(If you missed the original post about why I am posting the upcoming weeks songs instead of last weeks, you can find it HERE.)

Last week we kicked off our summer series called “A King And A Kingdom.”  We are going through the book of Mark all summer long on Sunday mornings, our small groups are going to be discussing it more in-depth each week as they meet, and there is a scripture reading guide for people to do on their own or with their families.

I am super excited about this whole thing, and I really believe that if we open our hearts this summer, our lives will be changed in radical ways!

I tried to choose songs this week that speak of the Kingdom of God, what it means, and what it looks like.  It was a little difficult for me, as this is one of those weeks where I was somewhat dissatisfied with the songs I was choosing from, but I really feel like I ended up being able to pull together some songs that will really help people move from looking at the Kingdom, to living in the Kingdom.

Everlasting God – Brenton Brown
How Great Is Our God – Chris Tomlin
We Fall – Chris Kretzu
With Everything – Hillsong
Mighty To Save – Hillsong

If you would like to hear the songs, you can hear them HERE – but as always, I really hope you buy some of these albums for yourself.  One of the most powerful things we can do is to have our own personal worship times during the week and a lot of these songs and albums will help with that. As you memorize the lyrics, you memorize God’s word and His heart for you and this city.  With that stirring inside of us, there is no limit to the things we can do.

~chris

(If you missed the original post about why I am posting the upcoming weeks songs instead of last weeks, you can find it HERE.)

This week at The Gateway Church is going to be awesome.  There isn’t any specific thing that we are doing or special service element planned, but God has really been moving in our community over the last few months and I feel like we are growing and maturing in really incredible ways.  Because of that, each Sunday I am just so excited to see what happens.  To hear people’s stories of what God is doing in their lives.  To see people get lost in worship that haven’t experienced that freedom before.

Did I mention that last week the entire church started clapping?  On their own?

Does that mean that they worshiping with sincerity?  No…but it does mean that there is a freedom and comfort level growing in that room.  Something I have been praying for and working towards since August 2nd.

So this week as we cry out “let love tear down these walls, so that all creation would come back to You, because it’s all for You,” I am praying and confident and thrilled to know that our walls are crumbling, and that our love is being made known.  That God is feeling our love and worship, and that the city is beginning to experience our love, which is ultimately God’s love.

I feel like that is one of the most grammatically dysfunctional paragraphs I’ve ever written, but I can’t think of a better way to write it so just go with it.

Anyhoo, this weeks worship set looks like this:

Your Love Never Fails – Jesus Culture (Original by Chris McClarney.)
Here Is Our King – David Crowder Band
From The Inside Out – Hillsong United
Tear Down The Walls – Hillsong United
Hosanna – Paul Baloche

You can listen to this Sunday’s MP3’s by clicking HERE, but I encourage you to pick up some of these albums.  These people are making incredible music.

Can’t wait to worship with you guys again…

~chris

This past Sunday we changed things up a bit with the band, and it seemed to go really well.

There is a guy in our community that plays the dobro (don’t know what that is?) and this was the first Sunday we’ve incorporated it into the band.  We stripped most things down, leaving just bass, acoustic, cajon, dobro, and my vocals.  It was really simple, but it just felt the best for our first time out of the gates.

We got a lot of great feedback from people, so we will definitely try and make this more of a regular set-up at Gateway.

Here is the live house mix of Come Thou Fount.  (insert warnings about how the house mix never sounds as good as it actually did in the house, yadda yadda.)

It was a lot of fun, and I can’t wait to see what else we can change up and do differently in the future.  I like trying to break free from the Tomlin/United style…even if we still use their songs.  I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions, too.

~chris

So this is my third week trying this out.  I think that it’s a little difficult to gauge how effective it is being this early in, but I’m gonna keep going with it.

If you missed the original post about why I am posting the upcoming weeks songs instead of last weeks, you can find it HERE.

This week at The Gateway Church is the third week in our series “The Gospel.”  I have really enjoyed the simplicity of this series, and also the simplicity of our services programming.  The whole idea is to take away all the frills, gimmicks, and flashy stuff.  Each week has consisted of worship, scripture reading, offering, and the message.

It seems silly to have to say this, but it’s amazing to see what happens when you just leave room for God’s grace to rest, God’s Word to speak, and God’s Spirit to move.

I have been trying to pick songs that lyrically and dynamically lead people to a one-on-one interaction and response to God.

This Sunday, we are playing:

How He Loves – by John Mark McMillan
Cannons – by Phil Wickham
We Fall – by Chris Kretzu
From The Inside Out – by Hillsong United
Everlasting God – by Brenton Brown

As always, I encourage you to read the lyrics without the music.  Just read through them like a story, poem, or letter.  Look for yourself, and for God, in the lines. (Lyrics can be found by clicking on each song title.  MP3’s can be heard by clicking HERE.)

If you have been following along with these posts or have found them helpful in your worship time, let me know.  Or if there is something else that I could do to help you grow your personal or weekend worship experience, leave a comment.  Just trying to figure out what works best here.

~chris

Yo!

I hope you all had a great weekend and Easter.

Per my blog post last week, I wanted to go ahead and post this weeks worship set.  Again, these are the songs we are doing this coming Sunday, April 11th, at The Gateway Church.

How Great Is Our God – Chris Tomlin
Beautiful Jesus – Kristian Stanfill
Cannons – Phil Wickham
Here Is Our King – David Crowder

I encourage you to listen to them (here, if you’d like), worship with them, read the lyrics with and without the music, and possibly even buy an album or two to support the artists.

Can’t wait to worship with you this Sunday!

~chris

There was a time that on Mondays or Tuesdays I would post the set list and a review of the Sunday before.  I would talk about the songs, what they mean, and how things went.

Lately I have been feeling that this is kinda one-sided and mostly beneficial for me and other worship leader-types.  (Then this idea was confirmed and became something new through a conversation I had with Jeremy.  He’s rad and way smarter than me.)

I am gonna pull a Missy Elliot and “flip it and reverse it.”  But in a way less raunchy way.

At the beginning of each week, I am going to post the upcoming weeks set list, and link to where you can listen to the songs, and talk a little bit about why those songs were picked and other things of that nature.

My big hope is that the people of The Gateway Church will start to use this as a tool and resource for their personal worship during the week.  Worship doesn’t begin and end on a Sunday morning at church.  We are called to worship all week long through our actions and conversations, through our thoughts and prayers, and yes…also through song.

I absolutely believe that if you and I spend the next 6 days thinking about the words to these songs, singing them (in the car, office, or wherever), and meditating on them in our hearts, that we can have the most sincere, authentic, and passionate worship experience on Sunday mornings.

A few weeks ago Dashboard Confessional was in town.  My wife is a huge fan, so we got tickets.  Well she spent about 2 weeks before that listening to his songs; learning new ones and refreshing her mind with the old ones.  She couldn’t stop talking and thinking about it.  She wanted to make sure that when he took the stage and she was standing there with 400 other people, that she was ready.  It was almost like she was a love-struck 19 year old girl again!

Well, I want to make sure that when we come together on Sunday morning (with the desire of giving Christ center stage) that we are ready.  That we have spent time preparing our hearts, thinking about what is to come, and just plain old getting excited!

So here is my encouragement and my challenge:

If you go to The Gateway Church, listen to these songs.  You can listen to them online or buy the album for yourself.  Spend time with these songs, and let’s get excited to worship God together!

Click here to listen to this Sunday’s songs.

~chris

We showed the following video on Sunday morning at The Gateway Church.  It pretty much wrecked me when I first saw it last, and again when I heard it on Sunday morning paired with Paul’s message.

The performance was originally done live by a guy named Mike Perez, and then he recorded it and made this video.

It is a call to just worship.  Not “just” in the sense of “hey man, why don’t you just worship.”  But in the sense of our worship being just.

The entire thing is ridiculously powerful, but the lines that really broke me are these:

me way drown in justice
and may we be resuscitated with hearts transformed
with hearts that mute the musics noise
because they long for a worship that responds
to the angelic callings of the orphan and the widow
a worship that feeds
a worship that quenches thirst
a worship that isn’t irritated by visiting hours or prison doors
a worship whose sense of smell can stomach
the stench of urine and unbrushed teeth
whose sense of sight can bare an urban crown of thorns;
lice filled hair and bloody nails
whose sense of touch and embrace can loosen the grip of domestic violence
whose sense of hearing and concern can fill the void
shaped by the held-back “i love you’s” that
turned dreams into nightmares and nightmares into realities
a worship whose purpose is to shine outside the dry walls of the church
where a world waits, and a God watches
the question, the challenge; will you worship

So yeah…chew on that for a few days.

~chris

I have been pretty absent from posting here lately.  It has been a crazy few weeks of travels, events, and mucho other stuff.

I can’t take too much time here right now, but I did want to post the most epic setlist ever.

This Saturday night is capitalC, an event that I am lucky enough to be a part of.  Essentially it is a worship night.  The cool thing about it is that it involves multiple churches from all over Des Moines coming together and saying “WE are the Church.” Big “c” church.  Get it? capitalC?

Anyhoo, for more info you can check out the website.

So here is the set list. Six different worship teams with a mixture of originals and not.  But I guarantee it will be a night to remember.  We are expecting God to move in just an epic way.

So. Pumped. Right. Now.

Sing Alleluia
Agnus Dei
Worthy
I love you lord
Nothing but the Blood of Jesus
He Was There
Only You
Grace that is greater
Tell the World
Blessed be your name
From the inside out
I’m not ashamed
Beautiful one
Lead me to the cross
God of wonders
Because Of Your Love
Glory To God Forever
Beautiful The Blood
Your Love is Everything
Sweetly Broken
Awesome In This Place
Peace Like A River
Where Would I Go
Break Our Hearts
With A Loud Shout
Overflow
Enter In
Can You Hear Us
From the Rising of the Sun
Love Came Down
Beautiful Jesus
Savior King
Came to My Rescue
Carrier
We Are Hungry
Your Love Never Fails
Hosanna
Hallelujah To My King
You Are God
Closer
Come Thou Fount
All Creatures Of Our God And King
Our God Reigns
Lord, You have my heart
God of This City
How He Loves
With Everything

Will you be there?

Even if you can’t be there in person, if all goes as planned we should have a live internet feed.

Follow @capitalC10 on Twitter to keep up to date on the happenings!

~chris