Setlist 6-28-2015
This week, Josh preached from Luke 13:22-30. Our songs were gathered around the theme of the radical grace 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, 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
This is Amazing Grace by Phil Wickham
All the Poor and Powerless by All Sons & Daughters
Bonfire by Jameson McGregor
Future/Past by John Mark McMillan
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: This song runs with the idea of the whole of creation praising God--the idea here is that, in creating the cosmos, God is Lord over all of it, and the very existence of stars, planets, and particles way too small to see, declare the glory of the God who made them all. We sang this to begin our service thinking about the grandeur of God.
This is Amazing Grace: This song juxtaposes the grandeur of God with the sacrifice of Jesus--in Jesus, this Holy God chose to become human and to endure the worst that the human condition had to offer. The Incarnation was an invitation for humanity (all of us) to know what the Creator is like, but also to know the Creator.
All the Poor and Powerless: This song focuses on the significance of the invitation to know God for those who are socially disadvantaged, those who feel they have no hope, etc. The hand that is extended in Jesus is for everyone--not just those who society lifts up as ideal citizens.
Bonfire: We sang this song to think about the day when God will make all things new, when the things that are broken inside all of us, and in the world around us, will be mended. All of us are broken in different ways, and we have no ground upon which we may stand and call ourselves somehow better than any other person. In the end, we will likely be surprised at just how many different kinds of formerly broken people God has drawn together.
Future/Past: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. Last week, we said this about Future/Past: We sang this song to emphasize the fact that to be related to God through faith is to love and be loved by One whose perspective is much greater than our own. This means that God is worthy of our trust and worship in the midst of suffering, and that we can be confident that God is weaving human history into something more beautiful than we can imagine.
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 6-21-2015
This week, Josh preached from Matthew 13:24-30. Our songs were gathered around the theme of evil (Or at least trying to make sense of evil in the world while having faith in 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, 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
Death In His Grave by John Mark McMillan
Future/Past by John Mark McMillan
It Is Well by Horatio Spafford
There Will Come A Light by Jameson McGregor
Lord, I Need You by Matt Maher
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.
Death In His Grave: We sang this song to reflect once again on the fact that the death and resurrection of Jesus changed the course of human life--that the end goal of human existence is no longer death, but resurrection.
Future/Past: We sang this song to emphasize the fact that to be related to God through faith is to love and be loved by One whose perspective is much greater than our own. This means that God is worthy of our trust and worship in the midst of suffering, and that we can be confident that God is weaving human history into something more beautiful than we can imagine.
It Is Well: This song offers a sense of perspective in the face of grief by claiming that regardless of what happens in the world around us, we can be unflinchingly joyful about the future. Though this is true, I mentioned yesterday that this can come off as somewhat dismissive of the pain that we feel in the midst of evil, and that Jesus' response to the death of Lazarus in John 11 tells us that the fact that things are going to be ok does not mean that they are currently ok, and we do not have to pretend that they are. With this in mind, when we sing about the future hope that we have in Christ, let us not do so looking past our present pain, but rather into it, saying, "This too is being redeemed by God."
There Will Come A Light: This is a song I wrote for the "Hope" week of Advent a couple of years ago. Advent songs often explore the darkness of the world searching for the Light that comes at Christmas. As a result, they can easily transcend the bounds of that short period of the Church calendar and serve as declarations of the hope we have now as we wait for the Kingdom of God to come fully.
Lord, I Need You: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at the songs we sang two weeks ago (I was on vacation last week). This is what we said about it then: Though the death and resurrection of Christ have changed what is true about humanity--that we are no longer slaves to sin, destined for death, but rather creatures who are in the process of being made new, destined for resurrection--we are constantly tempted to live as though this were not true. The Spirit is working within us to transform us into people who live like Christ. We sang this song to remind ourselves of this, and to express our awareness of our dependence upon God.
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 6-7-2015
This week, Josh preached from Matthew 20:1-16. Our songs were gathered around the theme of redemption. 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
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: This song uses two images to talk about God. The first is a chariot (a la swing low sweet chariot). The second is a wrecking ball. We can think of the wrecking ball as God's breaking into human history and breaking through the barriers of our brokenness, and we can think of the chariot as God's drawing us out of our sinfulness. The refrain, "So we will become a happy ending" is an extremely simple phrasing of the result of these things, but it is no less true. The "we" who will become a happy ending is more than just humanity--though humanity is certainly included. It is, rather, the entire cosmos--God is working to redeem the whole of creation. This "we" also includes God. God is not making us new simply to abandon us, but to draw us near to Godself forever--a happy ending, indeed.
This Is Amazing Grace: The verses of this song explore a multitude of great things that God has done/is doing, while the chorus ultimately says, "This same God--who is above and beyond anything we could ever hope to be--has chosen to enter into our story as a human and experience extreme suffering (when even the slightest suffering would have been undeserved) so that we can be saved." Saved from what? Selfishness, pride, isolation, anger, fear, anxiety, nonexistence (death), on and on. This is grace--amazing grace--because there is nothing about us that deserved this. God did this freely because that's what God is like.
Lord, I Need You: Though the death and resurrection of Christ have changed what is true about humanity--that we are no longer slaves to sin, destined for death, but rather creatures who are in the process of being made new, destined for resurrection--we are constantly tempted to live as though this were not true. The Spirit is working within us to transform us into people who live like Christ. We sang this song to remind ourselves of this, and to express our awareness of our dependence upon God.
Noise: The gap between what it is to be God and what it is to be human has been called by some an un-crossable boundary. Because of this, we can only attempt to say true things of God--our words always fall short of their mark. One thing we can talk about with a bit more clarity is that God crosses this boundary to have a relationship with us. In the Old Testament, God established several covenants (read: promises) with God's people--this binding relationship is something that God chose to initiate with humans. The people of God time and again fell out of sync with the kind of lives they were supposed to live in relation to God, but God remained faithful and continually found new ways to be God with us. This culminated in God becoming human in Jesus, breaking through that un-crossable boundary between God and humanity. In doing this, God became ever-more intimately aware of what it is to be human--of what it is to suffer, and humanity became aware of what kind of life God would have us live, if God were human.
Wayward Ones: We sing this song every time we take communion to remind ourselves of several 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