Rise Up & Sing by Lex Buckley

Rise Up & Sing by Lex Buckley is a great book and a fantastic resource for worship leaders. Originally I wasn't going to read this book because the subtitle is Equipping the Female Worship Leader. However I ended up deciding to read it because as a worship leader myself, I want to have the kind of ministry where I can help build up other worship leaders and I realized that that may include female worship leaders, and I hope it does. I'm very glad I decided to read this book. Even more than Lex wanting to have a resource available for equipping female worship leaders, this is a great book for worship leaders in general. She does a great job of outlining the different facets of this position and what to expect in music ministry. She also has Beth Redman, Christy Nockels and Kathryn Scott share their expertise and experience as well. Overall I believe and hope that through this book and Lex's sharing that there will be a greater movement in the church today of allowing females the opportunity to lead in worship. Having read this book, I would encourage all worship leaders and pastors, male or female, to read it. At the very least for those of us that are males, we not have a resource to help us in understanding how to encourage and build up those females that are wanting to lead our churches in worship.

Special thanks to The B & B Media Group, Inc. and David C. Cook for providing this complimentary book to read and review. You can purchase the book here on amazon.com.

Sweat, Blood, & Tears by Xan Hood

Sweat, Blood, & Tears written by Xan Hood is a fantastic book. I love the way it is written in the first person. You get the sense that you are really hearing from a guy who went through a transformation, a guy who struggled with moving from boyhood to manhood, and taking part in his journey in becoming a man. What he has gone through, I think every man has gone through. Now there is someone who is putting their thoughts and experiences on this journey onto paper for everyone else to hear. Xan has put himself out there in a vulnerable position. He is open and candid about what he is thinking and feeling. There is something in this book for every guy to grab a hold of.

I really feel like the climax of this book was Xan's realization of what he had growing up, in regards to his own father, was very influential in his journey to becoming a man. So often, I think we as guys look for other things outside what we had as the things we need in our journey of becoming a man. However, what Xan realized is that what he had in his relationship with his father was exactly what God hod for his journey to manhood. It may not have been what he thought he needed, but it ended up being exactly what he needed. This is also where the earthly relationship reflects a heavenly relationship. We spend so much time looking elsewhere that we forget the One who has everything we need. So much in the journey of becoming a man is in our relationship with our heavenly Father.

Special thanks to The B & B Media Group, Inc. and David C. Cook for providing this complimentary book to read and review. You can purchase the book here on amazon.com.

Sunday Setlist - 07.25.10

Week #105 of Sunday Setlists. Here is our setlist for Sunday, July 25th.

- Holy is the Lord
- Holy, Holy, Holy
- 'Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus
- Be Thou My Vision
- God of Wonders

I was gone this past Sunday on vacation but had one of my wonderful volunteers agree to lead our church in worship. I also had the cool experience to be able to worship with a lot of family this past Sunday. My wife and I were on vacation in Sweden. Her dad's family was doing a family reunion, the U.S. family and the Sweden family all together in one place. A lot of people that have never met, but are all family. We stayed at a Christian conference center called Ralingsåsgården, located just outside Aneby, Sweden. They have a chapel there and we held a church service on Sunday for the whole family. It was a great time and a really neat opportunity to worship with so many family members, and even though we don't speak the same language, live in the same country, we all worship the same God. It was also nice for me, because others had planned the service and led the singing, so I didn't have to worry about that and was just able to be a part of the team playing a guitar. So here is our setlist from that service.

- The Wonderful Cross
- Shout to the Lord
- How Great Thou Art
- Children of the Heavenly Father.

To check out what others are doing in their services and learn more about what Sunday Setlists is all about, check out TheWorshipCommunity.com at http://www.theworshipcommunity.com/sunday-setlists-105/

Sunday Setlist - 07.18.10

Week #104 of Sunday Setlists. Here is our setlist for Sunday, July 18th.

- Blessed Be Your Name
- Come Thou Fount, Come Thou King
- O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing (David Crowder version)
- Sing to the King

Wow what a morning. And not all in a good way. There were some things that were not ready for the morning, things not in the place they were supposed to be and we were having sound issues with our monitors. We completely lost our monitors for the closing song. Was trying to get past some of it, but I know it was affecting my worship today. I just pray that the congregation was able to worship. The team did a great job this morning. Sing to the King is a new song for us as we've only done it a couple times. The David Crowder version of O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing was brand new for them, but they did great with it. It's a song I've always enjoyed and I really like the rendition that David Crowder did of it. I just recently figured out how to play the intro riff on guitar, so I decided to do it.

To check out what others are doing in their services and learn more about what Sunday Setlists is all about, check out TheWorshipCommunity.com at http://www.theworshipcommunity.com/sunday-setlists-104/

Sunday Setlist - 07.11.10

Week #103 of Sunday Setlists. Here is our setlist for Sunday, July 11th.

- How Great Thou Art (Paul Baloche version)
- Glory to God Forever
- No One Higher/The Stand
- How Great Is Our God
- Everlasting God

This Sunday was our 3rd Annual "Church on the Green" outdoor service. This service is always a lot of fun. We rent a tent and some chairs, have a water-slide, a BBQ, and have church outside. It sure is a lot of work though. Spent a lot of extra time at the church this past week, but it was all worth it. It's just nice to do something completely different that what we normally do. Plus I actually enjoy getting to do a stage design (as much as you can with some risers) and tearing down and resetting up sound gear. I know, sounds crazy, but there's a part of me that actually enjoys getting to do all that. All in all it was a great day. Worship was great and it was awesome to be able to fellowship with everyone in a way that we don't normally get to do as a church body.

To check out what others are doing in their services and learn more about what Sunday Setlists is all about, check out TheWorshipCommunity.com at http://www.theworshipcommunity.com/sunday-setlists-103-july-11-2010/

Books Read: January - June 2010

In light of my post about books read at the end of 2009, I knew I wanted to do it at the end of this year as well. However, I've been reading a lot this year, so I thought instead of having a post a mile long at the end of the year, I figured I would break it up into the books I've read the first six months of 2010. So here we go:

• How to Reach Your Full Potential for God by Charles Stanley
• The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey
• Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller
• Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper
• The Gospel According to LOST by Chris Seay
• Sex, Lies & Religion by Randy Elrod
• Branding Faith by Phil Cooke
• Called to Worship by Vernon Whaley
• Imagine That by Manuel Luz
• Compassionate Leadership by Ted Engstrom & Paul Cedar
• Plan B by Pete Wilson
• 66 Love Letters by Larry Crabb
• 10 Passions of a Man's Soul by Mark Elfstrand
• Blessed Be Your Name by Matt & Beth Redman
• Jesus Manifesto by Leonard Sweet & Frank Viola
• Great Leader Great Teacher by Gary Bredfeldt
• A Man's Guide to the Spiritual Disciplines by Patrick Morley
• Worship Matters by Bob Kauflin

There you have it! It's been a blast to get back into reading. Right now, I'm kind of picking up whatever I can get my hands on. I've also had the privilege of being able to review books for a few companies and that has been a great experience. Special thanks to BookSneeze/Thomas Nelson, Regal Books/Gospel Light, and Moody Publishers. I look forward to adding to this list at the end of the year as I've got quite the stack of a lot of great books waiting to be read.

Anyone have any recommendations of good books to read in the future?

Sunday Setlist - 07.04.10

Week #102 of Sunday Setlists. Here is our setlist for Sunday, July 4th.

- The Battle Hymn of the Republic
- America, the Beautiful
- My Country, 'Tis of Thee
- Faith of Our Fathers
- God of Our Father
- Breathe
- You Gave Your Life Away (communion)
- New Doxology

Since Independence Day actually fell on a Sunday and our pastor was on vacation, we decided to do a little bit different style of service. We decided to do a prayer service focused on our country. I know this can ride the line for some people on whether the church is becoming too political, and that was definitely not our intention. I also believe that is not what came across during our service. Our country was founded on Christian principles and that's what we wanted to focus on. We showed the following video towards the beginning of our service.



We then broke up our service into three different prayer times. The focus of the first section was Prayers of Thanksgiving for our founding fathers, those that have given their lives in service to our country, and those that are currently our country. We are called to pray for our leaders, so that was the focus of the second section; prayer for wisdom for our leaders on all levels and that they would seek God in all that they do. The third section was a time of personal prayer time, but also a time of calling our nation back to its knees in repentance. That led into communion which was a great way to end our service. All in all it was a great morning.

For communion I did Paul Baloche's You Gave Your Life Away. It's a great song that fits really well with communion, but I also chose it because I thought it fit with Independence Day and where we really find freedom. We definitely have freedom in this country but we truly have freedom in Christ. Here is line, "You bought our freedom on the cross."

To check out what others are doing in their services and learn more about what Sunday Setlists is all about, check out TheWorshipCommunity.com at http://www.theworshipcommunity.com/sunday-setlists-102-2/