Revelation Song

This past week, my wife, Juli, did an amazing job of leading the congregation to the throne of God as she ended the worship time with “Revelation Song”.  A family in our church recorded it and posted it on youtube.  It’s been awesome to see her grow as a vocalist and especially as a contagiously passionate worshipper of Christ. She would much rather have Christ exalted than her ability recognized, but I’m very grateful to have my wife serve with me on our worship team.

1.  Nothing But the Blood
2.  Greeting
3.  Offering
4.  Announcements

5.  Jesus Messiah
7.  Grace Unmeasured (Sov. Grace Music)
7.  Jesus You Are Worthy

Scripture Reading: Revelation 4:8b, 11; 5:9-14 (ESV)
7.    Special Music: Revelation Song (Juli)
8.    Message: P. Dan
9.    Closing Song: The Stand

The Prayer of the Satisfied Soul

My new favorite book is Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health by Donald S. Whitney.  The first chapter is entitled “Do You Thirst For God?”.  I love the fact that he starts the book with this chapter, because too often we begin diagnosing our spiritual health by the “spiritual things” we are doing or not doing (reading my Bible, praying, church involvement/attendence, etc.).  NO NO NO!  We must begin by pursuing God because he is a worthy pursuit and satisfying to the soul.  It is of God himself that Paul says in Phil. 3:10, “that I may know Him…”.  The Apostle Paul knew God a lot better that I do, but He wanted to know Him even more!  It satisfies our soul to be satisfied in God himself and crave more!  THEN…. the desire for His Word will grow stronger, the need for communicating in our relationship with Him will grow deeper, and the love  of serving Him will be sweeter.  You see, we often desire the results of pursuing God rather than pursuing God Himself!  Wow.  Good stuff.  Worship leaders, you must read this book!

Check out this prayer from A. W. Tozer.  It is the prayer of the satisfied soul:

O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more.  I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace.  I am ashamed of my lack of desire.  O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made thirsty still. (Whitney, p. 23)

Grace and Truth Radio

My pastor and I are kicking off a new radio ministry in the detroit area beginning on March 2nd on WRDT AM 560.  We are calling it Grace and Truth Radio Ministry.  Pastor Dan’s messages will be the content of the broadcast.  I wrote the music for intro and exit to the program.  It was a lot of fun.  For those of you not in the detroit area you can listen to it live online here.  It will be on at 9:30am & replayed at 1:30pm.  For the Month of March it will also be on their FM station, WMUZ 103.5, at 9:30pm.  We’re excited.  So tell your friends about Grace and Truth Radio!

“Peace Has Come” has come.

Blogging had to take a back seat on my priority list for a while.  Christmas concert is over…phew!  I have enjoyed singing some the Christmas songs in our church theses past few weeks.  I stressed to the band that we don’t do Christmas songs because of the nostalgia or sentimentality of the songs.  We sing them because they are songs that proclaim truth about Christ…incarnation, worship, exhaltation, ascription, divinity, lordship, etc…

Also, I have released a 6 song CD of Christmas songs and songs that I have written.  It’s called “Peace Has Come”, which is also the title track.  I wrote Peace Has Come for our Christmas concert.

Weekend Worship 11/2

Your Grace Is Enough
Our God Saves
Offering & Announcements
Grace Unmeasured (Patty leads)
You Have Been So Good To Me

Scripture Reading: Psalm 145:1-8

How Great Thou Art (Paul Baloche Version)
Message: Pastor Al

I really like Paul Baloche’s version of “How Great Thou Art”.  The words of that song are so rich!  They need a stronger feel that his version brings.  If you haven’t picked up his CD “Our God Saves”, you need to.

Al preached Genesis 42.  He really brought it this week!  I’m thankful for the faithful preaching of the Word.

New Banner!

Thanks to my blog friend Josh, I now have a sweet header banner.  Thanks, Josh!  I was starting to feel like a real blogger with the new look, then I realized I haven’t bloged in 2 and a half weeks.  I’m tryin’

I’m working on a lot of Christmas details.  Lot’s of details.

Prayer & Worship Night

I had great time praying with the Body tonight!  I realize that I don’t pray near as much as I need to.  At Harvest, one of our pillars is “firmly believing in the power of prayer”.  I believe tonight we experienced that.

Harvest Prayer and Worship Night

Call to Prayer – Psalm 17:1,6-9 (we cry out to the Lord)

Pastor Dan Leads us in continual prayer:
Adoration – Heb. 13:15
Confession – I John 1:9
Thanksgiving – Psalm 9:1
Supplication – Phil. 4:6
A.    Pray for Each Other
•    Pray in faith for the person next to you – Eph. 6:18

B.    Pray for the Leaders of our Nation
•    Pray for the salvation of our nation’s leaders – I Tim. 2:4
•    Pray that they would humble themselves before God – 2 Ch. 7:14
•    Pray that they would rule according to the wisdom of God rather than the wisdom of man – 1 Cor. 3:18-19

C.    Pray for the Ministry of the Church
•    Pray that God will allow us to purchase land in the future for our church
•    Pray that we would have a heart for evangelism – Matthew 22:36-40
•    Pray for the Elders and the Leadership as they seek God’s direction for our church
•    Pray that we would be a people who delight in God’s Word – Psalm 1:2, 3

Worship and Singing
Give Us Clean Hands
Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
Let Your People Sing
The Solid Rock

Can churches use secular music in their services?

This is a question many churches are asking themselves today.  I can answer this very simply by saying most churches have enough challenges covering worship “hits” that doing cheesy covers of “Jesus, Take the Wheel” would be enough to scare anyone away from this self-proclaimed “relevant” community.  In their pursuit for relevancy, they unintentionally draw a more obvious line between them and the culture they desperately want to emulate. So can they?  I think most would save themselves much time and energy if they would first ask “can we”.  Then you can move on to “should we”.

Bob Kauflin gives a excellent response to this question as well.  http://www.worshipmatters.com/2007/08/should-we-use-secular-songs-on-sundays/

Harvest’s Outdoor Service & Picnic

Harvest had its first annual Outdoor Service. Live music, open-air preaching, food, volleyball! It was lot’s of fun.  It was awesome to see people from the community connecting with our people that afternoon. God gave us the best day of the summer to be outside!  What a day!  We want to continue to reach our community with the Gospel!

A Worship Leader’s Blog

          I am the worship leader at my church so much of my blogging will center around my passion in this area.  My desire is that other worship leaders will interact with this blog for ideas, encouragement, music, books, etc.  Check back soon!