It’s been a while since I’ve posted a video and this promo for Passion 2010 is extremely well done and very powerful. Check it out:

Gabe and I led an acoustic set this week. We were trying to think of a good nickname and since “Shane and Shane” was taken I think the top suggestion was “Two Dudes with Guitars.” And so we saw a bright start for “TDwG.”

It was a great time of worship this week. When you only need two guitars and two microphones all of the usual tech issues seem to no be a problem. Personally acoustic weeks are my favorite weeks to lead because you can really hear people singing along.We stayed with a very familiar song set to try to make people more comfortable participating despite the lack of usual stage volume. Here’s what we ended up with:

Worship Set #1

Salvation is Here (A)

Your Grace is Enough (A)

Worship Set #2

Holy is the Lord (G)

Let My Words Be Few (G)

Closer

How Great is Our God (B) cut for time

Salvation is here works really well with two acoustic guitars and was a lot of fun to play, but the highlight of the week was listening to the crowd sing along with Holy is the Lord with almost every hand in the room raised. I know true worship doesn’t REQUIRE physical expression, but as a worship leader it is such a tangible sign of a worshiping congregation that just lifts me up every time. How Great is Our God had to be cut for time at the last minute, but the transition out of the sermon and into the dismissal was seamless. Pastor Scott and I are finally getting used to reading each other during service.

Next week is “Bring a Friend” Sunday at Mayfield. We had 135 people this week in our 9:30 service. That means that my prayer all week is that we will have 270 people this coming Sunday. I know that is a big dream, but if our church family embraces this call for simple evangelism there is no reason it can’t happen. Our God is a God who can take big dreams and make even bigger realities.

Looking for a song we use on Sunday mornings? Now you can find a complete list at brianotte.com/songs or by clicking the “song list” link at the top.

We’ve got a new series starting up this Sunday and I just finished the screen graphic for it. It’s a series called “Step It Up” on the book of Proverbs. As the amateur graphic designer that I am (emphasis on the amateur) I love it when graphic projects come across my desk. What do you guys think?

I’ve been at Mayfield Church for 3 years now. You would think in that amount of time setting up my guitar and microphone would be second nature. The problem is I have this horrible habit of getting the two cables mixed up and then another horrible habit of becoming confused when I can’t figure out why my vocals aren’t coming through the system while my guitar is about to make the monitors explode. You would think that at the very minimum after 3 years of making mistake number 1, mistake number 2 would be a simple diagnosis. Sadly not true. On the bright side about 20 people who showed up early got to watch me be completely perplexed for a few minutes. I think I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. You’ve got to be willing to laugh at yourself. Other than that the set when pretty great.

Set #1

When I Think About the Lord (A)

Not to Us (A)

Set #2

Everlasting God (B)

How He Loves (B) > This song has some low lows and some high highs for any singer with any range in any key, but we’ve decided it’s worth it to push through because it’s got some cool lyrics. We use the Crowder lyrics, the Walker instrumentation, and the Kirkland arrangement. Of course the song is written by McMillan making the whole thing quite confusing. There’s versions with banjo and even one recorded in 4/4 time. The point is that this song is attracting a lot of attention, and rightfully so.

Closer

He is Able (C) > This was a special closer that had a specific tie to the message and was requested by Pastor Scott. I love it when the closing song transitions directly from the sermon. It makes for a powerful end to service and always seems to make the song easier to lead and encourage involvement.

It was a great week with a nice balance of old and new, familiar and unfamiliar. The highlight for me was “He is Able” because I got to lead from the piano. This doesn’t happen very often so I enjoy any chance I get.

Here’s the video from Worship Set #2. This set directly follows announcements, includes the offering, and leads right into the message.

To see what other churches are singing check out Sunday Set Lists.

It’s been almost a month since I’ve posted anything. Not cool I know. I’ve been pretty busy with traveling and interviews and all of the fun associated with trying to find a job. I figured I’d lay out our last three sets real quick just to get caught up. First a bit of explaination.

August 16th and 23rd were both acoustic weeks. The 16th was led by Rebecca (piano/vox) and myself (acoustic/vox) and the 23rd was led by Gabe (acoustic/vox) and Stephanie (vox). These were two great weeks of bare-bones, no flair, good tunes and good times. Personally these are my favorite weeks to lead and the weeks that I find it easiest to worship from the stage. Everything is much calmer because I’m not listening to 6 different instruments making sure everyone is together and the dynamics are where they need to be. I get to set my own tempo (dangerous at times) and really focus on leading the songs (which means I probably talk too much). These are also the weeks we aren’t fighting out sound system like we do with the full band.

August 30th was a combined service which means we scrap our 8:00 and 11:00 traditional services as well as our 9:30 contemporary service and plan a single 10:00 service with lunch afterward. For this we go into what most churches would call a “blended” model. We have media, liturgy, a full band leading worship songs, an organ leading hymns, pretty much a smaller piece of everything we do across a typical Sunday morning. It makes for a planning mess in the weeks leading up to it but we’ve found some serious benefits to it as well.

Here are the set lists:

August 16th (Brian & Rebecca)

Come and Listen (E)

When I Think About the Lord (A)

Song of Hope (A)

Hungry (Falling on My Knees) (D)

How He Loves (B)

August 23rd (Gabe & Steph)

God of Wonders (G)

We Are Hungry (G)

Indescribable (G)

Come Thou Fount (D)

Surrender (G)

Not to Us (A)

August 30th

Organ Set

This is My Father’s World

Here I Am Lord

Band Set

Come Thou Fount (D)

Jesus Messiah (G)

New Doxology (G)

We Offer Christ (A)

Here’s one of the videos from the 16th. Sometimes the best song IS going to be an older song. It’s important to stay current but don’t be quick to discount a song because of the copyright year. This is a lesson I often forget.

The past few weeks have been filled with lots of “oldies but goodies” as we try to refresh a few of our past songs. Looking ahead I’m really excited at the blend of old and new we will have in the coming weeks. I’m pretty excited to now have “This is Our God” (Hillsong) and “How He Loves” (McMillan, Jesus Culture, Kirkland, Crowder, everyone is recording this song) in our normal rotation.

What new songs (or new to you) are you excited about right now?

I don’t have a clue what happened at Mayfield on Sunday because I was not around for it. I was out of town all weekend so church for me consisted of my usual selection of podcasts. Gabe did an incredible job leading in my absence (as he always does). It was a great set this week and I can’t wait to find out more. Here’s the set:

O For a Thousand Tongues (G)

Jesus Paid it All (B)

The Glory of It All (B)

This is Our God (E)

Lots of Passion with some Hillsong thrown in this week. Right now we’re looking back over the past 6-18 months searching for songs that may have accidentally fallen out of rotation. Sometimes songs get lost in the planning process and abandoned too early. This is where “O For a Thousand Tongues” came from this week. It’s a great song that we did several times for only about 2 or 3 months and then for some reason stopped. I think we hit Advent and Christmas and then forgot about the song when January came around again. I’m looking forward to some of the other songs we’ve found at the bottom of the toy chest and I’m hoping they will still be familiar to ourselves and the congregation.

This post is a part of Fred McKinnon’s Sunday Set Lists.

I’ve got VBS in 15 minutes but I wanted to get the recap posted so here goes. We had a huge increase in attendance this week, up almost 150% from last week. This was great as it made worship leading so much easier. Large crowds generate their own energy and are much more willing to sing and be involved in service than smaller crowds. It also made me very excited to see so many people, including many new faces, coming out to hear the word of God preached. Not really sure what caused this major spike in attendance although our new pastor did have his picture on the front page of the religion section of a major local paper last week, so that could have been a contributing factor. I personally met several new people before service began. I love meeting new people before service. Every week I try to look at service through the eyes of someone experiencing it for the first time, but it is much easier to do when I’ve met someone who is acutally there for the first time.

Onto the music. This week is filled with songs that we’ve been doing for a while. The intent was to do a brand new song this week, and with only 4 songs each week I try to fill the rest of the song slots with familiar tunes if one is going to be brand new. On Wednesday we lost our rehearsal space to a community concert group who uses our building as a back-up rain location so we did not get a full band rehearsal. Because of this I made the decision to delay introducing the new song and go with an old standard instead. Here’s what we finally ended up with:

opening

Let God Arise (G) > This song is always a great opener. I’m having problems right now finding new songs that are high energy, fast tempo, and work as a good opener, but are also singable with a congregation. I need to spend some time cruising around Sunday Set Lists to see what others are using.

worship set

All We Need (E) > We’re probably getting to the point where we do this one a bit too much, but like I said, we needed familiar and it worked. People were singing along and it served as a great intro to our worship set.

‘Til I See You (E) >This was what we threw in instead of the new song. We’ve been doing this song as long as I’ve been at Mayfield. I remember introducing this one my very first week here. It was interesting though that I actually received comments about how much people loved the new song. It’s just another reason to remember to never assume people are familiar with something just because you’ve done it a lot in the past.

closing

Amazing Grace (my chains are gone) (E) > We gave this one a very simple feel by having Rebecca (keys) switch to the baby grand and really take lead on the song. It sounded beautiful and really wrapped the service nicely.

Honorable Mention: This Is Our God (E) > This was supposed to be the new song this week that unfortunately got cut. We’ll come back around to it soon I’m sure.

That’s all I have to share. Make sure you don’t miss Sunday Set Lists this week as it is the one year anniversary!

VBS 2009 started today and runs through Friday. Here’s a few snapshots from the large group session. That’s me in my “Skeeter” costume and the second picture is definitely me clucking like a chicken.

Oh the things we do to bring kids closer to God

Here it is. The much requested finale to the Reach Out ‘09 Talent Show featuring Jake Shafer, Lizzie Holton, and Steve Knapp. Enjoy.