Monthly Archives: February 2012

Baltimore, Music, Musings, Sunday Setlist, worship

Sunday Setlist: 2/26/11

(Other people do this here.)

This is a Monday Miracle! The Sunday Setlist is posted on a Monday before noon! It must be all the Sigur Rós I listened to this morning…

Sunday, February 26, 2012: Harbor East

Wake Up Sleeper Gungor
I love listening to this song..but playing it is another story! Playing this probably stretched me the most as a musician who had a very loose grasp of music theory. It is days like this that I am very grateful for a talented and creative band. I love you guys! A special thanks to Chris for working through all the hard parts of the song!

You Have Me Gungor
This song has become very special to me. It is a very simple song about how, when things fall apart, God is always faithful to us. It is incredible that when we find our faith “torn to shreds”, that is when we seem to find God. This is a love that goes beyond just mental belief. It is enduring relationship. And…the original recording of this song has a banjo!

Wholly Yours Crowder
As we have entered into a time of Lent in preparation for Easter, we decided to engage in this activity of “burying the Alleluia”. For some of you, this may be a weird concept or even seem legalistic. My friend, Josh, who has begun the process toward becoming an Anglican priest wrote something here that helps to better explain the tradition. So we will seek to omit the word from our liturgy, from our lives, until Easter. A verbal fast. We did that with this song, intentionally not singing it.

In Christ Alone Getty
This song has long been one of my favorite new hymns. I love the richness found in each verse. And you all did a wonderful job singing it! One of my favorite memories is singing this song a cappella in my theology class in college. After finishing a section on Christology (the study of Jesus and his work), one of the students requested that we sing that song. After all, proper theology (study of God) leads to doxology (worship of God).

Come Thou Fount Traditional
We sort of emulated the David Crowder arrangement of this song. I was really struck by the line “tune my heart to sing thy grace” and how it so perfectly fit with the message this week. Matt did a wonderful job explaining how we are born with a bad heart and how we need Jesus to give us a new one. It conjured up the picture of a child coming to Jesus with a little broken toy ukelele, and Jesus sends him away with a $3,000 Taylor guitar. And then he says, “Learn to play”. When we come to him and sing, worship, and learn in our gatherings, God is tuning us from the inside and teaching us how to play the melodies of his grace.

Sunday, January 19th 2012: Highlandtown
(we did a similar set with a few changes…)

Nothing Compares RockHarbor
See a video behind this song here.

Feel free to share any thoughts or reflections in the comments section!

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music, Musings, Sunday Setlist, worship

Sunday Setlist: 2/19/11 (incredibly overdue)

Other people do this here.

Sunday, February 19, 2012: Harbor East

The Resistance Niequist
Aaron Niequist’s music has helped to restore my faith in “church music”. I have become extremely weary of the worship music scene. To me, it began to sound all like 90s-era U2. (I love U2, but not all the time, and not when everyone else wants to sound like them. Aaron is an innovator. And he loves the church. Moreso, he loves the Movement of God in the world. And that is what this song is all about. God is working in the world, through us, to bring about his purpose. We are the resistance. We are the revolution. And we won’t back down. Go to iTunes and buy everything Aaron has there. Then go here and here.

Carry Each Other Niequist

This is another song that has come to be an anthem for our body. The story behind the song is good and you can read it here.

I love these words:

We’ve got:
Different gifts and different names
Different dreams and different ways
Different hopes and different views
Different walks but one God.
Different strengths and different paths
Different loves and different pasts
Different needs and different beliefs
Different dreams but one God!

Cannot Keep You Gungor
This is a song that can make you feel uncomfortable at first. After all, are we saying that the Bible can actually become an idol for us? Yes, yes we are. And I should know because I have been guilty of doing that very thing. And even more so, we can use the Scriptures to feel like we have an “angle” on God. Like we can pin him down and describe him in words. I think it is quite cute of us to use words to describe God like er… indescribable or omnipotent…those are kind of nonsense words. What I mean is that they forego the more (dare I say) biblical example of metaphor and simile and just jump straight into the more metaphysical, cognitive terms. Instead of us saying that God is like wind or air, we say God is omnipresent. All I am saying is that words have power, and when we use them to describe God, who has the power, us or God? As we sang, we cannot contain the glory (weight/importance/intensity) of Your name.
Michael Gungor’s blog about mystery is also quite helpful…and damning.

All We Need Hall
Charlie Hall is one of the more legit worship leaders out there. I once heard him say that his main goal was to help those he lead feel like they can come to Jesus without any shame. What would it look like if we did that? Anyway, this is a frightening and joyful song for me. It is a song I mean and want to mean more each time I sing it. My default is to want God when I “feel” like I need him; which is usually when I am broken down or have made dumb decisions. But the truth is I need him all the time. But it is going to take giving everything to him. I’m always learning how to do that.

Take My Life Havergal
This is a song of consecration: a song that is us telling God that we are setting ourselves apart totally for him. It walks through all the different ways in which we give parts of our lives over to God through singing about our lips, mouths, feet, etc. It was a good way to meditate on the ways in which I have not given myself fully over to God.

Sunday, January 19th 2012: Highlandtown
(we did a similar set with one addition for our Spanish-speaking friends! Note: you guys did an incredible job singing this past weekend!)

Everlasting God Tomlin
This is such a catchy song (I find myself singing it a lot afterwards). It was also really great to sing this in Spanish as Infinito Dios. Tú no dismayas núnca fallas!

Feel free to share any thoughts or reflections in the comments section!

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gospel, Musings

I want to be like Priscilla and Aquila (Correcting with Gentleness)

There has been a video that went crazy viral this past month. You can find it here. I know I’m kind of late to the party.

And it blew up. Friends and “friends” (I mean that latter one in the Facebook sort of way) took to arms either debunking or defending the whole thing. It sparked a lot of conversation. Some was thoughtful and helpful. Some…not so much. Which is surprising considering what a great medium the interwebs is for controlled, articulate, and edifying conversation. (it’s times like these when I wish there was a sarcasm font…)

In the course of reading one of the threads, I came across this little gem. To be honest, I don’t always enjoy DeYoung’s writing. And unfortunately, this bias often gets in the way for me when I read him or others in his tribe. I’m working through that!

But I was taken with his approach to Bethke in that he compares it to the story of Apollos, Priscilla, and Aquila in Acts 18:24-26:

“Meanwhile a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.” (NIV)

Agree or disagree with the above items from Bethke or DeYoung, the model of how we approach someone is the thing that gets me. When I see something that I perceive to be wrong in a brother/sister in the Church (notice that no one is doubting someone else’s membership in the family for having different beliefs here), I invite them into my home and explain my way of thinking.

Not in a Facebook post. Not in a Twitter war. Not from a pulpit. Not in a blog comment one-up game.

Over dinner. With hospitality. Affirming their gifts and passion, not demeaning and squashing them.

So I want to be like Priscilla and Aquila. What about you?

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