From the Mind of MandoRon

My wife has been encouraging me to read Crazy Love by Francis Chan for a few months now.  (You can interpret that as nagging if you want to…)  This week’s business trip to Florida seemed like a good time to start, so I began reading it a few days ago.

[Note:  For full disclosure, I am sitting on the sun deck at my hotel overlooking a jellyfish-strewn Cocoa Beach.  This isn't really relevant; I'm just rubbing it in.]

As I was reading Chapter 2 over breakfast this morning, I started thinking about some of my motivations and selfishness.  Francis Chan uses several funerals as examples in the chapter.  I don’t know about you, but I like funerals where you hear about the people who were touched by the recently deceased.

I’ve often thought that I wanted my funeral to be like that.  I want there to be many stories about the people that I touched or helped or motivated.

Am I not an incredible person for wanting to help people and have an impact on their lives?  I’ve even been reading about servant leadeship on this trip! 

But this morning got me thinking about my motives.  I think my motives have been rather selfish to date.

We are called to help others.  Not to be known for helping others.  Do you see the difference?  It’s all about who gets the fame and glory.  Is it you (or me)?  Or God?

Our calling is to help others in order to bring glory to God.  Period.  End of discussion.

Am I only the one who has struggled with this?  Feel free to weigh in with a comment.

For the last 2 weeks, I’ve been reading the Life Application Study Bible Devotion on YouVersion.com.  Yesterday’s devotion (referring to Exodus 17:2) really hit home:

“The people complained about their problems instead of praying. Some problems can be solved by careful thought or by rearranging our priorities. Some can be solved by discussion and good counsel. But some problems can be solved only by prayer. We should make a determined effort to pray when we feel like complaining because complaining only raises our level of stress. Prayer quiets our thoughts and emotions, and prepares us to listen.”

I don’t know about you, but I seem to default to solving my problems through careful thought and discussion (read as complaining…).

I found out 2 weeks ago that my cheese is being moved.  I learned that there are some changes coming with my new job.  (Change is a great thing; except when it happens to you…)  My job doesn’t appear to be jeopardy, but I’m not exactly sure what my role is going to be either.

So I’ve been trying to think through all the possible outcomes, and the pros and cons of those outcomes.  But here’s the deal, it probably won’t do me a lick of good.  In fact, it will probably just stress me out.

Yesterday’s reading was a good reminder for me to put my trust in the Lord and let Him take care of things.  After all, I’m just along for the ride.

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!