BabuLife

View From the Stage: 5/27/07

Today we had Lynnora on violin. I love it!  Lynnora did awesome.  Having not made rehearsal Thursday night, she just jumped in and did such a wonderful job. Great job team.  This week when prepping the worship, I spent a little more time on the flow between songs.  I think it felt a little more seamless today.  Here's the list:

• Friend of God - Michael Gungor - Bigger Than my Imagination
• Better is One Day - Matt Redman (Friends of His version) - You can purchase this at the info center.
• Come Thou Fount - Public Domain (Friends of His version) - You can purchase this at the info center (yet another shameless plug).
• Amazing Grace - Public Domain
• I Will Trust in You - Jeremy Camp - Carried Me
• Son of God - Starfield - Beauty in the Broken

While the worship was exillirating, it was capped off with a drum solo by Dr. Jon.  Today the topic was spiritual warfare and Video Doog requested a hard core military type drum solo leading into the message.  Of course, what better drum riff than Sunday, Bloody Sunday by U2?  Jon had the worship center shaking!

Video Doog preached a great message on spiritual warfare.  It'd been a long time since Doug had spoken from a pulpit.  He gave a great message inspiring me to peal back the temporal scales on my eyes and see things as they truly are...eternal.  One of the best illustrations I've ever heard reagarding spiritual warfare and the different roles involved in the war. Thanks Doug for working hard on that message and knocking it out of the park. You can listen online here, click the "Spiritual Warfare" folder and download away.

View From the Stage: 5/20/07

This was vision dropping Sunday.  That is to say our Sr. Pastor took to sharing the vision and dream of Grace Church for our community in Southern Overland Park, KS.  Using the illustration of a table, Tim laid out how our dream for Grace is to be a church of thirds.  One third new believers, one third mature believers, and one third seekers (those who are checking out church/christianity and are uncommited to becoming a Christ follower).  Not only is it a good thing to dispense vision to new comers of the church, but also to pump up those who have been labouring...to refresh the mission in their lives.  You can check it out by clicking "The Table" folder at this link.

Music rocked. I love playing with two electric guitars.  Masterful job Scott and Sam!  Little g on the keys is finding his groove.  And Scott nailed Glorious (Sweet vocals!) Way to go fellas!  And Gina has vocals like butta.  Here's the worship list:

• Here is Our King - David Crowder Band - From the album "A Collision"
• Glorious - Chris Tomlin - From the album "See the Morning"
• Shine - Matt Redman - From the album "Beautiful News"
• You Are Holy (Prince of Peace) - Michael W. Smith - From the Album "Worship Again"

I'm really diggin' the song "Shine" by Matt Redman.  Just a great tune with fantastic lyrics.  Love the chorus.

Later!
-Babu

View From the Stage: 5/13/07

The final Sunday of our marriage and dating series "Let's Fall in Love" was closed out by Tim and Cathy Howey.  Great job and huge thanks to both of them for spending so much time on this message!

Music was cool.  We had two electric guitars this week (Great job Sam and Brad).  Here's the worshiplist:

• Filled With Your Glory - Starfield - Off of the album "Starfield"
• Let God Arise - Chris Tomlin - Off of the album "See the Morning"
• Everlasting God - Brenton Brown - Off of the album "Everlasting God"
• King - Tree62 Tree63- Off of the album "The Answer to the Question"
• Blessed Be your Name - Matt Redman - Off of the album "Where Angels Fear to Tread"

Great series.  I hope it was a blessing to your marriages!

View From the Stage: 4/29/07

Great Sunday this week.  There are times where you're leading worship and you get those goosebumps when you just sense the presence of God in that room.  Yesterday was one of those days for me.  Could've just been me I suppose...either way, God was moving in my heart during our worship.  I LOVE to take pauses during songs to hear the congregation singing out.  Just chilling.

Here's our setlist:

• Here is Our King - David Crowder Band - Off of the album "A Collision"
• Let God Arise - Chris Tomlin - Off of the album "See the Morning"
• How Great is Our God/How Great Thou Art - Chris Tomlin - Off of the album "Live from Austin, Tx"
• You Never Let Go - Matt Redman - Off of the album "Beautiful News"
• I've Always Loved You - Third Day - Off of the album "Time"
• Let My Words Be Few - Matt Redman - The version off of the Friends of His CD (You can buy this at the Grace Church info center...shameless plug).

Yesterday's message was very cool.  Tom shared the stage with his wife Mindy discussing the intricacies and importance of communication between spouses.  Tom and Mindy have such a huge heart for couples and have been such a huge blessing to me and my family throughout our 14 year friendship.  You can know that everything they talked about yesterday is 100% genuine...not just teaching something they've heard others teach...but real life experiences.  Be sure to check out my wife's post that tells it all here.

One thing our team learned yesterday - Make sure to double check with new speakers if they are using the new Windows Vista OS.  We had to scramble to get the update on our PC's so we could actually present his PPT's.  Hush up all you Mac users....:)

Great job team!

-Babu

View From the Stage: 4/22/07

New Band is getting to a point now where I can't really call them "New Band".  First of all, Dr. Jon is now the lead percussionist for our team, so he's playing every week, and second they're just getting better each time they play.  Yesterday was a growth moment for the team as a technical glitch at the beginning of the first service kept us from kicking off the worship on time.  As I've said before, I'm good with glitches as it pushes us to grow even more.  And the team kept cool.  Great job fellas.

This was week 2 for our "Let's Fall in Love" series on marriage and dating.  Jim Williams did an excellent job Sunday tackling the tough issue of dating.  Go have a listen in the Grace audio files here.

Recently from the stage we've seen more "observers" in worship than participators.  What does that mean?  With the influx of new people checking out Grace Church, I've seen more people observing the worship rather than participating.  Is that cool?  Yes it is.  Here's why...

You cannot expect visitors to engage in worship with a church body they don't know right off the bat.  There are some who can and are excited about the music and worship here, but for many folks it just takes some time.  Recently in our Johnson County community there have been several churches going through some turmoil.  And as expected, many people have been visiting our church looking for a place to heal. Many of these folks may need some time to heal broken relationships with others, their former church and ultimately with God.  I could be wrong, but from the stage yesterday it seemed this was the case in the congregation.  Many of these folks just need to be welcomed and loved.  It's my prayer that our time of worship provides an opportunity for people to do just that.

Here's the setlist from yesterday:

• Praise Awaits - Matt Redman - from the album "Facedown"
• Holding on to You - Paul Colman - No idea what album this is on
• Everlasting God - Written by Brenton Brown - We did the version found on Chris Tomlin's "See the Morning" album.
• Shine - Matt Redman - From the album "Beautiful News"
• Once Again - Matt Redman - From the album "Blessed Be Your Name: The Songs of Matt Redman"

Someone ran up to me yesterday asking where they could find all these songs so I figured I'd add the albums to the list.  Great job team!

Easter Update

I'm pretty spent and would love to share some of what happened this morning...however; I'm so spent I want to give it the write up it deserves.  So here are some quick facts about our three Easter services:

• Attendance: 1,201 (most ever for Grace Church)
• Salvations: Man...I don't have the numbers of professesions of faith today, but I saw the hands raised and saw the Connect cards.  The third service we had over half the room raise their hands that they had received Christ today.  Seriously...just dumbfounded.  Unbelievable.  I almost couldn't make it through the last song after seeing all those hands raised and people wiping tears from their eyes.  I think many people came back to Christ today and many met Him for the first time.
• The Team: I don't know what to say to all of you.  I was just amazed and am continually amazed at your faithfulness, dedication and service to the Lord.  You people are truly inspiring to me.  Thank you so so much for giving your talents, gifts and hearts to what God has called you to do at Grace.  Seriously...I'm amazed.
• Food: Addie (my wife) and Marie (Super Cool Person of the Week) thank you both for making the food happen.  You both did an INCREDIBLE job.  Thank you Marie for thinking of it!
• Message: Tim...you rocked even after coming home from Nicaragua yesterday.  You da man!

Setlist:

• Amazing Grace (Violin Solo)
• Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
• The Glory of Your Name by Watermark
• Son of God by Starfield
• Here is Our King by David Crowder Band

I'll post a little more later. Drop a note on your thoughts and experiences on Easter.

Later!

Babu

View From the Stage: 3/11/07

Yesterday was a first in a couple of ways. A new instrument and a new situation that we've never had. 

First off, I have to tell people who attend early service something...YOU ARE AWESOME!  We have never had the audio system shut off during worship and it happened yesterday.  We're not talking a couple of instruments...we're talking EVERYTHING.  That means the only thing heard was my acoustic guitar from the stage and our voices.  Rather than just stopping I made a quick decision to keep going...singing one more chorus and ending it before the big electric guitar solo...because you know electric guitar solos just aren't the same without an audio system.  The folks in early service responded by clapping their hands and singing louder than they were with the audio system. The problem was solved between services.

Lynnora Weast played the violin on two of our songs.  This was a first for our team also.  She did an amazing job.  Just adding another instrument to a song that you've maybe played many times before gives it that new feel again.  We'll never be able to play those songs the same way again I think.

Here's the setlist:

• Every Move I Make - David Ruis
• King - Tree63
• Come Thou Fount (with Lynnora) - Public Domain
• Let Everything that has Breath (with Lynnora) - Matt Redman
• I Will Trust in You - Jeremy Camp

View From the Stage: 2/25/07

We had a few "hiccups" yesterday closing out our series on the life of David.  Sometimes stuff happens.  I'm not concerned with the stuff so much as I am with how our team handles adversity.  And our team came through. 

When you start a song out in the wrong key...what's the best thing to do?  Start over of course!  That was the best decision since every other instrumentalist onstage and vocalist has rehearsed the song in a different key.  Way to go Scott!!!  What do you do if you get lost on the lyrics?  Just keep going and don't collapse under pressure. Way to go Brian!!!  What do you do when the pastor's mic keeps popping?  Bring him out a handheld.  Way to go Addie!!!

We have an awesome team!  Here's our setlist:

• Everyday - Hillsong
• Let Everything that Has Breath - Matt Redman (Gina added a little coolness this week..Awesome job Gina!)
• Son of God - Starfield (This was a new one)
• You Are Holy aka Prince of Peace - Michael W. Smith (The old Grace anthem.)
• I Stand Amazed - Passion (A nicely revitalized hymn).

Check out the kind note from our Pastor on his blog.

View From the Stage: A Skit, Porn, and an Old Fashioned Altar Call

Yesterday was powerful.  After a skit dramatizing an issue that so many families face each week, there was nothing but dead silence in the room.  HUGE props to Zach and Kendra for putting on such a great performance.  Such tough material to tackle and you both did an awesome job.  God used you both in a huge way yesterday.  Lisa...you made it all happen.  Way to go drama team!

So what was the big deal?  We continued our series on the life of David confronting the story of David and Bethsheba.  What happens when you "check out" of the race?  When you in essence become a couch potato doing nothing, sitting on the sidelines while everyone around you is out running the race.  For many folks who check out of the race, that void is filled with other "stuff".  Pornography, gambling, crazy uncontrollable spending, overeating, adultery...etc.  When you disengage, you find yourself bored and doing things that eventually stack up to a point where you find yourself hiding (or at least believing you're hiding) from those who care most about you.  And at some point...the jig is up and you get caught.

Yesterday's skit dealt with a husband who had checked out of the race only to find himself surfing the web for porn.  No prob for him until his wife found out.  Very tough and challenging subject matter making the story of David not just a historical moment...but something that can be applied to our lives today.  Thanks again to the drama team for tackling this.  You all did awesome!

We closed the service with something we hadn't done since October 2005 which I posted about here. We brought back the classic "come on forward" invitation.  We kicked it around a bit thinking that if you're ever going to do something like that, this would be the day.  We probably had 4 - 5 people actually get out of their seat to come forward.  Not a whole lot, but there were many people dealing with issues of sin from their seats as we were all reminded of the love that God has for all of us no matter where we are at in life and what we've done.

It was a good day at Grace Church.

Listen to the message here.

View From the Stage: 2/4/07

There are mornings where things go just right and you walk off the stage thinking all the technical stuff went all right.  But there are mornings when you walk off the stage feeling the adrenaline rush of being a part of something truly special.  Knowing that God moved through the room and touched the hearts of people is so much more exciting than hitting each note.  This happened today. 

What a Sunday!  You've got to listen to the message on the current series on the life of David.  Check it out here.

Here's the setlist:

• Lord Most High - Dave Leubben
• Praise Awaits - Matt Redman
• Here I am to Worship - Tim Hughes
• Let God Arise - Chris Tomlin
• Here is Our King - David Crowder Band

By the way...that new Tomlin song rocked!  Way to go band!