Easter Sunday Setlist / 4.8.12

The Easter celebration at Community Gospel Church in Bremen, IN, looked a little something like this...

SERVICE

Intro Music
     Welcome & Announcements/Offering
     Children's Choir
     Video
Jesus Paid it All [Alex Nifong/Elvina M. Hall/John Thomas Grape]
     Message
The Intercession [Jordan Muck/Jonathan Eckberg]
Happy Day [Tim Hughes/Ben Cantelon]
How Great Thou Art [Stuart K. Hine]
     Dismiss


TEAM

Jonathan Eckberg - guitar/vocals
Beth Stemble - piano
Nick Hostetler - drums
Randy Hepler - bass
Jess Yoder - vocals
Kevin Schmidt - audio
Jeff Hutchens - visual


NOTES

What a crazy morning!  We, as a staff and the church as a whole, have spent a lot of time an energy planning and praying over this week's service for the past few months.  Pastor Jordan Muck was stoked to preach.  Our Director of Ministry and Operations, Cyndi Leamon, had just come home from vacation and was excited about how things had come together for the service.  Well... things don't always go as we plan.  At about 9:00 on Saturday night Pastor Jordan took his wife to the hospital, as she was in labor.  At that point my wife and I headed out to their house to stay with their two year old daughter.  I woke up at 5:00am to a text that they had not had the child yet and that we was not likely to be in church.  So I went to the church early to do some last minute sermon prep (I had prepped a good bit already because we knew that this was a possibility).  After a little work I called Cyndi to update her on the situation and she had returned from vacation with the flu and despite her best efforts she couldn't even get out of bed.  All of this was compounded by the fact that Both Pastor Jordan and Cyndi were on the worship team this week!

The outcome of all of the insanity was that we had our other bass player, Randy Hepler step up and fill in for us on, literally, no notice.  Jess Yoder stepped up and filled a lot of vocal space all on her own.  Nick and Beth were awesome, as always.  And I had the honor and privilege of preaching the Word on Easter Sunday.  As planned, we took a step out of our series on Isaiah 53 this week to look at John 6:28-35.  The entire sermon revolved around the idea that we respond to Christ's call with one of three types of belief: inherited, intellectual, or intimate.  To dowload the audio from today's message (along with past messages) click here.

The thing I was reminded of today was that GOD is going to do his work regardless of the situation.  I think it is important for us to give our best efforts, to plan and prepare meticulously, and to be ready to move when GOD says, "Go."  But at the end of the day, whether our plans succeed or fail, have very little impact on whether His plan will succeed.  The only thing that matters is that we surrender to him and not get in the way of His work through the Spirit.  We missed some of our church family today, but GOD is cool.  He had everything the way HE planned it.

One more note: Congratulations to Pastor Jordan and Bethany Muck.  Gianna Lynn Muck was born at 4:19pm on Sunday, April 8.  She was 7 lbs 5 oz and 21.5 inches long.  It was a rough couple of days for mom and dad but everyone is healthy and doing well!


SONGS

Jesus Paid it All - Another one of my favorite songs to play.  We came out of a video that was a modern day representation of how Christ took on our iniquities and and the pain of death so that we might be reborn as sons and daughters of the kingdom.  As the video ended we went straight into "Jesus Paid it All".  Then as the third verse started up we cut to a video of all of the baptisms from our service several weeks ago.  It was really cool.  Cyndi Leamon put in a ton of time fitting the video together a couple weeks ago.  Once we hit the loud build-up/tag of the song it started clipping through the people rising up out of the water.  It worked out perfectly - it was an extremely emotional moment to sing, "O Praise the one who paid my debt // And raised this life up from the dead" and see the joy on people's faces as rise up out of the baptismal.
[album: Hello - Kristian Stanfill]

The Intercession - With the message revolving around true belief in Jesus Christ and in the message that he spoke, I liked the way this song worked those themes together with an attitude of celebration.  The first line of both verses says, "The message has been recieved // and we have believed in you".  A great fit to begin our celebration set.

Happy Day - We hadn't done this song in quite a while.  I think when I got to the church it was one that had been overused a bit, so I layed off of it (even though I love singing it).  It's another great rocking song about "the greatest day in history // death is beaten, you have rescued me".
[album:  We Shine - Fee]

How Great Thou Art - We've done this one a lot lately, but was a great song to close out an awesome morning.
[album: Our God Saves - Paul Baloche]


To see how other churches around the country worshipped this week check out the Sunday Setlist.  You can find it at www.theworshipcommunity.com.

Sunday Setlist // 2.12.12

Take a look at what happened at Community Gospel Church this weekend...




THE SERVICE:

Glory to God Forever [Steve Fee]
      Welcome // Announcements
      Offering
Glory to Your Name [Dave Hunt]
Once Again [Matt Redman]
Our God [Chris Tomlin/Jason Reeves/Matt Redman/Jonas Myrin]
Consuming Fire [Tim Hughes]
      Message
Arms that Hold the Universe [Steve Fee]




THE TEAM:

Jonathan Eckberg - guitar/vocals
Beth Stemble - piano
Cyndi Leamon - vocals
Alli Hutchens - vocals
Mike Stemble - audio
Brent Wiseman - visual


THE NOTES:

This week we kicked off a new series that Pastor Jordan Muck is preaching called, "Three".  This is a four-week study of Colossians 3:1-17.  It should be an exciting study on the heart  of our actions as believers.  Week one looked at the first three verses and discussed the setting of our hearts on things above, the fixing of our minds on the things above, and the security that is found in Christ.


THE SONGS:

Glory to God Forever - This is a great song.  It's very simple and holds a wealth of theological truth to it.  I love opening with this one.  It has really good energy to it and our people have always grabbed a strong hold of it.
[album: Hope Rising - Fee]

Glory to Your Name - I have talked about this song many times in the past.  It is by a phenomenal worship leader named Dave Hunt.  He lead at the church I attended when I lived in Nashville, TN.  Dave is simply one of the most genuine and humble worship leaders I have ever encountered.  This is one of his songs that I love!
[album: Shattered - Dave Hunt]

Once Again - This is another older song that I love.  It has a tremendous focus on the cross and and the humility, gratitude, and response that simply must flow from the observation of it.  I do have to note though, that I always change one word of the song.  The bridge goes like this:  "Thank you for the cross // Thank you for the cross // Thank you for the cross, my friend".  I've never been comfortable with the word friend there.  I understand what Matt Redman is trying to communicate, but in my mind (if nowhere else) it seems to diminish the power of the act of sacrifice that took place there.  So whenever I have done this song I always change the word "friend" to "king".  Some might feel this is unnecessary or "nit-picking", but it's one of those things that I feel a conviction about so I change it.
[album: The Friendship and the Fear - Matt Redman]

Our God - Everybody knows this song.  I probably don't need to talk much about it.  I would have no problem doing a whole service where we sing just the bridge to this one.
[album: And If Our God is For Us - Chris Tomlin]

Consuming Fire - I felt like this was a great song to end the set with this week since the focus on the message was on the centering of ourselves on things above and not on this earth.
[album: When Silence Falls - Tim Hughes]

The Arms that Hold the Universe - It was a Steve Fee kind of morning.  This was our closing song.  Jordan talked to me early in the week about doing this one after the message, so I worked it up.  We didn't really have time to learn it as a team so I played it solo.
[album: Hope Rising - Fee]


For more information on Community Gospel Church please visit us at:
www.cgccommunity.com

or on facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/cgccommunity


To see what other brothers and sisters are singing visit the sunday setlist at www.theworshipcommunity.com.

Sunday Setlist / 11.14.10

***So I wrote this out on Sunday afternoon, but then I forgot to post it and just saw it this morning.  Oops. 


Here's how we ran the 9:00 am service at Highland Community Church in Highland, IL:

THE SERVICE:

Alive and Running (G)

            Welcome & Announcements

            Offering

Happy Day (A)

Overcome (A)

            Scripture Reading – Isaiah 42:5-12

Before the Throne of God Above  (D)

            Message
Overcome (A) - chorus only
            Dismiss

Alive and Running (G)       

THE BAND:

Jonathan David Eckberg - guitar/vocals

Tim McDaniel - drums

Joe Szoke - bass

Aaron McDaniel - guitar

NOTES:
We had a guest speaker in today - Vince Dachioli.  He was fantastic.  We loved having him be a part of our Sunday morning.  The difficult part of having a guest speaker is that sometimes you have no idea what the message is about.  This was one of those Sundays.  Normally, I try to get in touch with our guests early in the week to discuss what they will teach on and see if there is anything I can do to help support the message (any particular songs or anything in the order of service that can move us to be prepared to hear from the LORD that morning).  However, I didn't have a chance to speak with Vince this week.  I chose, then, to have a very generic theme to what we were singing.  It turned out that everything flowed perfectly.  Vince spoke our response to personal suffering and how it comes back to our faith in a sovereign GOD who provides for us in times of trouble and how that gives us new opportunities to minister to people.  Total GOD's doing that everything flowed together today.  At the end of the service I made the decision to sing just the chorus of "Overcome" as the response.  We didn't really have anything planned for a response because we had no idea where the message would lead us or how long it would be.  As Vince approached the conclusion of the sermon I felt like "Overcome" was perfect, so we rolled into it.

THE SONGS:

Alive and Running - We debuted this song last week and got a great response from it.  I think the congregation took to it really well.  We played this week as part of the actual set to kick us off and end up with.  Because this is new we will probably play it again next week just to make sure people know it and then it will move into a slot on the normal rotation.

Happy Day - We hadn't played this song in a while, but it's such a good tune.  We keyed it down a little this week.  We have always played it in "C" and I just feel like I strain a little to sing it there.  So if I'm straining to sing it I know that a whole lot of the congregation are straining too.  So we dropped it to "A" and I think it really helped get people involved.  I think one of the easiest mistakes to make as a worship leader is to key things to our own voices and not the congregation.  You want everything to sound great, so you put things in your own range, but we have to constantly keep the congregation in focus when choosing the keys in addition to choosing the songs.

Overcome - I absolutely love this song by the Desperation Band.  The bridge is so stinking powerful.  It is take straight from Revelation and it say, "And we will overcome/By the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony/everyone, overcome" - I could sing that bridge over and over and over again.  Just a sweet sound.  We play pretty close to the Desperation Band's arrangement of the song.

Before the Throne of GOD Above - our scripture for the day was Isaiah 42:5-12.  This hymn was a great fit and an excellent bridge from the scripture to the message.  We always do a very traditional sound to this hymn.  I love the part of the song that says, "Because a sinless Savior died/My sinful soul is counted free/For God the just is satisfied/To look on sin and pardon me/To look on sin and pardon me".  Such a great song.


To see what others around the country were singing today, visit the Sunday Setlist at http://www.theworshipcommunity.com/.