Liturgy 4-1-2018

This blog is a record of the call to worship, Scripture readings, and prayers from our Sunday liturgies.  If you are interested in writing something for the liturgy, or if you have a concern about any aspect of our liturgy, please email jamie@ubcwaco.org.

Call to Worship

we have gathered to worship the Living God

proclaiming that Christ has died, Christ is Risen,
and Christ will come again

to be drawn into God’s story

and find our own stories changed
into stories of Resurrection

that we might be formed into Resurrection people

sowing life where there is death
and hope where there is brokenness.

Amen

Scripture

Isaiah 25:6-9

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines,
of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.

And he will destroy on this mountain
the shroud that is cast over all peoples,
the sheet that is spread over all nations;
he will swallow up death forever.

Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces,
and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the Lord has spoken.

It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God;
we have waited for him, so that he might save us.

This is the Lord for whom we have waited;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

Mark 16:1-8

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint Jesus.

And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?”

When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed.

But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”

So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Prayer

This week's prayer was written and read by Sharyl Loeung:

Risen One
Author of Light
and Life
You are victorious

We are here today because
You Are Victorious

Some of us here today need to know victory
We need to know victory in our own lives
We need to know that Light conquers darkness

So we look to you this Easter season and we ask you to show up
Show up along the road as we travel
May your presence be as real to us as it was on the Road to Emmaus, but
May we recognize you
See you
& may we point you out for each other along the way

Setlist 4-1-2018

This past Sunday was Resurrection Sunday, and our songs were gathered with that in mind.  Below, you’ll find the list of the songs and artists. Clicking the song titles will take you to the lyrics.  Below the songs, you can find a brief example of one way you might think of these songs. 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:

In the Night by Andrew Peterson

Wayward Ones by The Gladsome Light

Hope by Jameson McGregor

Death In His Grave by John Mark McMillan

Mystery by Jameson McGregor (adapted from Charlie Hall)

When Death Came Calling by Jameson McGregor

Be Thou My Vision

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. 

In the Night: This song is a stream of stories about God showing up in the midst of despair in the Bible.  It carried us through Lent, and on Sunday it was our entry into Easter.

Wayward Ones: We sing this song every time we take communion to remind ourselves of a couple of things.  First, we are a broken people--though we are seeking to become more like Jesus, we often fail at this.  Second, Christ has given Himself for us despite our brokenness.  We take communion to remember the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf, even though we did not, and do not, deserve it.

Hope: We sang this song to give voice to the hope of Resurrection.

Death In His Grave: This song narrates Jesus' defeat of Death and rescue of humanity from destruction.

Mystery: We sang this song to proclaim Jesus' rise from death at the hands of political and religious oppressors, and raised this as a challenge for us to rise to the aid of the oppressed.

When Death Came Calling: This song is a song of grief and resurrection.

Be Thou My Vision:  Throughout the Lenten season, we have closed our liturgies with these words to reaffirm our desire to seek our vision, wisdom, and security in God alone.  On Easter, we added the final stanza into the mix, and asked Christ to be our victory as well.

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 4-23-2017

This week was the second Sunday of Easter, and our songs were gathered around the theme of....Easter.  Below, you’ll find the list of the songs and artists. Clicking the song titles will take you to the lyrics. Below the songs, you can find recordings from Sunday morning of a few of them, and below the recordings, 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

Rise Up by Bifrost Arts

Noise by Jameson McGregor

Mystery by Jameson McGregor (adapted from Charlie Hall)

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: In Easter, we find that there are no barriers that God is not willing to cross to set things right with us.  The refrain of "Your heart won't stop coming after me" is about more than just a vague notion of the Love of God, but rather speaks to the redemptive force of the Love of God.  This season offers us an opportunity to consider the work that God is doing in creation, and the God is drawing us into in our own lives.

Amazing Grace: The Resurrection is a transformative act of grace that has implications for the whole of creation.  It is a Yes to life and the created world. This song talks about the implications of the Resurrection for our lives, and we sang it to rehearse speaking the truth about God's ongoing redemption project in our midst.

Rise Up: This song takes up the resurrection theme from a different angle; namely, that of the implications of the Resurrection for justice in the world.  Christ took up the cause of the oppressed (became oppressed), entered the depths of suffering and death, and in rising again, offers a distinct kind of hope that cycles of violence and oppression are not locked into the tracks they appear to be.  Christ's rising offers hope that the lowly to can rise.  The chorus of the song can be looked at in two ways: a plea for God to rise up to defend the cause of the oppressed, and a call to one another, as the body of Christ, to rise up to defend the cause of the oppressed. We sang this song to begin to broaden our understanding of who Jesus is as the Risen One, and who we are called to be as resurrection people.

Noise: This song is about God painting death and resurrection onto our lives by entering into our suffering and drawing us through it.  

Mystery:  We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about Mystery then:  This is a protest song.  And Easter is a protest day.  In the Resurrection of Jesus, we have the defeat of death, yes, but we also have an empire and religious institution put to shame as their supposedly final assertion of power over the trouble-maker Jesus doesn't work.  If the power that corrupt systems of oppression carry is falsified, these systems cannot hope to stand for long.  So, the formula Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again is multi-valent, and one of those valences is of the raised-fist variety.  This was true then, and it is true now.  

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 5-1-2016

This was the sixth week of Easter (and Easter itself for the Orthodox Church).  Our songs were gathered with this in mind. Below, you’ll find the list of the songs and artists. Clicking the song titles will take you to the lyrics. Below the songs, you can find recordings from Sunday morning of a few of them, and below the recordings, 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:

Wandering by Jameson McGregor

Come Thou Fount

Fall Afresh by Jeremy Riddle

Heart With No Companion by Leonard Cohen

Wayward Ones by The Gladsome Light

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. 

Wandering: This song is about the relentless faithfulness of God to God's commitment to be God-for-us by being God-with-us.  Throughout the Easter season, we are compelled to think seriously about the significance of Jesus' death and resurrection for the divine-human relationship.  A main theme of Wandering is our tendency to observe the movement of God and, intentionally or not, attempt to harness this movement for our own purposes.  It is no secret that Jesus' followers were fully expecting His mission to culminate in an overthrow of Roman oppression and the inauguration of the Kingdom of God.  They saw what Jesus was doing, thought it meant temporal power and deliverance, and thus thought the crucifixion was the end of the story for them--that they had gotten up their hopes for nothing.  On the other side of things, the Jewish authorities that partnered with the Romans to have Jesus eliminated thought they were protecting the movement of God as they understood it, and sought to protect what they held to be the Truth in killing Him.  In the Resurrection, we see Jesus return not with vengeance, but with love--an emphatic yes to God's creation.  God chose to be God-for-us even when we chose to be against God.  Why?  Because that's what God is like.  God is telling a story with us, but God is fully willing and able to cut back against our attempts to derail the story.

Come Thou Fount: In some ways, we might think of Easter as a season in which we devote particular attention to a story about God showing up in the midst of tragedy and transforming despair into Hope.  Come Thou Fount is a petition for the Spirit to transform our minds and hearts into faculties that know how to worship God in light of who God has been for us.  The second stanza talks about raising an Eben-ezer, which we can think of as a monument to God's faithfulness--a reminder of God's showing up for us in the past.  With this in mind, we might think of Easter as a whole as an Eben-ezer we have grafted into our Calendar.

Fall Afresh: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about Fall Afresh then: We sang this song as a prayer, voicing together our desire for the Spirit to be with us.  In this season, it is fitting to dwell on the fact that the Spirit of the Living God is in fact the catalyst of the Resurrection.  The Spirit is the power that makes dead things live again. In the call to worship yesterday, we acknowledged that there are many kinds of death that we experience, not all of which involve our hearts ceasing to beat.  Change of all kinds is a kind of death, and change seems to be a fundamental part of life.  The Spirit is constantly working to raise us to life--life to the fullest.  So, as many of us are on the edge of new seasons of life (either because we are moving to new schools, new jobs, or because we are ready to break out of a rut we've been in), we sang this song to petition the Spirit to raise us up once again.

Heart With No Companion: This song imagines a greeting that stretches across the gulf of sorrow and despair to give hope to those who feel worthless, aimless, or simply stuck.  This greeting is comprise of a love that is "vast and shattered," which we might imagine as the kind of love that Jesus embodied; the kind of love that Jesus carried through torture, crucifixion, and death.  On Easter, I finished our series of Lent readings by talking about Jesus as a Mirror that was shattered and put back together, but with a series of cracks.  This image might help think about this song--the kind of misery that Jesus experienced allows His love to greet us in the midst of our own struggles.  Furthermore, if the shattering of Jesus means Hope for creation, this love carries with it the Hope of meaning into the most stalled-out circumstances we might face.  

Wayward Ones: We sing this song every time we take communion to remind ourselves of a couple of things.  First, we are a broken people--though we are seeking to become more like Jesus, we often fail at this.  Second, Christ has given Himself for us despite our brokenness.  We take communion to remember the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf, even though we did not, and do not, deserve it.

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 4-24-2016

This was both the fifth week of Easter in the life of the Church calendar, and Mister Rogers Sunday in the life of ubc.  Mister Rogers Sunday is a commissioning service of sorts where we celebrate our graduates and commission them to continue to seek to be the presence of Christ to the people they encounter as they move on to new things.  Our songs were gathered with both of these themes in mind. Below, you’ll find the list of the songs and artists. Clicking the song titles will take you to the lyrics. Below the songs, you can find recordings from Sunday morning of a few of them, and below the recordings, 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:

Future/Past by John Mark McMillan

Fall Afresh by Jeremy Riddle

Be Thou My Vision

There by Jameson McGregor

There's A Wideness in God's Mercy by Jameson McGregor (adapted from F. Faber)

Doxology

Recordings:

From time to time, we'll post live recordings of the songs from Sunday morning.  These recordings aren't what you would call polished--sometimes guitars are out of tune, sometimes the vocals are off--but they are records of moments we've shared together.  Here are a couple from this week.

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. 

Future/Past: This song contrasts God's power, might, and status as Wholly Other, with the notion that God has chosen to be God-for-us and God-with-us.  The Resurrection really seals the deal for both of these ideas, and ultimately intertwines them.  And so, as we live out our stories and grapple with our own anxieties in the face of change or struggle, we can lean into the idea that, though God transcends our problems, God is taking them on with us, carrying with God the same Lordship that places God above our problems in the first place.

Fall Afresh: We sang this song as a prayer, voicing together our desire for the Spirit to be with us.  In this season, it is fitting to dwell on the fact that the Spirit of the Living God is in fact the catalyst of the Resurrection.  The Spirit is the power that makes dead things live again. In the call to worship yesterday, we acknowledged that there are many kinds of death that we experience, not all of which involve our hearts ceasing to beat.  Change of all kinds is a kind of death, and change seems to be a fundamental part of life.  The Spirit is constantly working to raise us to life--life to the fullest.  So, as many of us are on the edge of new seasons of life (either because we are moving to new schools, new jobs, or because we are ready to break out of a rut we've been in), we sang this song to petition the Spirit to raise us up once again.

Be Thou My Vision: We sang this song to close this season of life in our community by seeking guidance in the next season.  As a community who seeks to be formed in the way of Christ, to embrace beauty, and to live on mission, we are in constant need of God to be our vision, wisdom, security, and hope, because we are in constant need of transformation. 

There: This song is an exercise in perspective, noting that God was present before any of our problems, is present in the midst of them, and will be present long after they all fade away.  It is also a personal confession of the unhealthy relationship I've built with anxiety, which is somewhere between addiction and idolatry (if there's even a difference in this case).  

There's A Wideness in God's Mercy: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about There's a Wideness in God's Mercy then: We sang this song because it is during Easter that we see just how wide God's mercy is.  We are well-versed at finding reasons why God's mercy would not apply to us, and we are perhaps even more well-versed at finding reasons why God's mercy would not apply to them.  This song shines a light at the lies at the heart of these assumption--God is wilder than we ever dreamed, and God's mercy is no different. 

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 4-10-2016

This was the third week of Easter, and our songs were gathered around that theme. 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 McMillan

Amazing Grace by Citizens and Saints

All the Poor and Powerless by All Sons and Daughters

When Death Came Calling by Jameson McGregor

All Creatures of our God and King

Doxology

Recordings:

From time to time, we'll post live recordings of the songs from Sunday morning.  Here are a couple from this week.

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: This song echoes Psalm 139's sentiment that there is no place we can go to escape God; that God keeps choosing to be God for us, regardless of whether or not we are good at being people of God.  That idea is huge from the vantage point of the Psalms, but it seems like it is wholly overshadowed in light of the Resurrection--it's not just that God is God for us regardless of where we hang our hats, but rather that God has chosen to be God with us in the midst of our darkest moments, and rewrote the cycle of life and death to make this known to us.  If you've never heard the original version of this song, you should go look it up.  In the meantime, here is a video of John Mark McMillan performing it....with Stand By Me mashed in their too...

Amazing Grace: While we spent the season of Lent thinking about sin, we will spend the season of Easter thinking about grace.  This song by no means captures the fullness of what might be said of the grace revealed in the death and Resurrection of Jesus, but it's a good start.  I think most poignantly, it doesn't just speak to the effect of grace upon our salvation--that gets a lot of airtime (and, yeah, it's important)--but instead speaks to the way grace affects our lives here and now.  In choosing to be God for us by being God-with-us, God has given us a vantage point from which we can truly be alive:  the end of the human life is no longer death but resurrection.  The Resurrection wove a new kind of beauty into life that we can now embrace.  This is a grace to us.  

All the Poor and Powerless: The Resurrection is good news in too many ways to count.  Some look to the Resurrection at the moment in Jesus' life where His divinity was finally made clear, which makes sense, since even the disciples seemed to be on the fence up until the end.  So we might think of the Resurrection as the moment where all the things that people knew to be true of Jesus became things they knew to be true of God in a new way.  One of those things was that Jesus stood with the people on the bottom rung of society--with the ones other people didn't care for or think were good enough in general.  The Resurrection made it clear that this wasn't just some guy who, from some vantage points, was also worthy of very little attention, but instead was God.  That's the kind of thing you'd want to shout from a mountain--that God stands with the afflicted, the unimportant, the cast-off and unloved--and that's why we sang this song.

When Death Came Calling: This is a song about grief in light of the Resurrection.  We often hear associated with Easter that death has lost it's sting.  That's always been perplexing to me, and I didn't have to live very much life to realize that the most literal meaning of that phrase was simply not true.  Death stings.  Sometimes it's a sting that causes debilitating emotional pain.  Sometimes it's a sting that seems to carry a toxin that leaves your entire body and mind numb.  For a while, I thought I was a bad Christian for wearing grief heavily, but then I finally acquired some context to put behind the famous "Jesus wept" verse--Jesus wept because He was grieving, and He was grieving because death is grief-worthy.  And I think this is still true after the Resurrection.  The sting that death lost is a sting of a different kind, perhaps better labeled "finality."  It's a sting that we will find missing later, replaced by the beauty of creation reborn.

All Creatures of Our God and King: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about All Creatures of Our God and King then: We sang this song to begin our time together proclaiming that the resurrection of Jesus affected more than just our personal salvation--it was an emphatic yes to life, to creation as a whole.  Now every inch of the cosmos sings a song not just proclaiming that it was created by God, but that God entered into it, took on the cycle of life and death that permeates the whole of creation, and ultimately broke through that cycle and crowned it with Resurrection.

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 4-3-2016

This was the second week of Easter, and our songs were gathered around that theme. 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:

All Creatures of our God and King

Murdered Son by John Mark McMillan

Because He Lives

There's A Wideness In God's Mercy by Jameson McGregor (adapted from Frederick Faber)

Wayward Ones by The Gladsome Light

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. 

All Creatures of Our God and King: We sang this song to begin our time together proclaiming that the resurrection of Jesus affected more than just our personal salvation--it was an emphatic yes to life, to creation as a whole.  Now every inch of the cosmos sings a song not just proclaiming that it was created by God, but that God entered into it, took on the cycle of life and death that permeates the whole of creation, and ultimately broke through that cycle and crowned it with Resurrection.

Murdered Son: We sang this song for a couple of reasons.  One was to reflect on what God did to and for us in the death and resurrection of Jesus.  The verses talk about God setting us up above all the stars, raising us high above our station, making us "friends" of God, hiding our faults, and breaking us out of the cycle of dust and grave.  Another reason we sang this song was to think what it took for God to do this.  The chorus praises God's "murdered son."  This language can be jarring, but it is accurate.  It serves as a reminder that what God did for us in Jesus was not simply an act of kindness done at no expense.  Instead, it meant God becoming human and enduring suffering, the one who is powerful taking on the position of one who is on the bottom end of a power differential--it meant God entering into everything God is pulling us out of.

Because He Lives:  We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about Because He Lives then: We sang this song to remind ourselves that the Resurrection has an effect on our daily lives--that it is relevant for our own outlook on life.  Everything is different because of this moment.  Everything has changed.  Every story now gets woven into a greater story, and tragedies don't triumph in the end.

There's A Wideness in God's Mercy: This song was written in 1854 by Frederick Faber.  I encountered a quote from it recently that I couldn't get of my head, so I looked it up.  I suppose we don't always choose the things that hijack out brains, so I don't know that I can offer a thorough reason for why I chose to adapt it.  I kept reading this hymn text, and eventually read it with a guitar in hand.  Shortly after, I started chopping it up.  What I ended up with is a fairly small percentage of the total song, but you can google the whole thing if you'd like.  For me, this song shines a light on the scope of the relationship between God's love and God's mercy, as revealed in the death and resurrection of Jesus, and then causes us to shine a light on ourselves and the ways we try to put stipulations on the love of God--the line of thinking that leaves us doubting whether or not God could really love us, or sometimes, them.

Wayward Ones: We sing this song every time we take communion to remind ourselves of a couple of things.  First, we are a broken people--though we are seeking to become more like Jesus, we often fail at this.  Second, Christ has given Himself for us despite our brokenness.  We take communion to remember the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf, even though we did not, and do not, deserve it.

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 3-27-2016

This week was Easter, and our songs were gathered around that theme. 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:

In the Night by Andrew Peterson

Death In His Grave by John Mark McMillan

How Great Thou Art

Hope by Jameson McGregor

Because He Lives

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. 

In the Night: This song is a journey through the biblical narrative, cataloguing the process of struggle and victory, woundedness and healing, etc., strung together by the refrain "In the night, my hope lives on."  We've added a verse to the song each week of Lent as we made our way to this week.  This song as a whole is an exercise in looking back to look forward--looking at what God has done in dark places as a reassurance that God will not abandon us to our own darkness.  

Death In His Grave: We sang this song to proclaim the death of Death in the death and resurrection of Jesus, and also to think about the changes this brings about for our own lives.

How Great Thou Art: We sang this song to praise God on perhaps three different levels.  First, we have images of God forming worlds on the cosmic scene.  Second, we have the Easter story.  And third, we have the future hope of reconciliation between God and creation on a large scale.  God's "greatness" in this song might be attributed to the fact that God not only made the cosmos, but takes notice of humanity within that sprawl--and not just "notice," God emptied Godself out for the good of the divine-human relationship--and so, we can expect that God will continue to be this overwhelmingly loving creator for us.

Hope:  On Easter, we get the resolution to a plot we have been following since Advent.  In the midst of the darkness of Advent, we held out hope that a light would come.  And we found on Christmas that God lit a fire in our darkness.  In the weeks since, we have watched with bated breath to see how the Light fared in the darkness.  On Easter, we see conclusively that the darkness did not overcome it.  This song is about that story, and it's about the analogues of that story that we experience throughout our own lives.  God is still lighting fires in our darkness, and the darkness is still not overcoming them.  And now, on Easter, we have reason to believe that this isn't a story, but the story.  

Because He Lives:  We sang this song to remind ourselves that the Resurrection has an effect on our daily lives--that it is relevant for our own outlook on life.  Everything is different because of this moment.  Everything has changed.  Every story now gets woven into a greater story, and tragedies don't triumph in the end.

Doxology: During Lent, we put the Doxology to bed, and replaced it with Be Thou My Vision.  Now is the time to bring it back.  We will once again close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.

-JM

Setlist 4-26-2015

This week, our friend Dan Venzin preached to us from Joshua 24. Our songs were gathered with the fourth week of Easter in mind. 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 or email me at jamie@ubcwaco.org.

Songs

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

Death in His Grave by John Mark McMillan

Because He Lives

Wild One by Jameson McGregor

How Great Thou Art

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.

All Creatures of Our God and King:  God does not plan on abandoning the world. God is making all things new. The Resurrection means that the created world--plants, dirt, animals, people--have the hope of being made new.  This song is one of those songs that says "oh, praise him," a lot, but there's not much else to say in light of that kind of news.

Death In His Grave:  A glaring part of Easter hope is the fact that death is no longer the end of human life. Though it's hard to see from our vantage point, Jesus changed something fundamental about the human condition: the thing that was broken about us is being fixed, and we get to share in the Resurrection of Jesus.

Because He Lives: The Resurrection redefined human life in such a way that we do not have to mourn the passing of each moment. Life is a gift, and though death is certain, the hope of the resurrection can give us the audacity to embrace each new day.

Wild One: God is not bound by who we expect God to be. The disciples expected a different kind of Jesus than they got.  Reason expected Jesus to stay dead. We can rest knowing that God is greater than we expect, and that God is active in time and space.

How Great Thou Art: We sang this to look over our should at the songs we sang last week. This hymn is ultimately pointing a finger at the fact that God is "great." In the context of Easter, we emphasize the fact that God is great because God did not abandon us to our brokenness, but instead came down low to where we are, suffered, and died, so that we wouldn't have to be trapped in our brokenness anymore.  This is not only the God who made us, not only who knows us, but who loves 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

Podcast 4-19-2015

Setlist 4-19-2015

This week, Josh preached from Luke 24:36b-48. Our songs were gathered with the third week of Easter in mind. 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 or email me at jamie@ubcwaco.org.

Songs

Just a Closer Walk With Thee

Fall Afresh by Jeremy Riddle

How Great Thou Art

Murdered Son by John Mark McMillan

Jesus Paid it All

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: As we think through the multitude of things the resurrection of Jesus means for us, the idea of having a relationship with Jesus is one of the most simple. Jesus died. Jesus rose. (and we'll get to the part where Jesus ascends to heaven in a few weeks). The point is, Jesus is very much alive, and that's not going to change.

Fall Afresh: This song carries with it an idea of renewal--especially in terms of having a passionate, energetic faith.  In the context of Easter, we ask the Spirit to reawaken us to the joy and hope of the Resurrection.

How Great Thou Art: This hymn is ultimately pointing a finger at the fact that God is "great." In the context of Easter, we emphasize the fact that God is great because God did not abandon us to our brokenness, but instead came down low to where we are, suffered, and died, so that we wouldn't have to be trapped in our brokenness anymore.  This is not only the God who made us, not only who knows us, but who loves us.

Murdered Son: The language of this song can be pretty jarring.  We are accustomed to hearing Jesus' death identified as a "sacrifice," rather than a "murder."  While there was no doubt a "sacrificial" element of the crucifixion, we might be tempted to forget the scandal and horror of Jesus' death.  This was murder.  God came to humanity in human flesh, and we treated him as less than human.  Despite this--and this makes the Resurrection even more insane--Jesus did not come back with vengeance, but with the hope of redemption for all things.  

Jesus Paid It All: We sang this to look over our shoulder at the songs we sang last week. You can read about those songs here, but what we said about this song was: This song captures another implication of Jesus' death and resurrection: the things about us that should separate us from God are overshadowed by the fact that Jesus gave himself up for 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

Podcast 4-12-2015

Setlist 4-12-2015

This week, Josh preached from John 20:19-31. Our songs were gathered with the second week of Easter in mind. 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 or email me at jamie@ubcwaco.org.

Songs

Chariot by Page France

Jesus Paid it All

Revelation Song by Kari Jobe

Noise by Jameson McGregor

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.

Chariot: The chorus of this song is "we will become a happy ending."  This statement captures one of the simplest truths we think about in light of Easter--Jesus' death and resurrection have changed history, and we can be confident that all that is broken will be fixed.

Jesus Paid It All: This song captures another implication of Jesus' death and resurrection: the things about us that should separate us from God are overshadowed by the fact that Jesus gave himself up for us.

Revelation Song:  In the crucifixion, we see the glory of God correctly: God was willing to be made a fool, tortured, and killed to save us.  The resurrection is the crown jewel of this moment, where we see that the risen Christ was not vengeful, but patient and loving.  This song proclaims God's greatness in light of this.

Noise: This song rests in the simple truth that, though we have all amounted to broken promises in some way, God is working to redeem 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

Podcast 4-5-2015

Setlist 4-5-2015

This week, Toph preached from Mark 16:1-8 on the Resurrection. Our songs were gathered around the theme of Easter Hope (and resurrection). 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 or email me at jamie@ubcwaco.org.

Songs

In the Night by Andrew Peterson

Death In His Grave by John Mark McMillan

Amazing Grace by Citizens & Saints

Because He Lives

When Death Came Calling by Jameson McGregor

Wayward Ones by The Gladsome Light

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.

In the Night: We sang this song every week of Lent, adding a verse each week (If you felt like this song just kept getting longer, that's because it was).  This song chronicles examples of God's saving God's people from throughout the Bible--the crown jewel of which was the death and resurrection of Jesus--showing that there is a great precedent for trusting God in the midst of immense darkness.    

Death In His Grave: This song proclaims Easter Hope through an artful narrative of the crucifixion and resurrection.

Amazing Grace: We sang this song to think about what Jesus' resurrection ultimately means for the human condition--God has saved us from our self destruction and we don't have to feel trapped in our brokenness.

Because He Lives: This song reminds us that the resurrection isn't just something we look back on, but something that breathes meaning and purpose into the present and gives us hope for tomorrow.

When Death Came Calling: This song examines grief in light of the Resurrection.  We often hear that, because Jesus has risen from the dead, death has lost its sting.  This phrase can potentially make us think that death shouldn't be tragic for Christians, but this is simply not true.  Death is immensely tragic and worthy of grief, whether one is a Christian or not. The Easter Hope Christians have is for the future--that the end goal of human life is no longer death, but resurrection; that the day will come when there is nothing left for death to take away.  This hope carries us in the present, but we hold this hope alongside our tears, not instead of them.

Wayward Ones: We always sing this song alongside communion, reminding ourselves that none of us is worthy of sharing the Lord's table, yet he invites us nonetheless.

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

-JM