Every New Beginning Comes from Some Other Beginning's End... (Part 2)

During the summer my friend, Jordan, accepted a job at Community Gospel Church in Bremen, IN.  I was extremely excited for Jordan and his family as they were moving on to a wonderful church and a position that we had discussed would be a great training ground for him as he continues to prepare for wherever GOD will take him in his ministry.  At the same time, I was saddened to see my friends move 300 miles away.  Jordan and I had been through a great deal during our friendship and he and his wife, Bethany, had truly become my family away from home.

I then entered this past fall with many questions in my mind.  I had seen a number of doors that seemed to open in front of me only to be slammed shut.  I had spent the past year struggling with this feeling that GOD was preparing for something and leading me in a particular direction that I had no clue about.

I kept thinking back to what Abraham must have felt like when GOD called him out of .... and told him to go to "the land that I have prepared for you." (Genesis 12:1)  Abraham didn't know where that land was.  He didn't know how long the journey was.  All he knew was that GOD called him to leave a place where he had amassed significant wealth and was living prosperously to go on a journey that could bankrupt and kill him.  Sounds like a fantastic idea (re-read that last sentence with a mouth full of sarcasm).

I had to constantly remind myself that although GOD was preparing me for something that I was still unsure of He still had not required as much of me as he required of Abraham.  I still had my job, and a job that I enjoyed at that.  I still had my house.  I was still able to serve my local church family as their worship leader.  I believe now that He was just waiting until I was ready (as ready as I could be) to take on the task that he was setting aside for me.  As I can attest now, He was working out His plan.

So throughout the fall I continued to fulfill my duties at Greenville College and, as always, I really did enjoy my time there.  I love the students and the chance to see kids grow spiritually and improve athletically.  As I've said many times before, I feel that that was an excellent training ground for the ministry.  However, I was at a point where I felt that it was time for me to move on.

In October I made a weekend trip to Bremen to do a concert with Jordan at Community Gospel Church  for the release of the worship EP by our band, Until We're Kings.  That weekend I had an opportunity to speak with the church staff and some leadership about the possibility of coming on board at some point as their worship leader.

I was, of course, very interested in the possibility.  As we spoke more I felt like CGC was the place that GOD had been preparing me for and I could not escape the that this was where I was supposed to be.

We continued the discussion of how my coming aboard CGC as the Director of Worship we were looking at time lines and pay scale and all that other stuff, trying to figure out what was going to be the best for the church, the congregation, the staff, and me.  The one thing we all felt certain about was that this was the direction GOD had prepared us all for.

The major hang up for me in moving was my house in Greenville.  As anyone who has recently tried to sell a house can atest, the current real estate market is not great for getting rid of a home and in looking at coming to Bremen I did not have a choice, my house HAD to sell before I could move.  With this in mind I was preparing to stay at Greenville for another semester and hopefully be out to CGC my June or July.

As with most of my other plans in life, GOD laughed.  The first person to walk through my house bought it.  Unreal.  In this market, at this time, there was only one explanation for that... the hand of GOD Almighty.

With the house sold I accepted the position at CGC, quit my job at Greenville (that was very difficult as, again, I  really did enjoy my time there and loved working with all the athletes I had the privilege of coaching), and set up for a move to Indiana.

Now I am the Director of Worship at Community Gospel Church as well as a full-time Seminary student at Grace Theological Seminary in Winona Lake, IN.  It's been a crazy journey these past few years, but looking back it's always interesting to see how GOD used each situation I encountered to set up the next one, which set up the next one.  I am constantly amazed by GOD's providence and protection.  I cannot wait to see what he has in store as this new phase of life begins!

Sunday Setlist / 2.6.11

Sunday, February 6, 2011 at Community Gospel Church in Bremen, Indiana:


THE SERVICE
Hallelujah (Your Love is Amazing) [Brenton Brown/Brian Doerkson] (G)
     Welcome & Announcements
     Offering
Your Grace is Enough [Chris Tomlin] (F)
The Ninety and Nine [E.C. Clephane/Ira D. Sankey] (F)
Come Ye Sinners [Owens/Johnson/Hamilton/Seay] (C)
Mighty to Save [Ben Fielding/Reuben Morgan] (G)
     Message
Come Ye Sinners (C)
     Dismiss


THE BAND
Jonathan David Eckberg - guitar/vocals
Cyndi Leamon - vocals
Sean Norris - drums
Jordan Muck - bass
Dale Graham - audio
Vance Csaszar - video


NOTES
Our team was rather slight this week.  Due to some traveling and some sicknesses and various issues we seemed to have everybody bow out this week.  This was compounded by the fact that the snowstorm forced us to cancel practice on Wednesday night and move it to Saturday afternoon.  With the switch of practice times I knew that we would be a little short on rehearsal, so I didn't mind having a "skeleton team" this week.  It's always simpler, and therefore, easier to adjust on the fly, with fewer people.  That being said, we did have a great week.  Pastor Mike Fanning continued to kill it from the pulpit with the second part of our "Finding Your Place at the Table" series (examining the parable of the Prodigal Son).


THE SONGS
Hallalujah (Your Love is Amazing) - This is an older song, but a good one.  With the three-piece instrumentation it was a great song to rock through.  It's very simple and an excellent song of praise and adoration for the love of our Father.

Your Grace is Enough - One of my favorite songs.  Such a wonderful declaration of Paul's prayer in 2 Corinthians 12.  I chose this as our opener in light of last weeks message of the Prodigal Son.  The point was that both the older and younger brother loved the things the father had to offer more than they loved the father himself and that's where they fell into sin.  I think it's important to remember as we continue to study this parable that GOD is enough for us.  We become heirs to His kingdom, but that inheritance is secondary to receiving the grace of GOD.  He is all we need.  Our version of this song runs pretty much straight off of the Chris Tomlin version.

The Ninety and Nine - Jordan and Sean kept saying we needed a pint of Guinness in our hands as we played this song!  It has distinctively Irish feel to it.  And we go straight through it.  I didn't figure that many people in the congregation would know this song right off the bat.  However, as is the case with most hymns, the people picked up on it by the second or third verse.  I chose to put this into the set despite the "known" factor because the sermon today was focusing on the people around Jesus during Luke 15 and the other two parables in the chapter (The Lost Sheep and The Lost Coin).  It's a hymn that walks through the Lost Sheep parable so I felt that it really set the mood and got our people thinking along those lines early in the day.

Come Ye Sinners - As this weeks sermon focused on the other parables of Luke 15, it also looked at the people around Jesus.  As the chapter opens He is eating with the tax collectors and "sinners".  These are the people christ came to save.  This is us.  The whole point of this song is that we as sinners are called to bring ourselves to Christ.  We don't try to clean ourselves up first, we simply come to Christ as the sinners we all are.

Mighty to Save - We tweak the arrangement of this song a little bit just to shorten it up and make it a little more succinct.  But musically it's a very standard arrangement.  We closed our set with this song because as we move from our recognition of our true nature and our need for a savior (Come Ye Sinners) we must have the next step.  That next step is the knowledge that our GOD is the only means of salvation and he is so much greater than our sins and our old nature.

To see what other congregations are singing please check out the Sunday Setlists at www.theworshipcommunity.com.

Sunday Setlist / 1.30.11

Worship with Community Gospel Church in Bremen, IN:


THE SERVICE:

Opening Song - How Marvelous (F) [Charles H. Gabriel]
     Welcome and Announcements
     Offering
Heirs (G) [Muck/Eckberg]
     Drama - The Prodigal Song
Majesty (Here I Stand) (Bb) [Garrard/Smith]
     Message
Majesty (Here I Stand) (Bb) [Garrard/Smith]


THE BAND:

Jonathan David Eckberg - guitar/vocals
Larry Ingle - vocals
Jackie Lacher - vocals
Sharon Nafrady - vocals
Larry Ingle - vocals
Sean Norris - drums
Randy Hepler - bass
Jordan Muck - guitar
Beth Stemble - piano
Mike Stemble - sound
Jeff Hutchens - video


NOTES:

We were really light on music this week.  We are kicking off a new series that's based on the Tim Keller book, "Prodigal God".  It is an examination of the Parable of the Prodigal Son.  We're calling it: Finding Your Place at the Table.  If today was any indication of what will happen in the coming weeks, then I KNOW it's going to be tremendous series as Pastor Mike Fanning absolutely knocked it out of the park with his sermon today (Way to be Pastor Mike!).  To start off this new series we had a dramatic telling (some would call it a skit or a play) of the parable.  We threw this right in the middle of the worship set, so it replaced a couple of songs out of our usual time-frame.


THE SONGS:

How Marvelous, How Wonderful - This is an old hymn that has been reworked.  We stay fairly true to the melody line and all the changes, but the feel is totally different from the original.  The version we use is an upbeat song that rolls straight through.  There's nothing fancy about it, but it comes across really well.

Heirs - This is the title track from the Until We're Kings album.  As I was thinking about the prodigal son and music to go a long with the series, this song came to mind right away.  It's a song about our adoption into GOD's family.  It talks about our complete dependence upon our Father and what our response to that should and must be.  It fits really well with the return of the lost son.

Majesty (Here I Stand) - I changed my mind on using this song at the last moment.  I had another song picked out a couple of weeks ago, but the other day as I was going through the music before practice I just felt like the song I had picked wasn't right.  I can't tell you what it was (actually, I can, it was the Holy Spirit), but I just all of the sudden didn't feel the other song was a good fit.  So I frantically rifled through my music trying to figure out what we were going to do and this is where I landed.  I love the last line of the chorus, "Your grace has found me just as I am / Empty handed but alive in your hands".  Such a cool expression of the end of the prodigal son parable.  A father who takes both sons right where they are and accepts them if they would only come back to the table.  Love it.


To see what your brothers and sisters are singing in their home churches this week check out the Sunday Setlist at www.theworshipcommunity.com.

Sunday Setlist / 1.23.11

Here's how we spent the morning at Community Gospel Church in Bremen, IN:

THE SERVICE:

Opening Song - I Have Decided (C)
     Welcome & Announcements
     Offering
Marvelous Light (G)
Consuming Fire (G)
GOD of this City (C)
Be Thou My Vision (C)
     Message
Consuming Fire - Reprise (C)


THE BAND:

Jonathan David Eckberg - guitar/vocals
Cyndi Leamon - vocals
Larry Ingle - vocals
Jackie Lacher - vocals
Sean Norris - drums
Randy Hepler - bass
Beth Stemble - piano
Kevin Schmidt - sound


THE NOTES:

There are some amazing things happening at CGC right now and Satan knows it.  We were under attack today.  I felt it early in the worship set, but it didn't really hit me how strong it was until I sat down for the rest of the service.  It was nothing big, but a lot of things were thrown at us.  Minor sound issues, a few missed slides, people being called out of the service for various reasons.  Again, nothing big, and often times things that are complete non-issues, but it just seemed that Satan rolled a lot of those issues at us together that, collectively, could have destroyed the day.  The Associate Pastor passed me a not during the service (don't tell my mom I was passing notes in church) that read "We are under serious attack today!".  I had just spent the past several minutes thinking the same thing - so it was amazing to see the spirit opening our eyes to it.  The cool thing is that it didn't crush the service.  I feel very fortunate to be in a place and serving in ministry with a group of people who are killing it for the Kingdom and doing it in such a way that Satan has taken note and is working hard to stop us.  I feel even more fortunate to serve with brothers and sisters who are wise enough to recognize it and to respond in prayer and action to see the Spirit intervene in victory over the enemy.


THE SONGS:

I Have Decided - We do the Until We're Kings version of this old hymn.  Its a very rocked out arrangement.  Granted, we tone it down a touch for Sunday mornings, but we really do try to keep the feel of a good kick-in-the-pants to start the morning.  Also, as a side note, it's a whole lot of fun to play!

Marvelous Light - Really did a standard version of this song.  Nothing special.  The sermon for the morning was moving from faith to action.  Last week Pastor Mike Fanning focused on faith and this week was a focus on the actions required by faith.  So Marvelous Light was a great way to kick the set off as a song about running toward the power of the cross of Christ.

Consuming Fire - This is a slightly older song (mid-90's, I believe) but it was a new one for our congregation.  The focus of this song, to me anyway, is the bridge section that  says, "Stir it up in our hearts, LORD / Stir it up in our hearts, LORD / Stir it up in out hearts / A passion for Your name".  Really cool to hear the congregation latch on to that and pour over it.

GOD of this City - The recorded versions of this song seem to have a lot of extra space in the song - long interludes and lots of "dead air" for the congregation.  The version we do cuts a lot of that out and removes some of the extra measures that seem to be in there.  I think this helps keep the congregation engaged in what we are doing and helps remove some of the obstacles of distraction.  We changed the arrangement to focus on the Pre-choruse (There is no one like our GOD / There is no one like our GOD) with the chorus almost being secondary.  The point we were rolling on was that our GOD is the one and only GOD who can open our hearts to faith move us to action for His sake.

Be Thou My Vision - Another old hymn, but for this one we used a much more traditional arrangement. It capped the set off nicely as it tied our movement to GOD, our passion for what He is accomplishing through the greatness of who He is and finishing with a prayer for a heart like His heart in the direction of our actions according to His good and perfect will.

We then responded to the message with a V1-PC-CH-B arrangement of Consuming Fire - again the focus being that bridge section of the song.

To see how our brothers and sisters from all over the place were worshipping in song today check out the Sunday Setlist at www.theworshipcommunity.com

Sunday Setlist / 1.16.11

Here's what went down on Sunday morning at Community Gospel Church in Bremen, IN:

THE SET:
Opening Song - All My Life (G)
     Welcome & Announcements
     Offering
All Creatures of Our GOD and King (C) [Francis of Assisi]
Our Great GOD (C) [Fernando Ortega]
Surrender (G) [Mark James]
I Surrender All (C) [Winfield S. Weeden]
     Message
Response Video / Reflection - Mold and Shape Me (B) [Jonathan David Eckberg]


THE BAND:
Jonathan David Eckberg - guitar/vocals
Kay Smith - vocals
Staci Smith - vocals
Jessica Yoder - vocals
John Schini - vocals
Sean Norris - drums
Marc Hyde- bass
Beth Stemble - piano
Mike Stemble - audio
Vance Csaszar - visual


NOTES:
This was my first week at CGC where I was working with the regular worship teams.  The other weeks that I have been here we've had limited prep time and so we just grabbed a few folks to fill in some gaps and ran with it.  So, I really had no idea what to expect.  I think we are all having to make adjustments to styles and routines.  I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little anxious about working out this first week.  However, I don't think it could have gone much better.  I am extremely blessed to be working with the worship teams at CGC.  We have a whole stable of musicians who love worshipping and love love the privilage of leading the congregation.

This week kicked off a two-week mini-series by Senior Pastor Mike Fanning called "Fully Alive".  The focus of the series is John 10:10 and the fact that Christ came that we might have life and have it abundantly.  For us to take hold of this life requires an attitude and an action.  This week we discussed the attitude of all out surrender to Christ, so the worship set centered on "Surrender".


THE SONGS:
All My Life - I've sung this song for quite a while now I have to admit, I have no idea who wrote it.  No clue.  If you know please reply to this post and let me in.  It's a great, simple song that we roll through and rock out a little bit.  It's a lot of fun.  The message of the song is the giving of our entire lives to the GOD who is like no other.

All Creatures of Our GOD and King - We follow the David Crowder version of this song.  It follows the  traditional melody line and then adds a tag of "Alleluia" over and over at the end.  It ended up with a bit more of a country feel to it than I had originally intended, but that was just the way it seemed to roll out.

Our Great GOD - We did this song in "C" so that we could make a seamless transition from All Creatures into Our Great GOD.  It's such an incredibly powerful song.  I don't use this song as much as I would like to because it's not the most singable tune.  There's a fairly wide range on it and the phrasing is sometimes a little tricky.  I really debated whether or not to use it in the service this week, but it's just such a wonderful expression of the sovereignty and majesty of our GOD who rules over everything that it transitioned us well from All Creatures to get us to the next two songs that I had to throw it in.  I also decided that with the ease and singability of the other songs in the set we would be ok with one song that  was not as easily digestable.

Surrender - A slightly older worship song but another great message.  The chorus of "I surrender all to you, all to you" is so cool (and so difficult to apply to my life).

I Surrender All - We moved from the chorus of Surrender, which ends on the C chord and used that as our jump into the Chorus of I surrender all which starts on the C, giving us our key change from G to C.  We did a standard version of the song but we only did a chorus-verse1-chorus-chorus arrangement.  It made it much shorter but REALLY emphasized the chorus.  These last two songs were no brainers in picking them out.  As soon as Pastor Mike mentioned the topic I had those two put in place.

Mold and Shape Me - This was not a congregational worship song, but was used more as a background for a video on transition.  The original video had another song to it, but we opted to mute the audio and I played this song which really fit the visuals better, in my opinion.  It's an older song from my first album.  I was thinking about it and I think I wrote this thing 12 years ago.  Crazy how GOD puts stuff in the head and fingers of an 18 year old kid that means more to him when he's 30 than it did when he wrote it. In any case, its a simple worship song that's a plea for GOD to move in us however, whenever, and wherever he sees fit.


To see what other churches around the country sang on Sunday visit the Sunday Setlist at www.theworshipcommunity.com.

Every New Beginning Comes from Some Other Beginning's End... (Part 1)

NOTE:  Some of you may have noticed that my blog has been ignored for the last 5-6 weeks.  With all the changes that have happened around me, I've had a need to focus on getting through this time of transition and getting settled into the new rhythm of life.  I'm still a ways from being "settled", but it's coming together.  My hope is to back to my usual posting schedule of trying to get something up each week along with a "Sunday Setlist".  Thanks to all who have been so supportive in this time.

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Typically I don't do a lot of personal writing in this blog.  If you look over my postings you'll see that I like to tie snippets of my life into what I'm seeing in the Word and what GOD is showing to me through circumstances, but I don't like to focus on my personal life.  So this post will be a little out of character for the blog, but with all that has happened/is happening I feel that it is appropriate, at this time, to share with you all where I am at at this point in my life.

This whole story dates back a couple years.  I was approached by my buddy Jordan about an idea to plant a church.  I felt like GOD was leading me to walk with Jordan through this process and enter into this venture with him.  Up until this point in my life I had never really considered a full-time church ministry.  I LOVE the Church and I LOVE the local body of believers.  I have always had a great passion to serve my brothers and sisters who are traveling in the journey of faith along side me.  However, this usually manifested itself in a little volunteer work or leading worship for weekend or week-long retreats, camps, etc.  So the thought of planting a church and doing church ministry full-time was a bit daunting, but as we got into the process it became very clear to me that GOD had lead me to a place of preparation for this very purpose.  Over the course of the next year or so Jordan and I began to put together thoughts and ideas of how we could lead a body of believers in a direction of biblical balance in regards to evangelism, discipleship, worship, and social concern.  GOD continued to fan this flame in my heart and open me more and more to the idea of entering the ministry on a more permanent basis.

Now, at this point, the church plant was halted.  This was devastating to those of us involved and left us with some unanswered questions.  For me, it was a question of my own recognition of GOD's calling.  I wondered why GOD had made it so clear that this was the direction I was to begin traveling if it was, ultimately, destined to fall through.  Why had GOD prepared me for something I wasn't going to be a part of?  Had I mistaken my desire for GOD's calling?  If this was the case, where did I stand in regards to the rest of the things I felt GOD set aside for me to accomplish?  These were not easy questions.

I struggled with these questions for a time.  As I progressed through last spring I was presented with several  jog opportunities in the coaching world.  I applied and interviewed for several coaching jobs and was a finalist for a couple of positions.  One job, in particular seemed like it was a great fit for me if I was to continue coaching and I thought I was a shoe-in for the job, but the institution decided to move in a different direction.  Again, I was wondering what the purpose of the past few years of preparation had been if I was not able to use the skills I had learned.

This was topped off by another job opportunity as a worship leader in a church in Indianapolis.  This seemed like a perfect fit as the church wanted a part-time worship leader which would allow me to then go to Seminary (which GOD had sparked an interest in me over the past year or so).  I was one of the final two for this position but, again, the church decided to go another direction.  Same question rolled through my mind.

It would seem that the calendar year was quite frustrating and, on some levels, it was.  The funny thing about the whole process is that I never question GOD's plan.  I had a great deal of questions about how He was working His purpose out and about my part in His plan but I never questioned the fact that GOD was working.

Many people love to quote Jeremiah 29:11, "'For I know the plans I have for you,' delcares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'"  This is a beautiful verse of hope and comfort, but most people like to forget the fact that it comes in the midst of a verse to the Jews who are exiled in Babylon.  This letter is an instruction to how these people are to live in their time of captivity.  It's not a verse declaring the ease and happiness of the promises of GOD.  It's a verse declaring the sovereignty of GOD in our hours of captivity, struggle, doubt and frustration.  Our prosperity is not earthly riches, the jobs we think we want, or the rise above the world.  Our prosperity lies in the eternal rewards of serving our Father through ALL circumstances.

This is the idea that I fell back on constantly.  The knowledge that, even in the times where I really was hurting and in the times when I wanted to physically see GOD move, when I wanted to understand why everything was happing the way it was, GOD was taking care of me.  He was working out His plan for a specific purpose.  My job was to follow Him in spite of my questions.  Proverbs 16:9 says, "In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps."  I understood that as I was making decisions and following the call of the LORD that he was using those situations that I found myself in to bring about His glory in some way - I just didn't know how that was happening...yet.