From the Mind of MandoRon

Week 2 of the Soul Revolution series at GracePoint.

• Jesus is Just Alright by The Doobie Brothers (Robert Randolph & The Family Band with Eric Clapton version)
• No One Like You by David Crowder Band
• The Time Has Come by Hillsong (Melissa How version)
• Hold You High by By the Tree
• Amazing Love (You Are My King) by Billy James Foote (Newsboys version)
• Jesus Take the Wheel by Carrie Underwood (offering)

Jesus is Just Alright … As far as I know, this is only the second time we’ve done this.  The last time was Easter 2009…  Cool song.  Next time we need to do it with 2 electric guitars so we can really replicate the Robert Randolph/Eric Clapton recording.

No One Like You is one that I didn’t think was going to stick around when we first used it 4 or 5 years ago.  For some reason while I was singing along on Sunday, I remembered the first time we did this.  I heard some negative feedback that it was too hard to sing along with.  Now it’s a staple.  Who knew?

The Time Has Come … I just realized this week that you can’t clap along to this one.  Too much syncopation…

Hold You High is one of my favorites!

Amazing Love is a bit of an oldie, but it’s powerful.  Jamie and Gil knocked this out of the park with their adlib vocals at the end!

Jesus Take the Wheel is one we learned for another series earlier this year.  I was concerned about the song sounding thin with only one guitar and no keys.  But Bruce did a great job of filling the gaps, and making the arrangement sound really full with just the one electric guitar.  Did anyone else notice that all the women were singing along on this one?

This week was definitely in my top 10.  I thought everything just seemed to work really well.  (I was just in the first service…  Can’t really speak for the second service…)  Great job everyone!

The band:  Gil - vocals, Jamie - vocals, Bruce - electric guitar, Jeff - bass, Phil - drums.  (I was supposed to play this week too, but some nasty tendonitis in my elbow kept me out of the lineup…)

Don’t forget to check out more Sunday Setlists over at TheWorshipCommunity.com!

Today was one of those days where I had no official obligations.  As much as I love playing, it’s also nice to get to worship with everyone else.  The trick though is turning off the leader side of brain so that I stop assessing things and stop making mental notes.  I’m usually only moderately successful…

It was also nice to hear people singing along today, even in the considerably smaller first service.

I don’t know if many people noticed, but we didn’t have a bass player this week (meaning bass guitar…).  The Newsboys haven’t used a bass player for years, so I figured we could go without one too.  Rod covered the bass lines this week on either keytar or keyboard.  I haven’t got to ask Rod’s opinion yet, but I thought it worked pretty well although it limited what he could do keys-wise.  At times, the sound might have been a little thin though…  A second guitarist would have helped fill the occasional void.

The setlist:

• Dig In by Lenny Kravitz (walk-in & exit)
• Until the Whole World Hears by Casting Crowns
• Say Say by Kristian Stanfill
• Finally I Surrender by Misty Edwards
• How He Loves by John Mark McMillan (Jesus Culture version)
• Heaven is Here by Kim Walker-Smith/Jesus Culture (offering)

Dig In is a fun Lenny Kravitz tune that we’ve been doing for years.

Until the Whole World Hears … Cool guitar riffs and some nice acapella at the end.  In church-speak, it’s a good “Great Commision” evangelism song.

Say Say is a pretty new one for us - only used it once or twice.  Great song.

Finally I Surrender is also relatively new to GracePoint.  They lyrics are so powerful.  I feel like it’s just me and God when I sing it…

How He Loves … Sometimes God’s love is hard for us to fathom.  This song is nice reminder of His infinite love and grace and mercy.

Heaven is Here is a new one for us.  It’s off of Jesus Culture’s most recent album, Consumed.  We’ve been tossing it around as an idea for a year, or so.  I absolutely love the verses and the feel of the song.  I honestly struggle with understanding what the chorus has to do with the verses…  If someone figures it out, let me know.

The band:  Carmen - vocals, Thomas - vocals, Tommy - purple electric guitar, Phil - drums, Rod - keytar and keys

(For those of you who don’t know what a keytar is, check out this picture of Rod’s keys.)

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

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.

Happy Sunday!  And welcome to the May 16th edition of the GracePoint Sunday Setlist!

Here’s the music from this morning:

• Breath by Jeremy Camp
• Say, Say by Kristian Stanfill
• King of Glory by Jesus Culture
• God With Us by MercyMe
• Draw Me Close by Kutless
• Time After Time by Spoken (offering)

Breath - Great song to get the blood flowing on a Sunday morning!

Say, Say - This was the only new song today.  I discovered it several weeks ago on someone else’s Sunday Setlist post.  (I don’t recall whose blog it was or I’d give them credit.)  It’s a fairly new song off the Passion: Awakening album.  It’s got everything you’d want in a kick-off-the-worship-set song… cool guitar licks, easy chorus, and a singalong bridge…  Definitely a keeper!

King of Glory - We’ve been doing this one since January, but today was the best it’s ever been.  Tommy’s smokin’ guitar skills really added a lot.

God With Us - I don’t know what else to say.  It’s just a great song!

Draw Me Close - A great, classic worship song.  We like Kutless’ rocked up version best.  For anyone that cares, it was 1 1/2 steps higher than the original recording.

Time After Time - We debuted this one on Easter.  It’s Spoken’s cover of the classic 80’s Cyndi Lauper tune.  Rocked up, of course…  Fun song!

The band: Carmen - vocals, Thomas - vocals, Stephanie - piano, Carlos - bass, Deric - drums, Tommy - electric guitar, and me (MandoRon) on electric guitar.

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

Have an awesome week!