For those that missed it, our #SundaySetList from yesterday is below. If you lead worship (for students or for 'big church'), what did you do? What worked? What didn't? I'd love to hear… My Redeemer Lives You Are the Holy One (Engle) Heavens Rejoice (Cofield) How Great is Our God (Tomlin) Shout to the Lord [...]
After lots of prompting and arm-twisting, our little band is giving in. We're officially starting the preliminary steps to recording a CD of original worship music. So, here goes. I'm sure there will be more details to follow as this project develops, but for now, here's our first step. UPDATE: we already have one house [...]
Ministry is foremost about people and relationships. As a worship leader and amateur sound guy I realize there can be areas of tension between the stage and the booth. Between 'us' and 'them'. But the goal of the worship leader and the sound person should be identical: to provide as few distractions for the worshipper [...]
"Will our children have to jump over our generation to earlier ones to find the Christian message again? Or will we have celebrated its fullness in such a way that they can remember from our worship what transcended our understanding, but will touch theirs?" -Donald Hustad, True Worship I wonder what our children will say [...]
Below are the top albums of 2009 that have impacted me. Some of them may make someone else's Top Ten list…but some will go relatively unnoticed. They are all very different from each other. So, in no particular order, here they are. 1. The controversial Stockholm Syndrome, from Derek Webb. Perhaps one of the craftiest [...]
*note: this blog is a part of the Sunday SetList blog carnival going on at Fred McKinnon’s little corner of cyberspace.) This Sunday was our Communion service, where we observed the Lord’s Supper/Last Supper. Rather than the typical flow of things, we opened with baptism (the first in our new building!) and prayer time, followed by a video [...]
I hadn’t heard it in a while, but yesterday I caught Dave Matthews’ "Grace Is Gone" again for the 2000th time. As I sang along, I caught myself fighting back tears. Why? Because I’m a wuss. Because it’s one of my all-time favorite tunes. Because, even though it’s debated whether the song is about [...]
I hate much of ‘Christian music’. Chances are that if it’s in heavy (or semi-heavy) rotation on your radio or in your local Lifeway store in the ‘Staff Favorites’ section, I have a hard time stomaching it. But that’s me, and I know that somehow the Spirit uses the sugary shallowness of it all to [...]
The first-ever tomcottar(dot)org online contest was a great success! Great creativity! After much consideration in a difficult situation I realized a few things. 1. I should have been more congnizant of Buffy (Spike Is My Personal Example) and Fight Club (Soap Inspires Mindless Pummeling of Enemies). Dang. 2. Personal emails sent to me asking "Is [...]
Worship is where I’m at today, kiddies. Although volumes have been written about it, I have yet to find a better description than the words of Louie Giglio: "Worship is turning our hearts affection and our minds attention to God". Worship is proclaiming the worth-ship of God. And, of course, that doesn’t just happen when [...]