Setlist 8-30-2015

This week, our songs were gathered around the theme of grace.  Below, you’ll find the list of the songs and artists. Clicking the song titles will take you to the lyrics. Below the songs, there is an example of one way you might think of these songs in light of this week's theme. If you want to talk about any of these, feel free to comment at the bottom of this page or email me at jamie@ubcwaco.org.

Songs

Heart Won't Stop by John Mark and Sarah McMillan

Amazing Grace by Citizens & Saints

Oceans (Where Feet May Fail) by Hillsong United

Hope by Jameson McGregor

All the Poor and Powerless by All Sons & Daughters 

Doxology

How They Fit In:

There are many ways to think about the significance of songs and the way they fit together–-this is simply one way you can look at these songs in light of this week’s theme. 

Heart Won't Stop: We sang this song to begin our time together proclaiming the relentless love of God that breeds a grace that isn't contractual or begrudging, but is instead a passionate force that is born out of God's decision to be God-with-us. 

Amazing Grace: We sang this song to think about the fact that the grace of God does not simply extend forgiveness to us that we don't deserve, but is something that transforms us into people who are more like Jesus.

Oceans: We sang this song to think about God being with us as we navigate our lives, specifically the more chaotic territories of life. The grace of God is not something that merely affects us in the end, but in the midst of life.

Hope: I've been working on this song for the better part of a year.  For a long time, I only had the lines, "You lit a fire in the darkness the darkness did not overcome," (loosely pulled from John 1), and "You sang out Hope into the dead of night, and it echoed off the edge of time," (which I pulled from an Advent song I wrote called Light).  Sitting with this, I started to wonder what this "darkness" or "night" might be in the scope of this song.  I thought about what I would label dark points of my life, and the dark times I've walked through with friends.  

I thought about the alcoholics I know.  They tell me that their addiction is a life condition--it's not something they're going to "get over," so no matter how long they are sober, they will still self-identify as an alcoholic.  They can't go back, and life will never be quite the same. 

I thought about my dear friend who is hemmed in by both bipolar disorder and depression, knowing that if he runs out of medication, or if something about his biological environment changes, his world will quite quickly become a dark and untrustworthy place.  There was a time when he lived free of this diagnosis, but he can't go back to that time--his life will never be free of the potential of this darkness.  

I thought about the conversations I've had with friends--and with myself--on the other side of a major life change, where what was has an allure that is lacking in what is, and the weight of this loss is unbearably heavy.  We can't go back; life will never be the same.  

It was this collective sense of darkness, and the ubiquitous not being able to go back, that I had in mind when I wrote this song.  I wrote it for them.  I wrote for me.  I likely wrote it for you.  

Each verse of this song ends with me putting these words into the mouth of God: "I've called you mine."  After the third verse, this changes to, "I've called you mine, and you can't go back."  Of all the things, great and small, from which we can't go back, this is the most enduring.  The conditions of life find their resolve in death, but the condition of being a child of God can't be erased by something as temporal as death.  God chose to be God-with-us in the midst of the darkness, and no shade of darkness can change that.  This is grace. 

This is a piece of what this song means to me, but there is much more going on.  Reading the lyrics will be a start to understanding this song better, but if you want to talk about it at all, please send me an email.

All the Poor and Powerless:  We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs, which were gathered around the theme of singing.  This is what we said about All the Poor and Powerless last week: We sang this song to turn our attention to humans.  There are two refrains in this song that involve what humans cry out in worship to God.  One is "Alleluia" (familiar?) and the other is "He is God."  I'll admit: part of me recoils against taking something as complex as the worship of God and reducing it to such simple phrases, but I feel like what I said about the previous song fits here as well: Simple? Yes. Legitimate? Yes.  What else is there to say?  The most complex praises of a theologian or business person (or whoever) can probably all be reduced back to this one idea. 

Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos. 

-JM

Setlist 8-23-2015

This week, our songs were gathered around the theme of singing (meta, I know).  Below, you’ll find the list of the songs and artists. Clicking the song titles will take you to the lyrics. Below the songs, there is an example of one way you might think of these songs in light of this week's theme. If you want to talk about any of these, feel free to comment at the bottom of this page or email me at jamie@ubcwaco.org.

Songs

The Lark Ascending (Trying to Make You Sing) by David Crowder* Band

All Creatures of Our God and King by David Crowder* Band

All the Poor and Powerless by All Sons & Daughters 

Noise by Jameson McGregor

Death in His Grave by John Mark McMillan

Doxology

How They Fit In:

There are many ways to think about the significance of songs and the way they fit together–-this is simply one way you can look at these songs in light of this week’s theme. 

The Lark Ascending (Trying to Make You Sing): This is a song about singing--not like in a "come on, sing along" kind of way, but its about what value singing might have, which was great for yesterday, since that's what the sermon was about.  If you haven't already, I'd encourage you to click the link in the previous section and read the lyrics to this song.  The first verse connects singing to being alive--it's something that we need, that pours out from whatever place deep within us that belief resides, that makes us feel alive.  We added the second verse for yesterday, the main idea of which was to say: in singing, we join a song that has echoed since the moment there was something rather than nothing--singing proclaims that we are alive, yes, but more than that, we are creatures joining in the song of Creation.

All Creatures of Our God and King: We sang this song to think more about the "melody of stars" from one of the last lines of the previous song.  It's easy for most of us to wrap our heads around the idea of people worshipping God, and it's perhaps not a huge stretch to think about animals worshipping God (because, you know, cartoons), but what about things that seem otherwise inanimate (stars, elements, etc)?  This kind of personification is rampant in the Psalms--especially Psalm 19, where we see the "The Heavens declare the Glory of God," line.  This is a singing without words, a singing that is woven into the fabric of existence that never ends.  This song chooses "Alleluia" as the content of this song, which means (some variation of) "Praise God." Simple? Yes. Legitimate? Yes.  What else is there to say?  The most complex praises of a supernova or tectonic plate can probably all be reduced back to this one idea.

All the Poor and Powerless:  We sang this song to turn our attention to humans.  There are two refrains in this song that involve what humans cry out in worship to God.  One is "Alleluia" (familiar?) and the other is "He is God."  I'll admit: part of me recoils against taking something as complex as the worship of God and reducing it to such simple phrases, but I feel like what I said about the previous song fits here as well: Simple? Yes. Legitimate? Yes.  What else is there to say?  The most complex praises of a theologian or business person (or whoever) can probably all be reduced back to this one idea. 

Noise:  We sang this song to think about the kind of song God is composing in creation.  One in which God stands as Lord over all of creation, yet wants to have a relationship with God's creatures so much that even when we make broken promises of ourselves, God makes new promises of us.  

Death in His Grave: We sang this song for two reasons.  First, we are in the habit of singing a song from the previous week's set every week after the sermon.  Second, Josh's sermon yesterday gave us the idea that singing roots ideas and stories deep within us.  Death In His Grave contains some of the most hopeful content of the story of Redemption, and is thus a perfect song to sing when we are most conscious that the words we sing are going to be etched deep within us.

Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos. 

-JM

Setlist 8-9-2015

This week, our songs were gathered around the theme of God as gift-giver.  Below, you’ll find the list of the songs and artists. Clicking the song titles will take you to the lyrics. Below the songs, there is an example of one way you might think of these songs in light of this week's theme. If you want to talk about any of these, feel free to comment at the bottom of this page or email me at jamie@ubcwaco.org.

Songs

Just A Closer Walk With Thee

Because He Lives

Murdered Son by John Mark McMillan

To Be Alone With You by Sufjan Stevens

House of God Forever by Jon Foreman

Doxology

How They Fit In:

There are many ways to think about the significance of songs and the way they fit together–-this is simply one way you can look at these songs in light of this week’s theme. 

Just A Closer Walk With Thee: We sang this song to reflect on the fact that the gift of Jesus that we receive in coming to know Him is not a singular occurrence, but is something we receive afresh day by day.

Because He Lives: We sang this song to reflect on the way the gift of Jesus impacts our outlook on the future--in Christ, God gave us the gift of a hope that makes it worth getting out of bed each day.

Murdered Son: We sang this song to reflect on the cost of the gift of Jesus. Identifying Jesus as "God's Murdered Son" feels fairly blunt, but isn't this precisely what happened?  Salvation was a gift given at God's own expense.  We can dialogue back and forth over whether or not God is capable on a philosophical level of giving up any part of Godself, but this is nonetheless the picture that we have in Jesus, and we cannot ignore it.

To Be Alone With You:  This song captures a sense of mutual self-giving in the relationship between a person and God.  It also highlights that salvation is not an impersonal act in which God does what needs to be done to carry out a cosmic transaction of justice, but is instead an action with the aim of repairing the relationship between the Creator and creation.

House of God Forever: While I was out of town last week, Abby Baker played music in my stead, and this is one of the songs she led.  This is normally the part of the blog where I reference whatever was said last week, but since that quote would look like a big blank space, let's think about this song as a declaration that God is the giver of every good and perfect gift that keeps us alive--that the gifts of God are the existential place where we dwell.

Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos. 

-JM