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I’ve been away from worship team for a few weeks, so it was good to be back on keys this morning.  Here’s our set:

• Praise You All My Life, written by our very own Dave Florea.
• Let Your Mercy Rain, by Chris Tomlin, Ed Nash, and Jesse Reeves
• Holy Is The Lord, by Chris Tomlin
• Worthy, You Are Worthy, by Matt Redman and Chris Tomlin
• Above All Else, by Vicky Beeching
• Keep Me, by Andy Park (offertory)
• Come Holy Spirit, Hear Us Calling, by Mark Foreman (benediction)

As you can see, that’s quite a worship set.  Our worship service tends to run a little longer than other churches where I’ve played.  I’ve mentioned before that we have rotating members of our worship team, and I hadn’t yet played with this particular lineup today.  It’s always fun to listen to individual players and get to know their tendencies and be able to play off of them.  This was probably the tightest group I’ve played with yet.

I’ll be off again for the next few weeks, but I’ll be back for the last two weeks of July and first two of August.  Things change, though, and who knows?  I might fill in on bass at some point.   

Growing pains!  Some new songs for some of us today.  Here’s the list:

• Father (Original chart by guitarist Dave Floria)
• You Do All Things Well (Chris Tomlin)
• Grace Like Rain (Todd Agnew/Chris Collins, reggae style on the verses, straight up on the chorus.  Can you say regatta de blanc?)
• Desire (Jessica Ketola)
• Glory in the Highest (Tomlin, Carson, Redman, Reeves & Cash)
• Change Me on the Inside (Brian Doerkson)
• You Draw Me Closer (Somebody help me out on this one…)

It’s fun getting to know this team on both a musical and personal basis, but man, sometimes something just comes out of left field.  Stylistically, we were having a tough time with the intro on the Doerkson tune, but we faked it well enough to get into the first verse ok.  The rest of the set went pretty nicely, though.  I love the crescendo on Glory In the Highest.  I referred to Grace Like Rain as reggae style, but if we would have added a couple of horns, it would have been just this side of ska.  Different, but it worked great.  I laid out on the piano on the verses, but came in with some phat Bruce Hornsby-like chords on the choruses.  Father is a great rocker that was written by one of our guitarists.  If I can get permission, I’ll try to throw the lead sheet up some time.  We finished up the set with You Draw Me Closer with just me and an acoustic guitar playing along at the end of communion. 

How was your worship weekend?

I wasn’t scheduled to play this week, but a last minute change to the worship schedule had me playing this morning. I had only played with one other band member who played today, so it was good to be able to sit in with some other musicians. Totally different feel for a lot of reasons. Our set:

• With All of my Heart (Dave Fife)
• Let My Words Be Few (Matt Redman)
• More Than Ever (Robbie Reider & Allan Fuller)
• Invitation Fountain (If You Lead Me, Lord, I Will Follow)
• Holy God (Brian Doerksen)

The only tune I hadn’t played before was the Invitation Fountain tune, and I think that’s because it was written by our leader today, Dave Florea. He’s known for not crediting himself when we do a tune that he wrote. And that’s too bad, too, because he writes some really good stuff. This particular song only had two chords through the whole thing, so you had to get creative when going back and forth. Even so, it had a great melody and fit in nicely with the set.

Dave led, with Jeff on Bass, his wife Eilene on djembe/backup vocals, Brad on drums, and me on keys. If you ever have to sit in on a worship time, cold turkey, with no rehearsal time, this is the group to do it with. Musically, this is about as solid of a group as I’ve played with in quite a while.

How was your worship weekend?

Life’s been a little hectic the last few days, so I’m a little late getting this one out this week.  We did:

• Holy is the Lord
• Dwell (Casey Corum)
• Come Lord Come (Harmony Smith)
• I’ll Be Still (Jennette & Travis Ross)
• Worthy, You Are Worthy (Redman/Tomlin)
• Saving Grace (Steve Jones)
• One Thing (Matt McCoy)

I felt like we had struggled a bit at our rehearsal last Thursday, but things came together nicely on Sunday.  Specifically, I thought we were listening to one another and had some better balance on Sunday.  Interesting what a difference a few days and a good run-through can make. 

I’ll be a regular worshipper at my church the next couple of weeks, but I will be back with another Worship Confessional after the last week in April.  I won’t even be in my helper-guy role at rehearsal this Thursday as I’ll be on a group bike ride. 

A few other worship confessionals/set lists from this past weekend that you may enjoy reading:

• Jeff M. Miller (Consuming Worship)
• Ben Abu Saada (Babu Life)
• Rich Kirkpatrick (check out the situation with the stuck lift)
• Tony Chavez

How was your worship weekend?

Well, here it is, my first-ever worship confessional.  Today marked my return to the worship team setting as a piano/keyboard player.  I recently joined the Oasis of Hope church here in Hermiston, and have kind of gradually worked my way into the regular rotation.  Here’s the set:

• You Never Let Go (Matt & Beth Redman)
• Hosanna (Paul Baloche and Brenton Brown)
• Exalt the Lord (Cindy Rethmeier)
• Worthy, You Are Worthy (Matt Redman and Chris Tomlin)
• Undivided Heart (Jay Smith)
• Jesus Lead On (Brent Helming)

A few of these were brand new to me.  Because of spring vacation, we really didn’t get a rehearsal in this week, so we had to get quite a bit done in our run-through before service this morning.  Things went well.  Really well, actually, considering that they were breaking in a new player.  This is a church of ~250 people, but I’m pleased with the level of talent that exists.  In fact, we have enough musicians for two full worship teams.  I will only be playing about half of the time because I’ll be sharing the keyboard/piano duties with another person.  It’s great to be resuming this role.  I’ve only been with this group for a few weeks, but I’ve been impressive how, for the most part, there are really no personality conflicts or egos that get in the way of bringing the worship experience to our church.  They’re fun to play with.

A random thought:  I realize that my teacher/educator contacts may not be interested in my church related posts.  Similarly, my church contacts may not be interested in my professional related posts.   I used to have two separate blogs, but found that getting to both of them on a regular basis was a little more work than I needed.  I’m not sure how to deal with this issue without losing readers.

How was your worship weekend?