From the Mind of MandoRon

Hola!

Today was a special day at GracePoint.  It was our last Sunday as a portable church!  (At least, for the time being…)  I can’t wait for our first service in the new building on August 8.

Our youth pastor, Terry Johnson, gave a great message about the importance of reaching the younger generation.  He always does a great job.  We also welcomed Mike back to the band for the first time in nearly a year.  It was good to have him singing with us again.

The Setlist:

• Time After Time by Spoken (walk-in)
• Deeper by Delirious
• You’re Worthy of My Praise by Jeremy Camp
• King of Glory by Jesus Culture
• He Reigns by Newsboys
• My Generation by Starfield (offering and exit)

Time After Time is a fun Cyndi Lauper cover that we’ve been doing for a few months.

Deeper kicked off our “mostly retro” worship set.  It’s a fun song to sing and play.

You’re Worthy of My Praise is another one we’ve been doing for quite a while.  For those who care… we played this in A with female vocals.

King of Glory is an awesome song by Jesus Culture that we first learned for a worship night earlier this year.  Jamie shared part of Psalm 24 during the intro.  Tommy ripped off an insane guitar solo!

He Reigns rounded out the retro setlist.  I pulled my in-ears out on this one so I could hear everyone singing along.  Very cool!

My Generation was a new one for us, although we’ve talked about it for years.  Great song, and it fit very well with Terry’s message.

The band:  Jamie - vocals, Mike - vocals, Tommy - electric guitar, Jim - bass, Phil - drums, Ronnie (me) - electric guitar and electric mandolin.

For more Sunday Setlists, be sure to check out TheWorshipCommunity.com.

Have an awesome week!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

After last week’s acoustic music, it was time to pull out the distortion pedals and amps again this week…  All in all, it was a pretty good morning.  My only complaint is that I kept forgetting how to play the songs in the 2nd service.  It was bizarre actually.  1st service went fine…  Maybe I needed more caffeine…

The setlist:

• Undo Me by Jennifer Knapp (walk-in & exit)
• We Shine by Fee
• Holding Nothing Back by Melissa How/Jesus Culture
• See His Love by Kim Walker-Smith/Jesus Culture
• My Savior My God by Aaron Shust
• Psalm 130, original arrangement (offering)

Undo Me is one we’ve been doing for the last year or so.  Incredible lyrics!

We Shine is a great song to kick the worship set off.  It was great to see everyone clapping and singing along.

Holding Nothing Back … call me shallow, but my favorite part of the song is the guitar riffs at the end.  I do like the other parts too, however…

See His Love … we shorten this one a bit from the original recording on We Cry Out.  Jesus Culture does a lot of long songs…

My Savior My God is one we hadn’t used in about a year and a half.  The lyrics in the chorus are particularly powerful.

Psalm 130 is an original arrangement of, well, Psalm 130…  (NIV, in case you’re curious)  It all started last November when I suggested to Carmen that she take a stab at making a song out of Psalm 130.  (I had recently listened to Bryan Doerksen’s arrangement of Psalm 13…)  She pretty quickly came up with something which she played for me after practice last Winter.  It was really good!  The song sat dormant until recently when I added it to this morning’s setlist.  Originally, I was just thinking of having Carmen play piano and sing.  But she really wanted the band to learn the song and play it with her.  So we spent about an hour working on the arrangement at practice, and we came up with something that we were pretty proud of.  It’s so powerful to sing scripture!

The band was a little smaller than normal today… Carmen - vocals and piano, Gil - vocals and bass, Bruce - electric guitar, Chris - drums, and Me - electric mandolin.

Be sure to check out the Sunday Setlist Blog Extravaganza over at TheWorshipCommunity.com.

Just for something different, we rocked it acoustic-style this morning at GracePoint.  It was a lot of fun, and I think we managed to retain the normal energy even without screaming electric guitars.  We did decide to keep the drums for this week, which helped with the energy.  Deric played using brushes and splashsticks on a simplified drum kit on most of the songs, and a cajon on Hey Ya.

The setlist:

• Hey Ya by Obadiah Parker (walk-in & exit)
• No More No Less by MercyMe
• You Never Let Go by Matt Redman
• Hope Now by Addison Road
• In the Light by DC Talk
• Hole Hearted by Extreme (offering)

Hey Ya … This was a cool acoustic cover of the Outkast song. 

No More No Less … I think it had a been a little while since we used this in church.  It’s a fun song to play.

You Never Let Go … It’s always convenient when the last note of one song is the first note of the next song.  (And for full disclosure, it was dumb luck and not planning…)  I played without any in-ear monitors this morning due to the lower stage volume, and you could really hear people singing along on this one.  Especially 2nd service!

Hope Now … “Everything rides on hope now.”  I always enjoy hearing Christina sing this song…

In the Light … For some reason, people always get fired up on this one.  Which is just fine by me.  A classic!

Hole Hearted … I don’t think I’d heard this Hole Hearted until Tommy suggested it a few weeks ago.  Interestingly, the lyrics are very similar to Plumb’s God Shaped Hole…  Very cool song!  Tommy did an amazing job on some crazy guitar riffs.  Gil and Christina’s vocals were great too.

I should point out that Gil put together this week’s setlist…  And he did a fantastic job!

The band: Gil (vocals), Christina (vocals), Rod (keys), Jeff (bass), Deric (drums and cajon), Tommy (acoustic guitar), me (acoustic guitar and mandolin).

For more Sunday Setlist action, be sure to check out TheWorshipCommunity.com.

Welcome to the May 2, 2010 edition of the GracePoint Sunday Setlist.  Although Mike preached a PG-13 sermon on sex for week 4 of the Modern Family series, this post is rated E for everyone…

We had an unusual double Wark sighting on Sunday morning, since both Jim and Christina (husband and wife) were in the band this week.  It’s probably been a few years since that happened… 

The music:

• All Fired Up by Pat Benatar (walk-in)
• The Time Has Come by Hillsong
• If We Are the Body by Casting Crowns
• Sing My Love by Sarah McMillan
• Audience of One by Big Daddy Weave
• Love You ‘Til the End by The Pogues (offering)

All Fired Up … we’ve been playing this one for quite a while.  It’s just a great high-energy song to get things started.

The Time Has Come is a fun song to play and makes a perfect “call to worship” to kick off the worship set.  (This might have been the first time that someone other than Carmen has sang it…)

If We Are the Body is an oldie, but a goody.  It’s got such a powerful message behind the lyrics.

Sing My Love is one we introduced a few years ago.  Good song. 

Audience of One used to be in the regular rotation four or five years ago.  For some reason, it only shows up infrequently now…  Ever since Thomas auditioned to sing in Edge of Grace last year, I’ve heard him singing this in my head.  He did a great job.

Love You ‘Til the End is a song we’ve used a few times over the last several times.  I’m probably the only person who cares about this… but it’s one of the few songs that we play with mandolin in the original recording.  Sunday, I played the piano solos on mandolin as well. 

The band:  Christina - vocals, Thomas - vocals, Chris - drums, Stephanie - piano, Jim - bass, Jeff- electric and acoustic guitar, Me (Ronnie) - electric and acoustic mandolin .

I think that wraps it up for this week…  To read what other churches are doing, be sure to check out  the Sunday Setlist Blog Extravaganza over at TheWorshipCommunity.com.

Have an awesome week!

Hmm…  How to describe this morning?  The phrase that comes to mind is “supreme awesomeness”, but I’m not certain that’s proper english.  Oh well, I’m a blogger not a literary novelist.

Today was week 2 of the Modern Family series at GracePoint.  Mike delivered a great message about families while looking a lot like Vince, the guy that tries to sell you the ShamWow and SlapChop.  (On a side note… if you haven’t seen the Slap Chop Rap, it’s pretty funny…)

Where was I…  Oh, yes… supreme awesomeness.  We saw God move in a mighty way today, and it began with the music.  You could really tell that the band was worshipping, and really drawing in the people to join in worshipping with them.  In the second service, everyone kept playing on How He Loves because everyone felt like God wasn’t done with it yet.  There was no cue or signal to keep playing, but everyone did.  And Carmen delivered a powerful word from God for all of us.  Good stuff!

The music!

• Liquid by Jars of Clay (walk-in)
• Today is the Day by Lincoln Brewster
• Holding Nothing Back by Jesus Culture
• Word of God Speak by Kutless
• How He Loves by Jesus Culture
• Home by Daughtry (offering)

Liquid is a song we tried a few years ago, but always in an acoustic setting - never with a full band.  It was fun to do it again this morning.  I hadn’t pulled out my acoustic mandolin on a Sunday in quite a while, so it was great to play it again even if it did feel a little foreign.  I hope everyone could the Gregorian chant sounding stuff that Rod was doing. 

Today is the Day is a new one for GP, although I know a lot of other churches are using it.  People seemed to really respond to it, as did the band.  I’ve never really cared for the song, but I’ve go to admit that it’s a lot of fun to play.  Especially if you have  a guitarist like Tommy who can pull off Lincoln Brewster’s guitar solos.

Holding Nothing Back is an awesome song by the good folks at Jesus Culture.  This is probably the third or fourth time we’ve used it.

Word of God Speak always seems to resonate with people.  Powerful, powerful song!

How He Loves … on the Jesus Culture recording, this is a 9:00 track.  I never really understood why until this morning.  The lyrics and message of God’s love really hit home with people.  We got to witness the Lord ministering to people through Carmen this morning.  We’re so blessed to have her as part of the team!

Home … without actually checking, I think it’s been quite a while since we’ve used this one on Sunday mornings.  We decided to do the acoustic version, rather than the full band studio version.  Just acoustic guitar, strings (via Rod’s keyboard awesomeness), and lead vocal.  Guys, it was absolutely incredible!

The band: Carmen - vocals, Thomas - vocals, Gil - vocals and bass, Tommy - electric and acoustic guitar, Rod - keys, Denny - drums, Me - acoustic mandolin and electric guitar.

For more Sunday Setlist action, be sure to check out TheWorshipCommunity.com and see what other churches are doing.