…it’s been a long time

I figured yesterday’s service was different enough that I should post about it
First, let me state that last week was a terrible, n0-good, rotten, very bad day (isn’t that how that book title goes?)
As many know, I am a mac user. And as many of you know, mac’s aren’t supposed to have problems. And as many of you know, if it plugs into a wall, it will have problems
I am an avid “back-uper”, and Apple’s Time Machine makes it way too easy not to do. So of course, for the past month, I haven’t
Wednesday evening my hard drive just died. No warning, just dead. All my attempts to revive it have failed. So I lost all the work I’d done for the past month on this new series “Soundtrack”…God is good and worked it out for me to actually recreate everything in time, but boy…what a week!
I got the idea from a big church somewhere on the west coast to do a series taking music that’s popular in culture and looking at the themes presented through the lens of scripture. What does God say about some of the themes in popular music? I ran this idea off Shane and he gave the go-ahead to put some stuff together. We usually don’t venture “out of the box” much @ HCC. We keep the same general format each week (opening, worship songs, communion, message, end). With three services, we have to watch the clock and with a 25 minute message and weekly communion, there isn’t a lot of wiggle room. But for this series we were gonna step out the box and let the music do the majority of the teaching. The idea was to take a song and use it as a spring-board for a service revolving around a theme. We’d use video transitions, clips, comments, songs, readings, etc. to tie-it all together in a creative way. Picking the songs proved more challenging than I had thought. How do you pick “popular” songs in such a diverse culture? I polled people, poured over iTunes, and prayed. I ended up with several songs that I thought had strong themes that I wanted to tackle and would be fairly well known. Of course, Shane hadn’t heard of any of the artists or the songs
LOL
In the end we settled on John Mayer’s, “Waiting on the World to Change”, Evanescene’s “Everybody’s Fool” and U2 “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”. Now I realize all these aren’t really “current” songs, but they’re close enough for our church
I knew some of our leadership was nervous about how all would work out, but I really felt like it would connect with a bunch of our folks. Things went very well. Even with the change in format, it didn’t seem too foreign (at least from my point of view). I created a series of clips that served as transitions in between the various sections of the service. They used the word “one” as a creative element throughout, sharing how one person can make a difference in the world. I also put spliced together a video on the double amputee Scott Rigsby, who overcame incredible odds and earned the prestigou Ironman title. He shares the importance of changing the world for Christ.
I heard lots of great comments about the service. 1st service really seemed to be engaged. 3rd service didn’t have the same reaction. Things just weren’t “translating” to the congregation. But hopefully, they could follow the message of the day, worship God and be challenged to change the world for Christ.
The band worked really hard on “Waiting…”. It’s a pretty easy song chord wise, until you listen to what Mayer plays on the guitar:) It’s not so easy for guys like me to play that stuff and sing @ the same time
I’ve gotten better over the past year or so of doing this, but moving out of the typical “cowboy chords” that most worship leaders play (think Chris Tomlin) to playing the main electric guitar parts, all while leading, hasn’t come easy. So I probably struggled with this song more than the band did . The band rocked! Don, Dan, Max and Kenny really nailed it! GREAT JOB! It sounded great!

Contemporary Services (8:30/11)
I want to thank the band for doing a great job and for working so hard, even on Wednesday as I threw a completely new song “The Power of One” @ them
You guys are great!
Here’s our version of “Waiting on the World to Change”. It’s just the board mix (most of the drum sound comes live), but it gives you an idea. And keep in mind, this is at 8:30AM…no one should be doing anything that early
LOL
questions:
- What was your reaction to this week’s service?
- Did the different format resonate with you or leave you confused or uncomfortable?
- How will you “change your world” this week?
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