12.28.14 Set List

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Message Series: “Hope Has Come”

Hope Has Come

Song / Version / Key / Leader
“Running” – Hillsong – Key of E – Female 2 Lead
“Forever Reign” – Hillsong – Key of C – Male Guest Lead
“Always” – Kristian Stanfill – Key of D – Female 2 Lead
“Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)” – Hillsong – Key of D – Female 2 Lead

This particular week, my husband and I were out of town for the Christmas/New Year’s Holiday, so a lot of previous planning went into this particular set. These are the moments when you are extremely thankful you use the multi-leader model. This way, you’re not having to hire or bring someone to lead from the outside that your congregation has no connection with. With that being said, our second female worship leader mainly led for this week along with a “guest” male leader. He wasn’t that much of a guest because he plays electric/acoustic guitar with us about once a month, but I say guest because this was his first time leading on vocals with us.

The opener was a tried and true staple, which was nice coming out of the Christmas special season. We then transitioned to the key of C via pad as Pastor Devin welcomed everyone for “Forever Reign.” I believe this was the first time we had a male lead “Forever Reign.” The first couple of times we had sung this song, a female lead it to try a different voicing. This was the first time we actually played “Forever Reign” in the traditional key.

We then, for only the second time thus far, sang “Always,” which the female leader again led. The normal for us is to at least have three leaders. However, not only was I out of town, but our two other male leaders were also out of town for the holidays. Therefore, our female leader needed to lead 3 out of the 4 songs. Since it was this particular male leader’s first time leading in our setting (although we have lead together before so I knew he was credible… never would I just throw someone up there to fill a space), I didn’t want him to lead more than one song and have him carrying that load.

Following “Always,” we stayed in the key of D for “Oceans (Where Feet May Fail),” another staple for our church. They absolutely love this song and it carries a great message of faith and trusting in the Lord that we all need to be reminded of. Concluding the sermon, we went back to “Forever Reign,” but played a shorter response version.

Be Creative.

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With Easter being this Sunday, I know we as pastors and team leaders, whether that be in worship, media, production, communications, etc… are all in creative mode. Whether you’re a smaller church with fewer resources or a larger church where you’re pulling off multiple services in multiple settings, we could probably all use some assistance getting the ball rolling when it comes to planning/producing creative materials for services. Therefore, I just wanted to share the resources that I have been using lately that really help me keep our excellence level high in a smaller setting and allow us to bring creative elements on a budget.

Graceway Media

Graceway Media is one of my favorite resources because it not only has still and motion backgrounds, but sermon and welcome title photoshop files. These are great bases you can use for just about any communication piece and can be helpful with series topics and themes.

Igniter Media

In addition to our Graceway membership, we also chose the bundle partnership deal they do with Igniter. With Igniter, we pull all kinds of service videos, from worship intros to sermon intros to more reflective video clips.

Centerline New Media

Centerline New Media does it all: mini-movies, motions, countdowns, stills, and even a few sermon-slides. We use them to supplement what we can’t find on Graceway or Igniter. They have really great seasonal items too so I usually take a visit around Christmas and Easter to see what they have released.

Creation Swap

Creation Swap has great photos, still graphics, videos, print ready items, and even logos. I mainly use this site for ideas, but they have a free section with every category where you can download some pretty useful items.

Lightstock

I was first introduced to Lightstock via one of the Media Pastors at Church of the Highlands and I couldn’t be more grateful. When we were first designing our website (before we launched) we lacked quality photos to use for the different sections such as the home page and the ministries pages. We used Lightstock for these photos and now I use them for everything, from announcement slide backgrounds to social media post backgrounds. They are amazing.

Dollar Photo Club

The company that designed our website introduced me to Dollar Photo Club. It is what it sounds; every photo is a dollar! They have such a huge library of stock photos you can pretty much find anything. I also use this for announcement slide backgrounds and social media post backgrounds. Where a Lightstock photo could cost you $10, for things where I am layering photos or blurring the background, $1 is a deal!

Church Stage Designs

Other than stalking other church’s social media pages for theme and staging ideas, Church Stage Designs is the next best thing. Churches from around the world submit their staging designs and they range from portable to permanent, budget friendly to pretty pricy. It just depends what you’re looking for. This is also a great resource just to pull concepts and ideas from and then edit or alter to fit your context.

I hope these above resources help you as much as they have helped us! Now, go be creative!

12.21.14 Set List

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Message Series: “Hope Has Come”

Hope Has Come

Song / Version / Key / Leader
“Joy To The World (Unspeakable Joy)” – Chris Tomlin – Key of D – Male 1 Lead
“Here For You” – Chris Tomlin – Key of E – Female 1 Lead
“Love Came Down” – Kari Jobe – Key of G – Female 2 Lead
“When Hope Came Down” – Kari Jobe – Key of F – Female 1 Lead (Special)

For our Connect Christmas service, we opened with “Joy to the World (Unspeakable Joy). Even though this is not a newly released song (2009), it does a great job of keeping the foundational Christmas song (Joy to the World) there and simply building upon it by adding an uptempo, singable addition with the newly written chorus; great for a congregation. We used a Multitrack  for this song to beef it up a little and not lose the full sound it requires with the driving electric guitars and sleigh bells.

We then transitioned via Ableton pad to the key of E for “Here For You,” and vamped on the steady intro as Pastor Devin welcomed everyone. I led this song to give it a different feel and mix up the sound since the opener was male lead. We ended with a down chorus and let it breathe a little with the pad before beginning the piano intro of “Love Came Down.”

Our other female leader lead this song beautifully. It was a great reflective moment and we kept it pretty stripped down until the bridge. The lyrics to this song couldn’t be more perfect for Christmas, “Love came down and rescued me. Love came down and set me free.” We also chose to repeat this song for our response time, because this was the first time we had introduced the song to our church. The message was so on point and the arrangement perfect for a time of reflection at the end.

After tagging “I am yours” a few times we played a video to intro “When Hope Came Down” titled “Hope Is Here This Christmas” from Igniter Media. I cannot say enough good things about the subscription we have with Igniter and Graceway Media. If you are a church, especially a smaller church, they are a huge help for video content, motion backgrounds, sermon titles and slides, and photoshop files for announcements, etc.

“When Hope Came Down” was our “special” song that we had built our Christmas series upon. For this song, we also used a Multitrack to ensure we did the song justice. It has beautiful strings and bells in the recording and we just couldn’t have replicated those elements without the track.

The Juggling Act

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As a 6-month old church and the first full-time paid staff member, my plate can become really full, really quick. Not only am I leading and overseeing the worship, but I also oversee and develop anything creative: production, media, design and communications. I absolutely love the wide array of opportunity I get; there really is never a dull moment and always something new to do! In ministry, and in life in general, it seems we are always in a juggling act. The question is how well are we juggling? With that being said, I wanted to share with you just 3 simple ways I juggle it all and not go crazy.

1. Prioritize: For me, this means at the beginning of the week making a to-do list for each day. I list out all the task that need to be accomplished that week starting with what is due first. Then, I go in and place them on each day (Monday – Saturday) in order of most important/urgent to least. This way, at the end of the day, if I need to roll over a task, it isn’t the end of the world. I also create a separate column of general to-do’s such as upcoming projects that I can be working on in my “spare time”. Because I am so “Type A” and future oriented, making the daily list helps me to focus on one day at a time, instead of looking at a sea of tasks that can be overwhelming.

2. Develop People: Be on constant lookout for people you can raise up and empower. I keep a list in my journal of the areas I am currently overseeing or solely responsible for that eventually I would like to hand off to someone else (a volunteer) and a goal of a time I want to have it done by. This list acts as an accountability sheet and reminder to me that I need to be constantly looking and developing people. Don’t misunderstand me; I am not just developing people to fill a spot or get a task done. I am wanting to develop people because I know I can’t do it all by myself and it’s important to get the right people in the right seats on the bus.

3. Take a Breather: Relax. Everything is seasonal. I’ve learned that some weeks are harder than others, some days even harder than others and visa versa. However, remembering that any problem I face is temporary, helps keeps things in perspective. There is always a solution and worrying won’t change the outcome. If you make your Sabbath time a priority, you will have a better chance of getting through the difficult moments because you won’t be trying to go full throttle on an empty tank. Also, don’t forget to have a little fun! Let’s not get so caught up in the daily grind that we forget to enjoy life and enjoy time with the people God has put in our lives.

Happy Juggling!

12.14.14 Set List

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Message Series: “Hope Has Come”

Hope Has Come

Song / Version / Key / Leader
“At Your Name” – Phil Wickham – Key of E – Female 1 Lead
“One Thing Remains” – Bethel – Key of E – Female 2 Lead
“Our God” – Chris Tomlin – Key of B – Male 1 Lead
“Worship The Great I Am” – Gateway – Key of C – Female 1 Lead (Special)
“Cornerstone” – Hillsong – Key of C – Male 1 Lead

To preface our Christmas service, we continued setting up the “Hope Has Come” message with our song selection. We opened with “At Your Name,” which is normally male lead, but this time I led it just to give it a fresh sound. Because of the descriptive verses and chorus declaration, it makes a great invocation song.

Following “At Your Name,” we remained in the key of E for “One Thing Remains,” which was a seamless transition because we were able to keep the pad going to bridge the two. We had another female lead this song, because I rarely lead two songs back to back. Again, with the amount of leaders we have, it just really isn’t necessary. Giving other people leadership opportunity to learn and grow is important.

We then moved to the key of B via Ableton pad for our “throwback” song, which was “Our God.” I really love this song, especially around Christmas because everyone is familiar with it and the lyrics are theologically sound. It also gives a strong depiction of who God is, a perfect song to get into the hearts of the people.

After “Our God,” we introduced a Christmas special from Gateway Church called “Worship the Great I Am.” I would compare this song lyrically and feel wise to “Revelation Song.” However, it is a little bit more difficult congregation wise to follow because it has four verses and two different choruses. Because we loved the message, we presented the song more as a special and used a Multitrack to ensure a full sound.

To conclude the message, we ended with “Cornerstone” for our response song. This is a great staple song for our church and “The Church” as whole, as it points us straight to the meaning of Christmas: Christ.