Our Rising Sound

July 03 2009

Pray for Kate McRae, 5yr old girl with rare brain tumor

Tagged Under : cancer, Kate Mcrae, prayer

I saw some tweets from Brian Wurzell, Worship Director at Cornerstone Christian Fellowship talking about an urgent prayer request for a family in their church who has a 5yr old daughter currently in Phoenix Children’s Hospital about to go into brain surgery. She has a very rare and aggressive form of cancer that is being operated on today. I do not know them personally, but they are just down the road from me and my heart goes out to them and certainly ask that you join me in lifting up your prayers for their precious baby girl.

For updates you can follow Kate’s dad on twitter @aaronmcrae or visit Kate’s website.

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What music gear would you buy with $1000 ?

Tagged Under : Abelton, gear, music, Vox

Pretend I gave you $1,000 but you had to spend it on music gear. What would you get?

I’d get the new Abelton Suite and have a few hundred left over to buy a decent condenser mic, like a Shure KSM27 or Rode NT-1. What’s next on your list of music goodies?

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Sunday Set List: “Uniting with church family”

Tagged Under : Delirious, Phil Wickham, Ryan Delmore, Sunday Set List, Tim Hughes, worship

sundaysetlist

This week was a special service, we had Pastor Chris Daukas and his core team at Grace Church join us in worship. Chris preached along side our pastor and it was incredible being able to unite with them, worship and fellowship with them. I wish we could do it more often.

The worship set went well, it wouldn’t be complete without at least one hurdle. In the middle of the first set my strap lock snapped off, the guitar stayed on my shoulder, but I had to be very still so the strap wouldn’t completely come off. The transition from song 1 and 2 was long while I switched straps with my backup guitar. But hey, compared to last week’s 2 string snapping extravaganza this was nothing.

I tried to do a relatively simple set since we had some visitors and I wanted them to be able to enter in as much as possible. We did a new arrangement of Come Thou Fount which I thought went really well, I’ll be mixing that this week and see if I can’t release the live recording on the site.

Jesus’ Name - Ryan Delmore
Everything - Tim Hughes (loop available)
True Love - Phil Wickham (loop available)
Come Thou Fount
Our God Reigns - Delirious (loop available)

This post is part of Fred McKinnon’s Set List Sundays.

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Top 5 Favorite Michael Jackson songs

Tagged Under : Michael Jackson, Top 5, video

In remembrance of Michael Jackson who passed yesterday, I thought I’d do a Top 5 with my favorite MJ songs of all time. I grew up singing and dancing to Michael Jackson, I have a lot of respect for his music ability and a lot of sadness for how he lived his life.

1. Thriller

Where else is there to start. The best music video of all time, an incredible song and it gave me nightmares when I was a kid, but I loved it.

2. Smooth Criminal

Another epic video, will anyone ever be able to do music videos like this guy again? I doubt it. Great song as well, I can always jam to this song.

3. Billie Jean

Man I can remember dancing to this song in my room. This video always tripped me out, I still don’t think I really get it. But talk about epic, sidewalk lighting up, I mean…brilliant. I can’t say enough about his sense of melody, it’s incredible.

4. Dirty Diana

I’ve never been in a concert atmosphere like this and I really wonder if I’ll ever have the opportunity in my life to experience it. And no I’m not going into the Jonas brothers teenage mosh pit.

5. Beat It

This was back in the day when gangs just had break dancing battles to settle turf wars. Simpler times.

Farewell Michael, you inspired me as a kid and I’m not sure this world will ever see or hear anyone quite like you again.

Folks what are your Top 5 MJ tunes?

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Can Christians honestly critique each other’s music?

Tagged Under : Bob Kauflin, music, review

I was flipping through some music reviews of some worship albums and I just had to laugh because there’s no such thing as a bad review. Well actually there is, if the review is out of 10 stars, 10 is great and 9.5 is awful, they just don’t get any lower. This same attitude exists in worship bands and church leadership as a whole. Leaders many times have to walk on egg shells cause they feel if they critique the persons gifting or execution that person will get offended and leave.

As leaders we can’t be paralyzed by a fear to critique. The root of this fear is really idolatry in that our gifting is our value in the kingdom and when someone critiques it we feel devalued in the kingdom. I’m not trying to go Dr. Phil on you, but seriously why can’t I love my Christian brother and critique what he’s trying to sell me? How far does this go, am I offending someone because I didn’t buy their album?

On a twitter conversation I was having Fred McKinnon mentioned that many people’s policy is:

“If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”

I agree with his assessment and know that to be the case, but it’s way off in my estimation. What a bunch of babied, insecure in the gospel, little musicians we are if we have a policy of, “hey if you don’t like every single aspect of my music and aren’t prepared to just rave over it all, then don’t say anything“.

I’d like to point out an example of a honest review I did of a Sovereign Grace Christmas cd. I was worried how it would be received, but I thought it would be a disservice to Bob Kauflin if I didn’t review it honestly. I tried to give encouragement on what I thought was done well and honest, specific critique where I thought it was not done well. I was probably insensitive on some points and could have phrased things better. But even with that, Bob responded incredibly well, responded with grace. I don’t think Bob started questioning his value to the kingdom or thought I should live in eternal damnation. Bob correct me if I’m wrong

Do you feel like you’re sinning against God or injuring your brother if you critique their music/gifting? Are you afraid to do so? Do you think that’s healthy? Am I an insensitive jerk?

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Sunday Set List: “Oh the sound of snapping strings”

Tagged Under : John Mark McMillan, Merchant Band, Sunday Set List, Taylor Sorensen, Vineyard, worship

sundaysetlist

This past Sunday I accomplished 2 things I’ve never done before. I broke 2 strings on 2 different guitars and one of the strings I broke was the D string…on an acoustic! That’s hard to do. I felt sick when I woke up that morning and I knew it was going to be a struggle, I prayed for it not to be, but I knew I was going to have to push through. In fact it reminded me of something one of my old pastors used to tell me.

95% of the Christian walk is digging and fighting in the trenches. Maybe 5% of it is mountain top experiences.

In this worship trench in the middle of “So Near” I snapped a string on my electric which had a 2 pronged effect. Screwing up the back half of So Near and causing me to think what song I was going to play next instead of what was planned. We were planning on doing an electrified remix of Kevin Prosch’s “So Come“, but that wasn’t going to work on my backup guitar which was an acoustic. (note to self, keep an electric backup) So I decided to do “Everlasting God” by New Life acoustically last.

That actually went well and I walked off stage feeling like we weathered the storm. Sure it wasn’t the smoothest of set, but we managed to get through it. At the end of the sermon my pastor asked me to play “How He Loves” by John Mark McMillan. Wouldn’t you know it, in the middle of that song I broke the D string(the D string!) on the acoustic. 2 strings, 2 guitars, 2 awkward recoveries.

I’ve become pretty good at ripping off the snapped string and carrying on, but when you are the only guitarist, there’s no hiding being out of tune once a string snaps. I rarely break strings, never broken 2 in one set and never a D string. I figure I should be good for a long time for string breakage.

You Love Me Forever - Merchant Band (loop not yet available)
Dress Us Up - John Mark McMillan
Gloria 34 - Taylor Sorensen (loop available)
So Near - Vineyard UK (loop available)
Everlasting God - New Life (loop available)
How He Loves - John Mark McMillan (end of service)

This post is part of Fred McKinnon’s Set List Sundays.

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Home studio contest - submit your pics and win!

Tagged Under : contest, pictures, recording, studio

This contest is simple. Take a pic of your home studio/recording/practice setup and submit it via the form below. I’ll collect peoples submissions over the next few weeks and compile the top 10 or so and throw a little contest. Everyone will get a chance to vote to choose who’s they like best. The winner gets an Amazon Gift Certificate for $21.84 , yes, 21 dollars and 84 cents. But it’s not about the money kids, it’s more about sharing each other’s setups and getting ideas on what works well.

In your submission include a note about the specifics of your setup. Please feel free to tweet this and pass along to friends whom you know have a home studio. It doesn’t even have to be a recording studio, maybe it’s just your practice area on a porch over looking the ocean, that might win just off the scenery.

OK let’s get started!

cforms contact form by delicious:days

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Why do you follow Jesus?

Tagged Under : grace, Matt Chandler

I was sitting on my porch talking Jesus with a dear friend of mine who’s in a real life struggle. He turned and asked me a simple question that struck me as deeply profound, he asked “Why do you follow Jesus? Why?” See my friend, let’s call him Steve, knows how hard this life is as a disciple of Christ, I could hear the pain of that question in his voice. His entire walk has been a battle, a war in the trenches. It was as real of a life/ministry/discipleship moment I think I’ve had.

I had to really search my heart for an answer. My answer in short was, “Because God’s grace has impacted me to the point where I see and desire no other way. There aren’t any other options.” Really that’s what it’s boiled down to. I serve, follow and love Jesus because his grace has chased me down, replaced my heart and now I see my life in context to how it fits in and serves his kingdom. I love how Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 15:10

“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me was not in vain.”

As Steve’s follow up questions probed deeper, “Why do you sacrifice for this? Why allow yourself to be broken?” it became clearer and clearer that my life makes no sense outside of grace.

I don’t know why I’d sacrifice as much as I have, why I desire God to break me down, it’s just crazy really. There is no logic behind it, there is no formula, there is no global earthly reward I could point to that could explain why this life made sense. There is a great level of foolishness here that can’t be avoided, nor do I want to avoid it. Because as I explained to Steve, God’s grace does not compute in our brains, the math doesn’t work. Works makes sense, or as Matt Chandler brilliantly puts it, moralistic deism. That makes sense, you do good and you get good back. Do bad and you get bad back. But I did bad and God showered me with grace and replaced my heart. I received beauty for ashes and gladness for mourning.

Any good that comes out of my life is a reflection of grace poured out. It’s totally changed my heart, my mind and spirit and I can’t point to any 12 step program that makes you earn it or put God in your debt in any way. I don’t know if that comforted Steve or scared him, but it is what I know to be true.

Now I desire to simply place myself in his hands daily and beg him to work with this gross lump of clay. And because he is a good and loving God he does and it doesn’t make earthly sense, but I love him.