Sunday March 7

Song list from Sunday March 7, 2010:

Our God He Reigns (capo 4 in Am, actual key C#) Simon Brading
Highest and Greatest (capo 4 in G, actual key B) Tim Hughes
Let the Rain Come (capo 4 in G, actual key B) Simon Brading
My Soul is Well (capo 2 in G, actual key A) Simon Brading
You Alone Can Rescue (capo 2 in G, actual key A) Matt Redman

Worship through Prayer

Prayer is a vitally important aspect of every Christian’s life that should be given more attention than it often times receives. Prayer isn’t just bringing requests before God for Him to either say yes or no to, it is the best and most effective way that we as His children can connect and spend time communing with our Father. More than this, it is necessary for the health of our relationship with God and our lives as followers of Christ. This isn’t to say that God doesn’t want us to bring our requests before Him, because He most certainly does! Not only does He want us to bring our requests before Him, He wants us be specific about what we are asking of Him and to have faith that He will accomplish and provide those things. Our faithfulness in prayer is one of the many ways we act out our worship to God. The more passionately we throw ourselves into prayer the more our times of corporate worship will be filled with passion. Even more than just passion, the more we pray to be filled with the Spirit of God, the more our times of corporate worship will be filled and led by the Spirit of God. Lord God, may we be characterized by the way Your Spirit leads us in our gathering and as a church focused on Your mission of redemption! Through this incredible gift of prayer given to us by God, He wants to bring about change. Change in our hearts, in our church, in our neighborhoods, our City, and the nations. We have the great privilege of taking part in this change God has promised by joining together and praying that these promises would be fulfilled. The reconciling work of Jesus Christ is clearly laid out for us in this verse from Colossians:

“For it pleased the Father that in Him (Jesus) all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross” Col 1:20 (emphasis added)

Jesus has promised to reconcile all things into a right relationship with Him and is, in fact, in the process of this work of reconciliation. It clearly states in these verses that God is reconciling “all things to Himself”, and this absolutely includes the city of Tacoma. Because of this promise of reconciliation that has been given to us through Jesus Christ, we need to pray for the fulfillment of that promise to break in and take hold at the very heart of Tacoma and bring this city into a right relationship with Him. Our prayers will ignite and fuel this promise given to us by God and we will begin to see the reconciling work of Jesus in our city. We must pray with unwavering commitment and heart felt devotion, understanding that we may not see an immediate answer to our prayers, but having faith that through our perseverance in those requests we will see God answer those prayers in amazing ways. God exists in community and He desires to be in community with us. It is through this community relationship that God wants to bring about change, that’s how He designed it. Let’s join together as a community of believers, in community with the Father, to see His promise of reconciliation come to glorious fulfillment through life changing power of Jesus Christ. This is our mission: to see our city, our state, our nation, and all the nations of this earth come to know and worship the one and only Creator God, the Savior of the world; Jesus Christ.