Setlist 4-28-2019

This past Sunday was the second Sunday of Eastertide, and 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 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:

Hope by Jameson McGregor

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

Pulse by ubcmusic

Eternal Anchor by Jameson McGregor

Mystery by ubcmusic (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. 

Hope: This song proclaims the hope of Easter, that the Living God is working to redeem the entire cosmos.

All Creatures of Our God and King: We sang this song to join our voices to all of creation in celebrating God as our Creator, Sustainer, and Re-Creator.

Pulse: This song is a petition for the Spirit to work Resurrection in our hearts and form us in the way of Christ.

Eternal Anchor: This song is about the Living God’s saving love for God’s creatures, and God’s making all things new.

Mystery: We sang this song to celebrate the story of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

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

Setlist 11-25-2018

Yesterday was Christ the King Sunday.  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 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:

Crown Him With Many Crowns by ubcmusic

Death In His Grave by John Mark McMillan

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

Inbreaking by Jameson McGregor

Hope 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. 

Crown Him With Many Crowns: We sang this song to begin our time together celebrating the reign of Christ in the Kingdom of God.

Death In His Grave: This song invited us to rehearse the story of the death and Resurrection of Christ.

All Creatures of Our God and King: We sang this song to practice an awareness of our interconnectivity with creation under the care of our Creator and Sustainer.

Inbreaking: This song is a plea for the Slaughtered Lamb to form us in the way of Christ and form our world in the way of the Kingdom.

Hope: This song celebrates the redemptive work of Christ in the life of the world as the light in the darkness the darkness did not overcome, and grasps for the hope that one day every broken piece will find its place again.

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 9-23-2018

This past Sunday was the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost.  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 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:

Just A Closer Walk With Thee

Hope by Jameson McGregor

Rise Up by Bifrost Arts

Chasing the Wind by Jameson McGregor

There 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. 

Just A Closer Walk With Thee: This song offered us language to express our desire to be formed more fully in the way of Christ, despite the fact that this is a path that is difficult for us to stay on.

Hope: We sang this song as a reminder of the hope that undergirds our existence: that God’s act of re-creation in the world is not snuffed out by the darkness of the world.

Rise Up: This song offered us words with which to ask God to rise to the defense of the trampled of the world, and to remind ourselves what sort of work we are stepping into when we say we are following in the way of Christ.

Chasing the Wind: This song is about the way we seek to make ourselves worthy of love, or to numb the pain of the fiction that we are not, and grasps for the unknowing of childhood, before the fiction took hold.

There: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week’s songs. This is what we said about There then: We sang this to proclaim God’s constancy above and within the chaos of our world.

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 5-20-2018

Yesterday was Pentecost Sunday.  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 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:

Bonfire by Jameson McGregor

Fall Afresh  by Jeremy Riddle

Pulse by Jameson McGregor

Waking Life by Jameson McGregor

Hope 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. 

Bonfire: This song is about the contrast between God and humanity and the contrast between the already and the not yet of the Kingdom.  We sang this song to acknowledge what God has done and to look ahead to the re-Creation of all things.

Fall Afresh: We sang this song to petition the Spirit of God to reawaken us to the presence of God among us and to draw us into what God is doing in our world.

Pulse: This song is about the Breath of Life in all of creation, and petitions the Spirit to reawaken our hearts to our interconnectivity to all creatures, that we might be moved toward loving as God does.

Waking Life: This song is about the Spirit crashing into the stories we tell ourselves about the world and our place in it, offering us a different way to live and move and have our being.

Hope: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about Hope then: This song looks at the mini-Resurrections that God has spread across creation in order to look ahead to the re-Creation of all things.

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 5-13-2018

This past Sunday was both Mother's Day and the seventh Sunday of Eastertide.  Our songs were gathered with this convergence 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:

How Great Thou Art

Hope by Jameson McGregor

There by Jameson McGregor

Mother by Jameson McGregor

Future/Past 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. 

How Great Thou Art: This song offered us language to begin our time together by proclaiming the grandeur of God through observing what God has made and what God has done in the world.

Hope: This song looks at the mini-Resurrections that God has spread across creation in order to look ahead to the re-Creation of all things.

There: This song is a proclamation of God's being set apart from every source of anxiety, and offers us an Anchor to still ourselves in the turmoil of the world at the moment.

Mother: This song was born out of a desire to enter into the tradition found threaded through Deuteronomy, Hosea, Isaiah, and Jesus, of using maternal metaphors to speak of God.  Put differently, it uses the lens of motherhood as a way to speak of the way that God cares for and loves us.

Future/Past: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about Future/Past then: We sang this song to celebrate the self-giving love that God invites us into.

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 4-1-2018

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 2-4-2018

Yesterday was the fifth Sunday of Epiphany, and the 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:

Amazing Grace by Citizens and Saints

Wayward Ones by The Gladsome Light

Pulse by Jameson McGregor

Just the Same by Jameson McGregor

Hope 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. 

Amazing Grace: This song offers us language to express the transformative grace of God revealed in the Person of Jesus.

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.

Pulse: This song expresses the interconnectivity of God's creatures that is revealed through the life and ministry of Jesus.

Just the Same: Epiphany offers us the chance to encounter Jesus again and to re-calibrate the lens through which we view him.  This ends up being an opportunity to intentionally seek to revise our models of faith, which will launch us into this more intentionally during Lent.  In revising our faith models, we are faced with the reality that, over time, the things we believe to be true about God change.  This song is about the complexity of the hope and grief of coming to terms with that change.

Hope: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about Hope then: Among the things we come to find revealed in Jesus is how far God is willing to go to set things right with us.  In the incarnation, long before we reach the love revealed in the Passion, we find an act of radical love and empathy: the self-emptying of God into humanity.  This song gives voice to a hope rooted in God having demonstrated God's decision to set things right in Creation.

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 1-28-2018

Yesterday was the fourth Sunday of Epiphany, and the 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:

Hope by Jameson McGregor

House of God Forever by Jon Foreman

Future/Past by John Mark McMillan

For All That I Don't Know by Jameson McGregor

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

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. 

Hope: Among the things we come to find revealed in Jesus is how far God is willing to go to set things right with us.  In the incarnation, long before we reach the love revealed in the Passion, we find an act of radical love and empathy: the self-emptying of God into humanity.  This song gives voice to a hope rooted in God having demonstrated God's decision to set things right in Creation.

House of God Forever: We sang this song to proclaim the care and belonging that permeate the life and ministry of Jesus, which embodied aspects of the character of God already articulated in Psalm 23.

Future/Past: We sang this song to proclaim God's having chosen to be God-with-us in Christ.

For All That I Don't Know: This song is about the difficulty of believing in God--the One who is love, at least--when the world seems to be getting darker, but finds room for the twilight hope of faith in the midst of the long night of human history.

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 to remind ourselves that our best ideas of God's love fall short of grasping it in fullness.  During Epiphany, we hope to suspend our assumptions about God's love along with everything else we think we know about the Person of Jesus, in hopes of encountering Jesus anew.

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 11-12-2017

This was the twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost.  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 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:

Hope by Jameson McGregor

Up On A Mountain by The Welcome Wagon

There by Jameson McGregor

Wearing Thin by Jameson McGregor

Lord, I Need You by Matt Maher

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. 

Hope: This song is a declaration of hope against hope.  It offers us language to acknowledge God's presence in the midst of pain, and to raise the stubborn cry that all of this is headed toward a day where every broken piece finds its place again.

Up On A Mountain: We sang this to proclaim Jesus' solidarity with us in suffering, the depths of human pain, and the ongoing presence of God with us via the Spirit.

There: This song locates God as an Anchor over and above every source of anxiety in the world, and reminds us of the good news that God's commitment to be God for us outlasts the world itself.

Wearing Thin: This song is about the wearing thin that comes with facing the myriad seemingly unsolvable problems in the world, and turns to a petition for God to enable and embolden people to rise to challenges that seem insurmountable.

Lord, I Need You:  We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about Lord, I Need You then: We sang this song to begin our time together with a confession of our dependence upon God to transform us into people who live as the presence of Christ in our particular time and place.  These words offer us a chance to rehearse a prayer that might be offered in some way or another every day.

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 9-10-2017

This was the fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost.  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 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:

Hope by Jameson McGregor

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

Noise by Jameson McGregor

O Love That Will Not Let Me Go 

All Creatures of Our God and King

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. 

Hope: We sang this song to begin our time together by locating ourselves within a story whose hope is described as light in darkness--not light that merely comes after darkness, but light that exists within and alongside darkness.

There's A Wideness In God's Mercy: This song is a reminder to us that God's mercy is greater than we deem reasonable, and that our thinking is much more bound by rules than God's.  We sang it to proclaim the good news, and to challenge ourselves together to imagine the breadth of God's mercy.

Noise: This song narrates the divine-human relationship, both in broad strokes and on a personal level, and notes two things: 1) humanity consistently fails at being faithful to God, but God always pivots to carry the relationship forward; and 2) God has entered into the depths of humanity and transformed what it is to be human.

O Love That Will Not Let Me Go: This song proclaims God's constancy in relation to us, and offers us the hope that not even death can separate us from the love of God.

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 began with this song to join our voices with the rest of creation in expressing thanks and wonder toward the Creator.  

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 7-30-2017

This was the eighth Sunday after Pentecost.  Our songs were gathered with this in mind, and heavily influenced by the lectionary texts.  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 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:

Amazing Grace by Citizens & Saints

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

Mystery by Jameson McGregor (adapted from Charlie Hall)

O Love That Will Not Let Me Go by Jameson McGregor (adapted from Ascend the Hill)

Hope 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. 

Amazing Grace: This song moves from a general sense of God's grace in our lives to a more particular consideration of what effect the grace of God has on the way we live.  This is gathered into an implicit challenge to live as stories of grace and agents of reconciliation.

There's A Wideness In God's Mercy: This song serves as a reminder of two things: 1) God's mercy extends to us far more generously than we think we deserve; and 2) God's mercy extends to other people far more generously than we think they deserve.  

Mystery: This song champions the story of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection as a song of hope for all of creation.

O Love That Will Not Let Me Go: This is a hymn to God's enduring presence with us.  Rather than speaking of the difficulty to hold on to God in the midst of suffering, it proclaims God's presence with those who suffer.  

Hope: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about Hope then: This song clings to the hope that the work of redemption made visible in the Resurrection will spread to the entirety of the cosmos.  This hope is characterized as such because, at the moment, things are still not as they should be--the weeds are growing up with the wheat, so to speak.

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 7-23-2017

This was the seventh Sunday after Pentecost.  Our songs were gathered with this in mind, and heavily influenced by the lectionary texts (particularly, the weeds & wheat passage that Josh preached from).  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 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:

Hope by Jameson McGregor

Lord, I Need You by Matt Maher

There by Jameson McGregor

For Those Tears I Died by Jameson McGregor

Wandering 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. 

Hope: This song clings to the hope that the work of redemption made visible in the Resurrection will spread to the entirety of the cosmos.  This hope is characterized as such because, at the moment, things are still not as they should be--the weeds are growing up with the wheat, so to speak.

Lord, I Need You: This song is a confession of our need for the transformation of the Spirit in our own lives to form us into people who are like Christ, and for the Spirit to hold us together as we face any number of struggles in living in a world that is still broken.

There: This song proclaims that the same God who is imminent with us in our suffering also stands over and above every kind of brokenness as an Anchor that is holding us in place in the midst of the turbulence of history.

For Those Tears I Died: This song holds in tension both the solidarity of Christ with human suffering, and the cry of "how long?" from the worn-thin world.

Wandering: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about Wandering then: This song allows us to confess our tendency to, knowingly or not, attempt to use God for our own ends, while also praising God for being consistently faithful.

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 4-16-2017

Yesterday was Easter Sunday, and our songs were gathered with the death and Resurrection of Jesus 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:

In the Night by Andrew Peterson

Death In His Grave by John Mark McMillan

Mystery by Jameson McGregor (adapted from Charlie Hall)

Hope 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 will be adding a piece to this song every week of Lent.  It traces a thread of struggle through the biblical narrative, ultimately building a case to hold hope in the midst of immense darkness.  We recorded a live version of this song last year, which you can download for free here.  

Death In His Grave: This song narrates the death and Resurrection of Jesus, and underscores the outcome of this Event: the death of death.  It also captures the reality-altering implications of this event for humans that Paul likens to Jesus being a second Adam.  We sang this song to step into this narrative in a more deliberate way and experience it anew.

Mystery: 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.  

Hope: This song uses the image from John of God setting a light in the darkness that the darkness did not overcome as a reference point for present hope (and interprets this image to refer to the Resurrection).  In the Resurrection, we see in action what we have hoped to be true: that God is present and active in brokenness, and is in the habit of making all things new.  And when we look back on our own lives in the moments most marred by pain, we find that they too evolved into something like broken pieces coming back together.  So when those pain-marred moments are our present moments, we can look back on the Resurrection and the resurrections we have experienced for the hope that God will raise us up again.

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 11-27-2016

This week was the first Sunday of Advent, and our songs were gathered around the theme of Hope.  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:

O Come, O Come Emmanuel

Rescue is Coming by David Crowder* Band

Hope (There Will Come A Light) by ubcmusic

Anthem by Leonard Cohen

Hope 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. 

O Come, O Come Emmanuel: This song contrasts mourning/longing and hope especially well.  We sang it to begin out time together by locating ourselves both with the people of God before the birth of Christ and with the whole of the people of God in our own time.  

Rescue is Coming: We sang this song to proclaim the same desperate hope that we established in the first song.  Though we may be able to look around and see how dark the world is, we are awaiting the coming of a Light.  The "rescue" we talk about in this song is not one of escapism--it's one of an in-breaking that delivers us from the brokenness of creation, not creation itself.

Hope (There Will Come A Light): This song was written specifically for advent at ubc.  It focuses on the hope of the coming of the Light, but hones in on what that means for the darkness around us--namely, the inauguration of its progressive demise. This song, as well as the rest of our original advent songs are available for free download here.

Anthem: Leonard Cohen had a way of capturing the essence of vulnerability and existential longing.  This song is about hope, perseverance, brokenness, and beauty, all of which are prominent themes of advent.  The hope we carry toward Christmas is a wounded one, and that makes it all the more meaningful.

Hope: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about Hope then: This song voices the hope we have in Christ, the fire in the darkness.  In this image that comes into the world through John 1, we find the most fundamental summation of the Christian story--God set a light in the darkness that the darkness did not overcome.  Fire is more real than the darkness, such that there is no amount of darkness that can overcome the light of the fire. 

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 11-20-2016

This week was Christ the King Sunday, and our songs were gathered with this theme 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:

Revelation Song by Jennie Lee Riddle

Death In His Grave by John Mark McMillan

Because He Lives by Bill and Gloria Gaither

Hope by Jameson McGregor

Crown Him With Many Crowns

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. 

Revelation Song: We sang this song to begin our time together with a focused and straight-forward moment of singing about God's grandeur and particularity.  In thinking about Christ as King, we are met with a picture of power and majesty that is distinctly different than we might imagine out of our own cultural expectations--this almighty King abandoned His station to dwell among the disenfranchised and to champion the cause of the nobodies, and is well-imaged as a slaughtered lamb.  In this, we find wonder, mystery, and hope.

Death in His Grave: This song traces the story of Christ, underscoring that Christ's kingship is directly linked to his death--his complete self-emptying--and his resurrection.

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 proclaim that our daily hope in the face of uncertainty is located in the risen Christ. 

Hope: This song voices the hope we have in Christ, the fire in the darkness.  In this image that comes into the world through John 1, we find the most fundamental summation of the Christian story--God set a light in the darkness that the darkness did not overcome.  Fire is more real than the darkness, such that there is no amount of darkness that can overcome the light of the fire. 

Crown Him With Many Crowns: This song well-captures the kind of King that Jesus is: the slaughtered Lamb who receives unmatched and unmatchable praise, who has known intimately the worst of our suffering and conquered it, whose tools of war are peace and love, and to whom all other crowns belong, that we might all find rest and belonging.

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 9-11-2016

This was the seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, and our songs were gathered around the theme of reconciliation.  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:

How Great Thou Art

Pulse by Jameson McGregor

There by Jameson McGregor

Hope by Jameson McGregor

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

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. 

How Great Thou Art: This song is essentially three pairs of observations about how God chooses to be God for us and a response of praise.  In it, we find language that helps us marvel at the scope of God's redemption project--from the inception of the cosmos to the moment where things are finally set right.  In singing this song, we rehearsed identifying greatness for what it is, and in this case that means seeking to draw near to one's enemies and repair broken relationships (that's one of the running themes throughout the story that God is telling).

Pulse: We sang this song to acknowledge the presence of the Spirit in every living thing, to petition God to reconnect our awareness to this interconnectivity, and to show us what this means for the way we love one another.

There: This song establishes God as standing apart from every source of anxiety or conflict that we encounter.  Though God is in fact with us in our affliction, God is anchored outside of it.  This means that we have a well-founded hope when we root our hope in God.  As Reconciler, God is drawing us into the place of security where God dwells.

Hope: We sang this song to affirm that God has set a light in the darkness that the darkness did not overcome.  We hang our hope on this light, carrying it into the darkness, knowing that the story that God is telling does not end in darkness, but light.  

There's A Wideness in God's Mercy: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at the songs from two weeks ago (I was on vacation last Sunday).  This is what we said about There's A Wideness in God's Mercy then: We sang this song to begin our time together by thinking about the wideness of God's mercy and the breadth of God's love.  More specifically, in terms of the theme that unites this week's songs, the fact that our deficiencies are precisely what place us in the path of God's love.  Despite our tendency to attempt to construct boundaries around the love of God, the love of God transcends our limitations and reaches those who deserve it least by even the most generous human standards.

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 7-24-2016

This was the tenth Sunday after Pentecost, and our songs were gathered with the intent of re-tuning ourselves to enter into the work of God. 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:

How Great Thou Art

Fall Afresh by Jeremy Riddle

Lord, I Need You by Matt Maher

Hope by Jameson McGregor

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

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. 

How Great Thou Art: We sang this song to begin our time together with a confession of God's greatness.  After another in a series of weeks marked by pain and uncertainty, it is easy to lose sight of all the glory in the world.  In voicing these words, we began to tune ourselves to regain whatever has been lost through navigating the complexity of the world this summer.

Fall Afresh: We sang this song to confess our need for the Spirit to transform us into people who are working together with God in God's reconciliation project.  We are prone to growing so familiar with our own ideas of who God is and what God is like that we functionally fall asleep to the movement of God.  Thus, we continually need a wake-up call from the Spirit, breathing new life into our dry bones.

Lord, I Need You:  We have had many reminders over the past few weeks that we are a part of several systems of violence.  Our complicity in these systems is at odds with our being formed in the way of Christ, and is thus sin.  This song speaks to personal struggles against sin, and allows us to rehearse turning to God for help rather than only attempting to self-regulate ourselves out of destructive behavior. 

Hope:  For the past several weeks, the offering song has been used to give voice to lament.  This week, it seemed fitting to give voice to hope.  Lament and hope are directly connected to one another, and may well be considered two sides of the same coin.  Lament is but noise without the hope of change, and hope is only a facade if it is not born from lamentable circumstances.  This song picks up on the image in John 1 of God setting a light in the darkness that the darkness did not overcome.  We might see this as a statement about the Incarnation in general, the Crucifixion in particular, or maybe the Story of God and creation as a whole.  This image gives us hope because it acknowledges darkness and almost axiomatically establishes that the darkness will not overcome the light.  

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 was said of There's a Wideness in God's Mercy then: We sang this song to meditate on God's mercy.  For the past  several weeks, we have been bombarded with news of various horrific kinds of violence.  Humans are particularly skilled at finding ways to reject the divine image in one another.  With what I know of God from Scripture, my assumption is that God is deeply grieved by our violence, and if we had one of the prophets writing today, God would most certainly talk at length about how God wanted to be rid of us.  And rightfully so.  But God's not going to rid Godself of us.  Because that's not who God is.  The Noah story shows us this quite clearly.  God wanted to start over, and started that process, then realized how terrible that was--how deeply painful that was--and resolved never to do that again.  Instead, God decided to fix things from the inside, entering into the story to suffer our violence and conquer it with love.  That conquering is accomplished, but still unfolding.  It's horribly slow for my taste, but it's there 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

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 1-3-2016

This week was the second week of Christmas, so our songs were gathered around the theme of Incarnation.  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:

Joy to the World

O Come All Ye Faithful

Holy, Holy, Holy

Hope 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. 

Joy to the World: We sang this song to celebrate together the coming of the Light of God into our present darkness.  One of the most important parts of this song comes quite early: let every heart prepare Him room, and heaven and nature sing.  It's important because it emphasizes the significance of the coming of Jesus not only for humans, but for the entire cosmos.  To say that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us is to say that the Word took on Time and Space as well.

O Come All Ye Faithful: Thinking about the Incarnation may result, on the one hand, with a sort of awe-inspired word vomit wherein on describes the theological significance of the Word becoming flesh (or something like that), and this certainly has its place.  On the other hand, it may result in a sort of speechless awe--sort of like when you meet a baby (!) for the first time and just keep saying things like "those cheeks" or "aw man" or "what a little person," (you get the idea, the words aren't really what you're trying to express).  Both of these results may well be called adoration, and both of these responses are represented in the lyrics of this song.  We sang it to spend some time living in those spaces together.

Holy, Holy, Holy: We sang this song to specifically locate our worship of Jesus within the scope of the Triune God.  

Hope: This song is about the relentless faithfulness of the God who is God-with-us.  It continually references God's having lit a fire in the darkness that the darkness did not overcome over/against some condition of darkness that we might now face.  Furthermore, it looks ahead in the hope that God is working to redeem every broken piece and to silence every twisted word.  In a very literal sense, this song is relevant for our theme of Incarnation because Jesus is this fire in the darkness.

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

ubc advent songs: hope (there will come a light)

Earlier this semester, I wrote a batch of songs for each week of Advent.  My friends at Canowan in Austin invited me to their church to record video sessions of them as a part of a series of Christmas song videos they're making.   We'll sing one of these each week during Advent, and I'll be posting the videos here. 

Here's the first song.  It's called "There Will Come A Light," and it was written for the Hope week. If you have any questions, email me at jamie@ubcwaco.org

Lyrics:

a day is coming soon
when the seeker will find wonder
a day is coming soon
when the meek will find their joy
a day is coming soon
when the wounded will find healing
a day is coming soon (when)

there will come a light into this darkness
a pillar of fire in the night, leading us home
the evil that's at our heels will find itself haunted
by insufferable sleepless nights and newborn cries

a day is coming soon
when this damage will find mending
a day is coming soon
when the weak will find their Voice
a day is coming soon
when our Hope will have a heartbeat
a day is coming soon (when)

there will come a light into this darkness
a pillar of fire in the night, leading us home
the evil that's at our heels will find itself haunted
by insufferable sleepless nights and newborn cries

there will come a light
there will come a light
there will come a light
not long from now

You sang out Hope into the dead of night
and it echoed off the edge of Time
singing, "there will come a light, not long from now."

-JM