Sunday, November 16, 2008

Well, today was the preview service for epicenter - the new service our church will be starting in January targeted at 18-30 somethings. This is a demographic that is currently a very small minority in our church. We have a tremendous kids ministry, a vibrant youth ministry, and a solid core of middle-age adults. Unfortunately, we are missing those college, post-college and young families in our community. We hope to change all that with the addition of epicenter to our weekly schedule of events. There are three main components of this new service:
  • experiential worship
Hannah and I will be primarily in charge of designing engaging worship experiences each week. We'll have the help of a worship band comprised of musicians from the existing adult worship teams (many thanks to Larry, Harrison and Kendra for working all the details out on this!) and hopefully some new musicians that will be attracted to this service.
  • biblical teaching
Aaron Young will be the teacher each week and will focus on biblical messages that concentrate on biblical books or themes as opposed to topical teaching. Nothing against topical teaching but we are specifically focusing on a target audience that wants to grow deeper in their understanding and experience of God. We believe in-depth biblical teaching is the best way to achieve this goal.
  • intentional community
Each meeting will end with the entire group being broken down into smaller life-stage groups - college/career, post-college singles, young married (w/o kids), young married (w/kids) and adults. There will be a facilitator for each life-stage group and several assistant facilitators in case the groups are still large, they can still be broken down into groups of 8-10. In these small groups, the focus will be on getting to know others at epicenter and form meaningful relationships. Initially this will be accomplished by times of discussion but our goal is for community to develop. Our hope is that members of the life-stage groups will continue building relationships outside the service by going to dinner together and experiencing community outside the context of the epicenter service. Right now we are currently praying and searching for the right people to facilitate these life-stage groups.

Although we are targeting the 18-30 demographic, we're putting some wide boundaries on this age bracket. We recognize that this alternative service will appeal to a variety of people who don't necessarily fit neatly into a predefined age bracket. If this approach to worship, teaching and community resonates with someone outside the target group, we want them to feel like they have a place to connect with our church.

I'm excited about this new service. January 4th is the official launch date. It will be from 5:30-7:00 pm in the Student Life building. Check back for more updates and click below to join our facebook group. We hope to see you there!

Sunday, November 9, 2008

the wire / SLAM 11/9/08



I'm not gonna lie - today was a little rough. We did a few familiar songs but tried to change them up a little bit. Practice went a little long but we were able to cover everything.

Setlist:
Prince of Peace (You Are Holy)
Here is Our King - David Crowder Band
How He Loves - Jenny solo on acoustic/vocals (SLAM only)
How Great is Our God
Mighty to Save - Hillsong

Band lineup:
Drums - Eric I.
Bass - Jonathan N.
Keys - Trevor H.
Electric Guitar - Sam E.
Acoustic/Vocals - Jake S. and Jenny P.

I really liked the beginning of this set! "Prince of Peace" and "Here is Our King" were both in the same key and tempo so we just flowed right from one to the other. Trevor H. had a really cool electronic keyboard that announced this transition. We also changed up "Prince of Peace" by dropping back to just drums and bass for one chorus (Eric and Jonathan sounded awesome during this part!) and then building it up. In "Here is Our King" we did the first bridge down instead of really big, built up to another chorus and big bridge and then ended with an almost completely a capella. These songs flowed really well together both musically and with ideas communicated. This set was my favorite part of both services. It was a lot of fun to change things up a bit!

During SLAM - our high school service - Jenny did a solo acoustic version of "How He Loves" as people came down front and placed their offerings in a basket set on the front of the stage. This part of the service was meant to be more a performance section but I was surprised by how many people jumped right in and sang along. Jenny did a great job as usual. We don't have "special music" very often so it was cool to mix things up a little bit and give people permission to just sit and take in the lyrical content of this song. We'll have to do this sort of thing again sometime soon!

Also, in SLAM we played "How Great is Our God" before the talk. We haven't done this song in a while and it was fun to bring it back out again.

In both services, the talk went long so the post-talk set was the hardest as we were re-arranging the song on the fly. At the Wire we planed to end with 2 songs but we had "How Great is Our God." We ended both services with "Mighty to Save." Sam E. did an awesome job on the guitar parts for this song. He nailed the the intro solo and made up some really tasty parts for the instrumental sections. Everyone did a good job following but we still need to work on playing spontaneously.

Overall, it was a good day - people participated well in both services. There is room for improvement but I'm excited that our musicians are playing at this level!

Thursday, November 6, 2008

ALTAER - 11/6/08



Tonight's setlist:
Solution - Hillsong United
True Love - Phil Wickham
None But Jesus - Brooke Fraser
Find a World - Jami Smith

Band Members:
Drums - Brady F.
Bass - Jonathan N.
Keys - Trevor H.
Electric Guitar - Sam E.
Acoustic Guitar / Vocals - Jake S.
Vocals - Hannah S.

Tonight's theme was missions - we're getting ready for the big parent's meeting next week. We started off upbeat with Sam's electric work on "Solution" joined by Brady's drumming. We paused for a minute as I introduced "True Love" - a new song for us. The idea of this song is simple - just a retelling of the gospel - but the imagery is great! I love the chorus of this song:
"The earth was shaking in the dark, All creation felt the Father's broken heart,
Tear's were filling heaven's eyes, the day that true love died, the day that true love died.
When blood and water hit the ground, walls we couldn't move came crashing down,
We were free and made alive, the day that true love died, the day that true love died."

Even though it was a new song, people seemed to catch on and participate. From here we made a seamless transition into "None But Jesus" thanks to Trevor's keyboard part. This song is still fairly new for us but people were ready to sing at this point and there was an intense moment of worship during this song. We made another keyboard transition into the familiar "Find a World" and people really sang out on this one.

The band played really tight. God's presence was evident. People responded. Altogether, it was a great night.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

SHIFT - 11/05/08



Last night's setlist:
Beautiful One
Blessed Be Your Name

The middle schoolers were as energetic as ever last night! The challenge is channeling all that energy into an authentic worship experience. Kelsey led "Beautiful One" to start the set and everyone was participating pretty well but by the end of the song many of the students had started talking and playing around.

It took a minute to get their attention back but we stopped completely before starting the next song and I took a minute to share the backstory for "Blessed Be Your Name" about how Job responded in worship whenever he received terrible news. I challenged the students to worship like Job regardless of their situation or circumstances. This brief challenge really seemed to focus everyone for the last song.

Can't wait for next week. I'm trying to figure out how to briefly teach each week about worship in order to move the students from thinking they are at a concert watching a performance to actually participating in a worship experience.

Kelsey A. and Trevor M. were on vocals and drums this week. We also had a few student band members playing with us - Harrison B. on electric, Julia K on vocals, Chris LaMotte on keys and Michelle F on bass. The band sounded great and it is so exciting to see the new SHIFT band coming togehter. I couldn't do it without the help of the high school band members and it's been so cool to see them step up and lead!

Sunday, November 2, 2008

after much deliberation...

i'm jumping into the blogosphere. i've been avoiding this for quite some time but finally decided to give it a shot. we'll see what develops. i'm intrigued by the extroverted introspection so we'll see where this leads. i've been trying out twitter this past week and you can see the progress in the sidebar. come back soon to see if i stick with this or not...