But anyway… Carlos has been working on an album of original material. While it’s not out yet, he put out a three song EP earlier this year. I bought it from iTunes immediately, of course, and started listening to it right away. The short version of this review: it’s excellent.

The EP opens with “Rain It Down”, an upbeat worship song calling upon God to rain down His healing waters upon us. One of the reviews on iTunes described the sound of this song as U2 being led by Chris Tomlin, and that’s not entirely inaccurate. It’s a great song that really moves, and that should be easily singable by your congregation:
There’s nothing like Your healing water
Pour it out on Your sons and daughters
Our eyes are lifted high
We are here and we are waiting
Flood our hearts ‘til they’re overflowing
Our hands are lifted high

Carlos follows that song with “Jesus Saves”, which features a line that blows me away: “I am the sum of the failing and of grace.” Wow. What a great way to summarize that we are the products of our own personal histories and God’s grace on us. This is another upbeat song with shades of Tomlin and Bono. It, too, features a memorable and simple melody that should lend itself well to congregational worship:
Your innocence has covered my shame
Your love has spoken me by name
And I have victory over the grave
You overcame

The EP ends with “We Will Worship You”, my personal favorite of the bunch. This one is the slowest of the three, but probably the most powerful. I’ve already introduced this song to my congregation, both the Saturday night and Sunday morning crowds. It was a big hit, and I think the credit for that goes to its powerful lyrics. I could write volumes about this song, but instead, I’ll just let the chorus speak for itself:
Save us from these comforts
Break us of our need for the familiar
Spare us any joy that’s not of You
And we will worship You
Yeah, we will worship You

The three songs on the EP are great, and they left me anxious to hear the full album that’s on its way. And as a bonus, Carlos has generously made the chord sheets available on his website in PDF format for free (click here to access them). Carlos Whittaker – EP is available at iTunes and Amazon.

5/5 stars.

On Wednesday mornings, Jeff Hoenshell & Ryan Smoker (two great worship leaders from my church) and I meet with the intention of discussing worship in the New Testament. Our hope and intent is to keep meeting until we get the whole way through the Bible, but at the rate we’re going, we’ll be meeting until 2110!

My plan was to write a blog post every week summarizing our discussion, but this will finally be the first post. It’s ok, though, because we have only discussed up through Matthew 4 to this point. Not because there is so much in the first 4 chapters about worship, but because we’ve really been wrestling a lot with the definition of worship that we would like to use.

Our overarching definition of worship is “giving preeminence to someone/something through adoration, sacrifice, and reverence.” This has been a labor to come up with, but we feel it really encompasses all (or at least most) of the elements we have debated including (e.g. response, glory, obedience, etc.).

We’ve also broken the definition out into a number of sub-categories:

• False Worship: giving preeminence to someone/something over/above its inherent worth or value
• True Worship: giving preeminence to the God of the Bible.

True worship also has 2 sub-categories:

• Corporate Worship: two or more people gathered in the same place/time with a united purpose of giving preeminence to the God of the Bible.
• Individual Worship: an individual giving preeminence to God.

We’ve set these definitions in place because we want to know exactly what worship is and isn’t as we read through the NT with the intent of gleaning principles by which to live and lead worship. Of course, the definitions are up for change as the Scriptures dictate, but we needed to start somewhere.

What do you think of the definitions? Too simple? Too complex? Let me know your thoughts.

Have you ever noticed that the average designer looks like they are in the band? Ever notice the odd coincidence that so many music people also dabble in design? Ever wonder why? Let me play a few chords of the common bond between music and design… When a musician begins learning, let’s say… guitar, he (or she) first learns how to play the notes, but then begins to learn on a higher level how different notes and sounds make up the songs that create his moods. He learns the chords that stir him up, wind him down, and make him wax melancholy.

This certainly rings true in my experience. The important question, then, I suppose, is how to apply this wisely to our worship services.

Brad

If you have any experience in the Mac vs. PC issue for the purpose of displaying lyrics, or if you know anything about ProPresenter or MediaShout, it would be great to hear your opinion.

This week our theme was The Name of Jesus.

We did “Everything” by Tim Hughes as a prelude (which really had nothing to do with the theme).

First song after the announcements was “Lift Up The Name” by Josh Caterer from Harvest Bible Chapel in Chicago. It is a fun, upbeat call for people to glorify the name of Christ. It also includes some shouting at the end, which can be uncomfortable for some people, but it’s good get out of the comfort zone, right?

Second song was “Your Name” by Glenn Packiam & Paul Baloche. We did the Philips, Craig, & Dean version and started it with a Wurli sound on the keyboard, which was pretty cool. Also, during the “instrumental” part we had our singers recite some scripture verses that went along with each line of the chorus. Here’s how that went:

Your name is a strong and mighty tower (Prov. 18:10)
Your name is a shelter like no other (Psalm 5:11)
Your name let the nations sing it louder (Psalm 66:1-2)
Cause nothing has the power to save but Your name (Acts 4:12)

The last three songs we did as a medley: Jesus Your Name, Praise the Name of Jesus, and You are My All in All.

It was a decent set, a little choppy at spots, but definitely carried the theme well.

What did you do this week?

*Posted by Brett*

Got some good comments on the last James MacDonald video. Let me hear what you think about this one.

http://www.praisecharts.com/christmascarols

A friend recently emailed me and expressed a dilemma he was facing when teaching new songs performed by an artist who varies the way he or she sings the melody. My friend asked:

I’ve faced the same dilemma. While I’m grateful for many of the new congregational songs that have emerged in recent years, they’re not always sung in a way that makes it easy for a congregation to pick them up. Phrases are elongated in one verse and not the other, melodies are changed, and sometimes the melody becomes hard to identify or unsingable by a normal congregation. Here are a few of the thoughts I consider when figuring out what to do.

Read the full article at worshipmatters.com.

How about you? What are your strategies for teaching difficult music? And what are some of those songs that your worship team or congregation just doesn’t click with?