From the Mind of MandoRon

Happy Mother’s Day!

We wrapped up the Modern Family series today at GracePoint.  It’s been a good series focusing on the crazy things that affect families today.  As a special Mother’s Day treat, the K-3 kids sang and danced with the band on two songs.

The other special Mother’s Day treat was Bruce holding up the back of his guitar to show the words “Hi Mom”, a message for his mom watching the internet feed in New Jersey.

We also welcomed a new drummer, Phil Herman, to the band this morning.  He did a great job!

The music:

• No One Like You by David Crowder Band (walk-in)
• We Won’t Be Quiet by David Crowder Band w/ little guests
• Salvation is Here by Hillsong w/ little guests
• Amazing Grace House of the Rising Sun style
• Finally I Surrender by Misty Edwards
• Wasted by Carrie Underwood (offering)
• No One Like You by DCB (exit)

No One Like You is a fun song to kick things off with. 

We Won’t Be Quiet was a new one for the band.  It was one of the two songs that the kids sang and danced on.  Something just seemed right about the kids singing out “We Won’t Be Quiet!”… 

Salvation is Here was the second song  with the kids.  Fortunately, this arrangement (for the kids) was just a little different than what the band was used to…

Amazing Grace gives us our hymn-points from time to time, even if we play it to the tune of House of the Rising Sun…  My favorite part was Rod’s one-handed organ solo.  Have you ever noticed that when he plays something cool, it’s usually one-handed and he usually looks bored?

Finally I Surrender has such powerful lyrics.  My favorite line is “You are Creator, and I’m what you made.”  That line will preach!

Wasted is one we learned for the country-themed series a few months ago.  It seemed very appropriate for the sermon today.

The band:  Jamie - vocals, Gil - vocals and bass, Rod - keys, Bruce - guitar, Phil - drums.

For more Sunday Setlist action, take a few minutes to check out the Sunday Setlist Blog Carnival over at 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!

Good morning and welcome to the Monday morning edition of the GP Sunday Setlist.  It was week 3 of the “Modern Family” series at GracePoint.

The setlist:

• Our House by Madness (walk-in)
• Rise and Sing by Fee
• Undo Me by Jennifer Knapp
• Look What You’ve Done by Tree63
• Fly Away by Lenny Kravitz
• Home Sweet Home by Motley Crue (offering)

Our House, in the middle of our street…  A fun little 80’s song that fit well with the series.  Definitely something we’ll have to pull out again sometime.

Rise and Sing is one we introduced on Easter.  A great, high-energy song to kick off the worship set with. 

Undo Me has been in the rotation (if you can call it that) for a while now, but this was the first time Christina sang it.  And it won’t be the last either. 

Look What You’ve Done is one we hadn’t sang for a while.  I think that it makes a great song of surrender for the church when they sing out “What can I do for you, my Lord?  I want you to know my heart is yours.”

Fly Away…  I believe it’s been nearly 6 years since we used this one in church.  That’s before I joined the band.  I was asked to add Fly Away on Tuesday to fit with the airport theme planned for the sermon/stage.  It turned out to be a much less prominent theme than originally planned, so I thought the song ended up not fitting very well in the service…  The band did a great job song though.  With the late addition of Fly Away, we ended up a bit heavy on secular songs this week.  If you’re trying to balance on the edge, sometimes you fall one way or the other…

Home Sweet Home with dual lead vocals was awesome.  Christina and Gil bounced back on forth on the verses, and I thought the end result was spectacular.  Better than the original!  IMHO… 

The band: Gil - vocals, Christina - vocals, Bruce - lead guitar, Jeff - bass and BGV, Deric - drums (minus one ripped bass head), and Rod - keys.

As always, you can check out more Sunday Setlists from churches around the world over at TheWorshipCommunity.com.

Have a great 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.