From the Mind of MandoRon

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.

Good morning and welcome to the Monday morning edition of the Sunday Setlist!

Yesterday, we kicked off the new Modern Family series at GracePoint.  This should prove to be an interesting series dealing with issues like blended families, discipline, homosexuality, etc…  But this post is supposed to be about the music, so let’s get to it!  The worship set was short (that is the songs were all on the shorter side…), sweet, and high-energy. 

The setlist:

• Born to Be Wild by Steppenwolf (walk-in)
• Take My Life by Jeremy Camp
• Take It All by Hillsong United
• Give You Glory by Jeremy Camp
• My Redeemer Lives by Hillsong
• Second Chance by Shinedown (offering)

Born to Be Wild was a fun, high-energy song to kick things off with.  It’s especially fun if you’ve got Bruce on lead guitar.  Man, that guy can play!

Take My Life is a great song.  In retrospect, we might have kick things off a little heavy with Born to Be Wild and Take My Life… but it worked.

Take It All is a fun by tricky one.  I thought the band did a great job of finding the groove. 

Give You Glory … I’ve never particularly cared for this one, but people seem to get into it.  It’s probably just me.  Lots of people singing along today.

My Redeemer Lives turns into a blues-rock thing when we do it.  A lot of churches have retired this one, but our band has managed to keep it fresh.

Second Chance had not showed up in the setlist for a little while.  Great lyrics!

The band: 2 singers, electric guitar, electric mandolin (me), acoustic guitar (also me), bass, and drums.  The band did a great job yesterday.  Mucho kudos to them!  I’ve been playing guitar lately, so it was nice to pull out the mandolin again.  It actually took me a bit to get used to the small neck…

For more setlists, be sure to check out the Sunday Setlist Blog Carnival over at TheWorshipCommunity.com.

Powerful day at GracePoint today.  Great music!  Powerful message!  Extreme drama!  Week 3 of the “5 Easy Steps to Wreck Your Life” was about addictions and the power of God to heal you.

The eXtreme Drama team performed a very moving skit during the offering.  It illustrates how Satan uses the things of this world to stiffle our relationship with God.  The song playing during the skit was “Everything” by Lifehouse.  I’ll post a link if the video pops up on the Interweb.  [The video is now posted on Facebook!]

The setlist:

• All Jacked Up by Gretchen Wilson (walk-in)
• Never Going Back to OK by The Afters
• Pull Me Out by Bebo Norman
• He Reigns by The Newsboys
• Wasted by Carrie Underwood

All Jacked Up… I struggled with this one for a few weeks, before I finally put it in the setlist.  It was a great fit for a sermon on addiction.  If it weren’t such a sarcastic series, it probably wouldn’t have made it.  I thought it was little scary how well the band pulled off some honky-tonk…

Never Going Back to OK is a great high energy song to kick things off with and fit today’s theme as well.

Pull Me Out is a great sing-a-long song, or at least  it seemed a lot of people were singing along.   Again, a great fit for the theme today - sometimes, we need Jesus to pull us out of the messes we get ourselves in.

He Reigns is an oldie, but a goody.  People seem to really enjoy it.  (And yes Vicky, this one was for you!)

Wasted was originally supposed to be the offering song, but it got moved up to make room for the drama.  It turned out to be a great way to set up the message this week.  Christina did a great job on the vocals!

The band: one female singer, one male singer/bass player, electric guitar,  electric mandolin and acoustic guitar (me!), keys (killer piano on All Jacked Up!), and drums.

You should be able to download the worship podcast from itunes in a few days.

To see more of the Sunday Setlist blog extravaganza head over to TheWorshipCommunity.com.

Happy Valentines Day Ya’ll!

(I can’t believe I just used ya’ll in a sentence…  Too much country music, I guess…)

Today at GracePoint, we kicked off a new series “5 Easy Steps to Wreck Your Life”.  Bryson preached a hard-hitting (and gloriously sarcastic) sermon about “How to Commit Adultery”.  Very fitting subject for Valentines Day!

The teaser videos for the series has an animated guy singing country, so we were asked to provide some country music for the series. We’ll see if the band survives four weeks of it… 

We also had a new pianist this week, Stephanie.  She’s going to be a great addition.

The music:

• Before He Cheats by Carrie Underwood (walk-in)
• Let God Arise by Chris Tomlin
• Sing My Love by Sarah McMillan
• Amazing Grace by John Newton (House of the Rising Sun style)
• You Are My King (Amazing Love) by Billy James Foote (Newsboys version)
• I Run to You by Lady Antebellum (offering)

Before He Cheats doesn’t exactly model ideal behavior, but given the sarcastic nature of the sermon series, it seemed fitting for a sermon on adultery.  We really needed some steel guitar, but oh well. 

Let God Arise is a favorite.

Sing My Love is another one we’ve been doing for a while.  Great song!

Amazing Grace… This was the second time we’ve done this one using the music for House of the Rising Sun by The Animals.  The arrangement was two verses (complete with 3 part harmony on the first verse!), guitar solo, two more verses, mandolin solo, repeat first verse.  Great stuff!

You Are My King has been in the rotation for many years too.  I like it because it’s easy to sing along with, and has such powerful lyrics.

I Run to You was picked to go with the sermon, but it turned out to be perfect for Valentines’s day.  Jamie and Thomas did a great job on the vocals.

The band:  two female and one male singer, electric guitar, electric mandolin (me!), bass, drums, and piano.

If you’re interested, you can now download the worship set each week from iTunes. 

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