http://elevation-worship.com/blog/?p=1985

How To Play

• Chord chart
• Instructional video

Go check them out. Refreshing, worshipful, and engaging.

Highlights of the album Beautiful Things are definitely Dry Bones, Beautiful Things and The Earth is Yours.

After getting a really, really, really good laugh from this video, I was left with the stinging sensation that it’s all too true of a reflection of Western/American church services and what we call worship.

I keep thinking about…

• what God thinks about our weekly services.
• what else God has in store for His followers that we’re missing out on.
• what it means to worship in spirit and in truth.
• what our responsibility is in all of this is.
• what the long-term repercussions of what we’re doing today are.

You know, Donald Miller may be onto something though.

What do you think about after seeing this video?

Warning: This song will get stuck in your head.

I feel like I may be a little late to the John Mark McMillan fan pool, but better late than never. First caught wind of this singer/songwriter after learning about David Crowder‘s cover of his song “How He Loves” but never spent the money on buying his album, The Medicine. After 6 months, I finally caved and it’s been in pretty heavy rotation ever since. Definitely a worthwhile purchase and welcomed addition to the music library. His raw and honest lyrics are a welcomed change from some of the cliched stuff floating around these days. I really enjoy the recent music video version of “Skeleton Bones” (seen above). It has an incredible intimacy and warmth to it. Props to the Calnin Brothers for doing such a great job capturing a memorable moment in the studio.

Our Senior Pastor was out of town doing a wedding for a family in our church, so he asked Michelle (my wife) and I to team up and handle last night’s evening service in his absence. We decided to use the Just Stop and Think video from Francis Chan for the teaching. The scripture reading for the night was 1 John 2:1-6. Michelle handled the congregational prayer and intro/outro for the video. I’m probably a little bias (ok, really bias) but she did a great job tying the scripture and video together and challenging the congregation to live like Christ. In the video, Francis Chan provides an approachable and comprehensive challenge to embrace the message that Christ died for us and that our lives should be lived out as a response to His love and grace. Definitely a great video for both believers and non-believers.

Check out the video and let me know what you think!

Order of Service

• Meet With Me
• Welcome & Greeting Time
• Unchanging
• Enough
• Prayer & Scripture (1 John 2:1-6)
• Just Stop and Think video
• Short talk connecting video and scripture
• Everlasting God
• Benediction

Music

We were running a little lighter than usual for the band (3-piece instead of the typical 5-piece). We went for a softer approach and did drums, acoustic, and bass guitar for most of the set. Changed it up on Enough and did 2 acoustics with brushes on drums. Overall, it was a nice change of pace and had some good energy to it despite missing the electric and keys.

Check out the Sunday Setlists blog entry on Fred McKinnon’s blog for more worship service recaps from this past weekend.

He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realize just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

And oh, how He loves us so,
Oh how He loves us,
How He loves us so.

Yeah, He loves us,
Oh, how He loves us,
Oh, how He loves us,
Oh, how He loves.
Yeah, He loves us.

We are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.
So Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about, the way…

He loves us,
Oh, how He loves us,
Oh, how He loves us,
Oh, how He loves.
Yeah, He loves us.

Audio

Check out the David Crowder Band version – early release from their upcoming album.

How To Play

Grab the chords and lyrics here.

I’ve been playing it capo 5 in “G” to give it that nice ringing, pedal tone sound. Ends up sounding more like DC*B’s version of it than the original. Capo 5 also makes it easy to transition into a couple others I do capo 5 (Everything Glorious, Everlasting God, and All Because of Jesus.

The original uses “sloppy wet kiss” in verse 2, and from what I can tell, Crowder changed it to “unforeseen kiss.” I’ll change it up and use “lover’s sweet kiss.” (We ended up reverting to Crowder’s choice for the lyrics.) Sloppy wet kisses in congregation singing just sounds a little odd but is definitely some powerful imagery for God’s love. Kudos to John Mark for writing such a moving song.

Update: Check out John Mark’s blog post about changing the lyrics to How He Loves