Setlist 4-14-2019

This past Sunday was both Palm Sunday and ubckids Sunday, 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:

In the Night by Andrew Peterson

Here is Our King by David Crowder* Band

Just A Closer Walk With Thee

Fall Afresh by Jeremy Riddle

Lord, I Need You by Matt Maher

Be Thou My Vision

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 traces the thread of God’s presence within struggle throughout the biblical narrative, and invites us to step into the lineage of hope-in-despair.

Here Is Our King: We sang this song because honestly what other song would you sing for Palm Sunday while a parade of children danced in waving palm branches?

Just A Closer Walk With Thee: This song gets to one of the primary concerns of Lent: being formed in the way of Christ.

Fall Afresh: We sang this song to invite the Spirit to continue to transform us and to guard our faith from complacency.

Lord, I Need You: This song offered us a prayer to carry us through the end of Lent.

Be Thou My Vision: This song will accompany us through Lent, reminding us to turn to God for our vision, wisdom, and security.

Setlist 2-17-2019

Yesterday was the seventh Sunday of Epiphany, 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:

Just A Closer Walk With Thee

There by Jameson McGregor

Where God Has Always Been by Jameson McGregor

Heart With No Companion by Leonard Cohen

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. 

Just A Closer Walk With Thee: We sang this song to express our desire to be formed more fully in the way of Christ.

There: This song celebrates God as an anchor beyond every pain we encounter.

Where God Has Always Been: We sang this song to acknowledge and celebrate God’s solidarity with those with their backs against the wall, and to look ahead to the coming of the Kingdom in fullness.

Heart With No Companion: This song is about the hope of Christ that reaches across pain and time, drawing us into a future of wholeness.

Mystery: This song invites us to consider the death, resurrection, and enduring presence of Jesus as being transformative to the way we navigate our ordinary lives.

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 7-22-2018

Yesterday was the ninth 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

Crown Him With Many Crowns

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

Wearing Thin by Jameson McGregor

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

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 invites us into a key pursuit of ordinary time: turning our attention toward being the presence of Christ in our time and place.

Crown Him With Many Crowns: This song offered us language to speak of Christ as Lord of all, and thus to orient our thoughts about power toward Jesus.

O Love That Will Not Let Me Go: This song offered us words to proclaim that our grasping after God occurs within the context of God's embrace of us.

Wearing Thin: This song is a petition for God to form us into people of zeal for justice and ignite hope in the face of hopelessness.

All Creatures of Our God and King: This song invites us to join our voices with all of creation in acknowledging God as the Creator and Sustainer of all that is.  In doing so, we are invited to consider all of creation as our family.

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 10-8-2017

This 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 an example of one way you might think of these songs in light of this week's theme. If you want to talk about any of these, feel free to comment at the bottom of this page or email me at jamie@ubcwaco.org.

Songs:

Just A Closer Walk With Thee

Heart Won't Stop by John Mark and Sarah McMillan

Mystery by Jameson McGregor (adapted from Charlie Hall)

Inbreaking 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. 

Just A Closer Walk With Thee: As we seek to discern what it means to be the presence of Christ in our time and place during Ordinary Time, we sang this song to express a desire to be formed more fully in the way of Christ, while also acknowledging that our pursuit of this task will be flawed.

Heart Won't Stop: This song offers us the chance to confess the relentless love of God.

Mystery: This song proclaims the story of the death, resurrection, and expected return of Christ, and offers this story to us as a cause for a transforming Hope in the midst of whatever affliction might befall us.

Inbreaking: This song is a petition for the Living God to break into the brokenness of the world and carry out God's work of re-Creation in our midst.

Wandering: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about Wandering then: We sang this song to confess our tendency to try to harness faith for our own means, and to give voice to the faithfulness of God despite this fact.

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 6-25-2017

This was the 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 an example of one way you might think of these songs in light of this week's theme. If you want to talk about any of these, feel free to comment at the bottom of this page or email me at jamie@ubcwaco.org.

Songs:

Just A Closer Walk With Thee

SMS [Shine] by David Crowder* Band

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

Inbreaking by Jameson McGregor

Rise Up by Bifrost Arts

Doxology

How They Fit In:

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

Just A Closer Walk With Thee: We began with this song to give voice to one of the primary reasons we gather together every week--to be more fully formed in the way of Christ.  We might think about two outcomes of this.  First, to be more fully formed in the way of Christ results in living a life that is itself an act of worship.  Second, to be more fully formed in the way of Christ pushes us toward our calling of being the presence of Christ in the world.

SMS [Shine]: One way to think of this song is as a petition for God to revive the hope of Christ in our lives so that we can hold this light up like torches in the world.  This is by some measure what we are focusing on during ordinary time as we take up ubc's core value of missional living more deliberately for the next few months.  

There's A Wideness in God's Mercy: This song is a reminder to ourselves that God's mercy toward us is greater than we might deem reasonable.  And it is also a reminder to ourselves that God's mercy toward those we would rather not have it is just as unreasonably wide.

Inbreaking: This song is a petition for the Slaughtered Lamb to teach us how to be Kingdom people and for the Spirit to resurrect what is dead in us.

Rise Up: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about Rise Up then: This song is both a plea for God to rise to the defense of the trampled people in the world and a challenge to ourselves as the Body of Christ to be active in defending those whom God defends.

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 3-12-2017

This week was the second week of Lent, 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 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

Just A Closer Walk With Thee

House of God Forever by Jon Foreman

Fever by Jameson McGregor

Lord, I Need You by Matt Maher

Be Thou My Vision

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.  

Just A Closer Walk With Thee: This song hones in on a particular aspect of Lent: a focusing of discipleship.  It confesses our need for God's help to be formed in the way of Christ, without removing any responsibility from ourselves.  It also confesses that we will likely fail time and again at leaning in to this transformation, but confesses that God has entered our condition, knows how difficult life can be, and carries the weight with us.

House of God Forever: This song serves as an early reminder that we will need time and again during Lent that God cares for us in the midst of our struggles (whatever they may be).  God brings safety into our danger, a feast into our hunger, and a light into our darkness.

Fever: This song is about how the status quo of what we are battles against our efforts to become more like Christ, and imagines this self-correcting-for-the-worse in the same way as our bodies use fevers to restore our biological environments when we are sick.  Keeping with this image, it voices a desire for a wilder pathogen to infect us and overwhelm our built-in defenses to wholly change us.  If you want to give this song another listen, you can find it here.

Lord, I Need You:  We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is was we said about Lord, I Need You then: Continuing to build our vocabulary for engaging the inner struggles of Lent, we sang this song to voice a declaration of our reliance on God's help to have any hope of transformation, and implicitly to voice a petition for God to come to our aid.

Be Thou My Vision:  During Lent, we depart from our typical singing of the Doxology to close our time together.  As we wander the wilderness of Lent, learning more about who we are and what we are for, we carry these words on our tongues, time and again asking God to be our vision, wisdom, and security.

-JM

Setlist 1-22-2017

This week was the third Sunday of Epiphany, 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 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:

Come Thou Fount

Just A Closer Walk With Thee

Your Love Is Strong by Jon Foreman

Mystery by Jameson McGregor (adapted from Charlie Hall)

Crown Him With Many Crowns 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. 

Come Thou Fount: We sang this song to enter into the mindset of encountering anew a God with whom we have a history.  As we continue our journey through Epiphany and meet Jesus again, we do so looking back on our own stories of God's faithfulness to us through the process of coming to know God and coming to let go of things we came to know about God that ended up being refined over time.

Just A Closer Walk With Thee: This song expresses a desire to be more fully formed in the way of Christ.  As we meet Jesus anew during Epiphany, this song puts language to this coming-to-know and joins it with a further desire of coming-to-be-more-like Jesus.

Your Love Is Strong: This song begins with a plea for the Kingdom to come in our world and in the immediate vicinity of our lives.  We sang this song primarily to give voice to that plea.  In coming to know Jesus, we come to know the Kingdom that he brought with him.  This Kingdom has come and is coming.  So the plea we made in this song is both for God to more fully form us into Kingdom people in the present, and for God to bring about the Kingdom in fullness in the future.

Mystery: In coming to know the Person of Jesus, we encounter a multi-faceted Mystery.  This Person who is infinite, yet finite; divine, yet human; weak, yet strong; defeated, yet victorious; comes to us and calls into question all we think we know to be true about the world.  Jesus' identity as Mystery is one of the primary reasons we so desperately need Epiphany to renew our holy curiosity every year--sometimes we forget that we don't have Jesus figured out.  This song takes the Mystery of Jesus and champions it using the "formula" of Christ has died//Christ is Risen//Christ will come again, as the chorus.  The verses are about the way that Jesus' mystery status meets us in our own lives from without.  Here Jesus is the answer to our problems: the sanity and clarity that enters our dissonance, and the evergreen living peace that enters our conflict.  But Jesus is also the question to our assumptions about the world: the Eternal Word who is brought low, the cup of salvation that is poured out, the Embodied Love that is broken, and the Trampled Redeemer that is raised and freed.  Taken together the verses and chorus of this song champion Jesus as our source of hope when things seem irredeemable--because we learn that Jesus is not limited by what we expect of the way the world works.  So in the bridge section, we celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus as a symbol of holy subversion to the power structures of the world, and take up singing about this subversion as our own way to subvert oppressive systems of power. 

Crown Him With Many Crowns: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about Crown Him With Many Crowns then: During Epiphany, the lectionary carries us through a series of texts that reveal something about the way in which Jesus is God-with-us.  Last week's Gospel text showed Jesus crowned with the Holy Spirit, and God claiming him as God's son.  This week's text had John the Baptist pointing to that coronation, and we joined in that pointing in singing this song.

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 10-23-2016

This was the twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost, and our songs around the theme of breaking/mending.  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:

Just A Closer Walk With Thee

SMS [Shine] by David Crowder* Band

Come Thou Fount

Anthem by Leonard Cohen

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. 

Just A Closer Walk With Thee: We sang this song to express a simplified version of what our aim is as we gather: namely, to follow Jesus more closely on the road he has walked before us.  As is typical when we sing this at ubc, the second verse holds particular significance in its underscoring of the significance of Jesus' sharing our burdens with us.  We are prone to falter in our approaches to faith, but that does not devalue our journeys.  This journey is fundamentally difficult, wrought with pain and failure and the pursuit of reconciliation.  Which makes sense because this journey is ultimately a relationship, and relationships are marked by all of those things.

SMS [Shine]:  This song is an exercise in seeking God in the midst of affliction.  It places the truth on our tongues that God is still "Light" when we don't see light, and that we have a sign of life from God in the Person of Jesus, his story and his resurrection.  This story is good news for broken people, though it is at times difficult to call to mind and embrace when we need it most.  Singing these words helps us develop a habit of claiming this hope that may make it easier to remember when we need it most.

Come Thou Fount: This song asks that God would tune our hearts to sing the story of God's presence in our lives, as well as confesses our proneness to wandering.  Perhaps it is in having a clear understanding of the way that God has entered the broken places in our lives in the past that we are able to make it through brokenness in the future.  So, like the prayer offered before we sang this song (that will be posted with the Liturgy blog on Wednesday), we has God to flood the dry and broken places within us with a renewed understanding an appreciation of who God has been for us in our lives.

Anthem:  There's a lot going on in this song.  In light of the other songs this week, we might think of it like this: it begins with a call-back to what Jesus said about birds and worry in Matthew 6, then develops a sense of how the world continues to be an uncertain and imperfect place.  In the midst of this development, however, we find the chorus: ring the bells that still can ring//forget your perfect offering//there's a crack, a crack in everything//that's how the Light gets in.  It is in the midst of the mess--the brokenness and uncertainty--that the Light makes its way in.  

Be Thou My Vision: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about Be Thou My Vision then: We sang this song to practice asking God to override the false, shame-driven, narratives about ourselves that we replay time and again in our heads.  

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 9-18-2016

This was the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, and our songs around the theme of discipleship.  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:

Just A Closer Walk With Thee

Death in His Grave by John Mark McMillan

Fall Afresh by Jeremy Riddle

Heart With No Companion by Leonard Cohen

Pulse 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:  We sang this song to begin our time together by expressing a desire to be more fully formed in the way of Christ. Of particular note is the second stanza, which highlights that we are not left to carry the burden of our failures in following Christ alone.  

Death In His Grave:  This song rehearses the story of Jesus' defeat of death.  We sang it because the whole of the Christian faith hinges on the resurrection of Jesus.  Within this song, we celebrate the self-emptying of Jesus for our sake, showing us what love looks like, as well as the power of the resurrection to break the fundamental cycle of life and death.  This is the story that we are seeking to model as followers of Christ, constantly dying and rising in different ways, hoping to learn something about life and love.

Fall Afresh: We sang this song to acknowledge our dependence upon the renewal of the Spirit to grow as followers of Jesus.  Be it on a great or small scale, we all experience the cycle of renewal and stagnation in the life of faith--the cycle in which our brains seek out an easier status quo than we are called to--and we thus continually need the help of the Spirit to pull us forward.

Heart With No Companion: This song is a love letter from God to the afflicted that offers the shattered Love of God to those who feel like their lives lack meaning. It carries within it a promise that those who experience the existential anguish of not being able to be what they know they have been created to be have not been forgotten.  Furthermore, it is a message that who you are and what you do are two very different things (in the song, you have a captain with no ship, a mother with no children, a prima ballerina with no dancing, etc.).  Within the context of this week's songs, it is a word to the person who feels like they aren't "good" at being a follower of Christ, reminding them that they carry an identity that transcends their religious prowess.

Pulse: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about Pulse then:  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.

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 5-29-2016

This was the second Sunday after Pentecost, and our songs were once again gathered with the Holy Spirit 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 atjamie@ubcwaco.org.

Songs:

Just A Closer Walk With Thee

Your Love Is Strong by Jon Foreman

Be Thou My Vision

Pain by Jameson McGregor

Holy, Holy, Holy

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: In the wake of Pentecost, we have entered into ordinary time, though the Holy Spirit is still very much on our minds.  Just A Closer Walk With Thee is in many ways a song we might think of as being directed toward Jesus, but the Spirit is our connection to the Person of Jesus.  Furthermore, the presence of the Spirit among us is central to our following Jesus, as Jesus lived by the Spirit.  With this in mind, the core petition of this song is addressed to Jesus, but seeks the guidance of the Spirit.

Your Love Is Strong: This song is essentially a meditation on the Lord's Prayer, with an emphasis on being transformed into Kingdom people.  When we think of transformation, we think of the Spirit--the Spirit is the One who does the weaving of our stories, who dwells in our interconnectivity and helps to shape us.  We sang this song to ask the Spirit to continue this work.

Be Thou My Vision:  As with the previous two songs, we sang this song as a petition to the Spirit to shape us into people whose vision, wisdom, security, and hope, are all oriented toward the love of God.  

Pain: I had the opportunity to share this song a couple of months ago at a service at Baylor that was a Space for Lament for people affected by sexual violence.  This song is ultimately about how damaging pain of all kinds can be when buried inside of us, and how God is able and willing to take the weight of our pain.  By that, I don't mean take it away, though I believe in time God moves us forward on a journey of healing (however that might look), but instead I mean that God takes the weight upon Godself--that we don't carry it alone.  The second verse of the song has a more particular kind of pain in view: that of keeping secrets, of sweeping our own evils under the rug and carrying around the guilt.  God carries this pain with us as well, and enacts healing for these situations.  Last week, the institution of Baylor began the process of reckoning with its own evils.  And this reckoning has the potential to be painful in many different ways.  But God is in the midst of this kind of pain too.  I recently put out a video of this song, which you can watch here:

Holy, Holy, Holy: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at our songs from two weeks ago (I was out of town last week).  This is what we said about Holy, Holy, Holy then: We sang this song to begin our time together singing about the particularity of God, as we acknowledge the Spirit as part of the Trinity for the first time in the Christian calendar this year.

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 3-20-2016

This week was the sixth Sunday of Lent, also known as Palm Sunday, and our songs were selected with 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, 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:

Here Is Our King by David Crowder* Band

Just A Closer Walk With Thee

Lord, I Need You by Matt Maher

In the Night by Andrew Peterson

Up On A Mountain by The Welcome Wagon

Be Thou My Vision

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. 

Here Is Our King: We sang this song because it was Palm Sunday.  We sang these words to take the posture of the crowds welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem.  This is in some ways strange, because we know that Jesus was not actually bringing about the political revolution that they expected, and we also know that this disappointment would ultimately make them turn on Jesus with the authorities.  Perhaps this can serve as a reminder to us that there is a difference between who God is and who we expect God to be, and the former is the one that deserves our worship.

Just A Closer Walk With Thee: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about Just A Closer Walk With Thee then: We sang this song to declare one of our intentions as we walk through Lent together--to reach the other side as people who are more fully formed in the way of Christ.  When we sing this song at ubc, the second stanza is probably the most important, underscoring that the Christian life is one in which we all falter from time to time, but that our burden is shared by Jesus.  In Lent, this takes a slightly different meaning as we think about our time in the wilderness together.  Even in this more intentional time of formation, we are prone to wander, but we can press forward knowing that Jesus understands our struggles.

Lord, I Need You:  We sang this song because as we continue to seek transformation in this last week of Lent, we need God to be the one who changes us.  The petition in the bridge of the song (teach my song to rise to You when temptation comes my way), is in some ways answered in singing this song, as the chorus raises a song to God in the midst of temptation.  We have been singing it often during this season to allow God to root these words deep within us.

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'll add a verse each week during Lent as we move toward Easter, when Hope really takes root.

Up On A Mountain: We sang this song to fast forward to Thursday night when we remember Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane, where he has essentially already been abandoned by his friends, and is terrified of what is to come.  If you aren't familiar with this song, you should check it out:   

Be Thou My Vision: We will sing this song every week during Lent to close our time together.  As we go back into the wilderness of Lent, we will ask once again for God to be our vision, wisdom, security, and hope.

-JM

Setlist 3-13-2016

This week was the fifth Sunday of Lent, and our songs were selected 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, 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:

Come Thou Fount

Just A Closer Walk With Thee

Deliver Me by David Crowder* Band

In the Night by Andrew Peterson

Be Thou My Vision

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. 

Come Thou Fount: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about Come Thou Fount then: As we continue through Lent, we are ultimately hoping that some change takes place in us that isn't undone as soon as Lent is over. We mainly sang this song for the final stanza, where we acknowledge our tendency to wander, and express a desire for God to fix us in place.  

Just A Closer Walk With Thee: We sang this song to declare one of our intentions as we walk through Lent together--to reach the other side as people who are more fully formed in the way of Christ.  When we sing this song at ubc, the second stanza is probably the most important, underscoring that the Christian life is one in which we all falter from time to time, but that our burden is shared by Jesus.  In Lent, this takes a slightly different meaning as we think about our time in the wilderness together.  Even in this more intentional time of formation, we are prone to wander, but we can press forward knowing that Jesus understands our struggles.

Deliver Me: As we near the end of Lent, we sang this song to express that we continue to rely upon the Spirit to pull us through and to change us into people who are more like Jesus.

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'll add a verse each week during Lent as we move toward Easter, when Hope really takes root.

Be Thou My Vision: We will sing this song every week during Lent to close our time together.  As we go back into the wilderness of Lent, we will ask once again for God to be our vision, wisdom, security, and hope.

-JM

Setlist 10-11-2015

This week, our songs were gathered around the theme of the divine-human relationship.  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

Death In His Grave by John Mark McMillan

Just a Closer Walk With Thee

Wandering by Jameson McGregor

Diamond by Sarah Dossey Keilers [Dossey]

All the Poor and Powerless by All Sons & Daughters

Doxology

How They Fit In:

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

Death In His Grave: We sang this song to reflect on what God has done for us in Christ.  In the death and resurrection of Jesus, God changed the way that death works for humanity.  Thinking in terms of the divine-human relationship, these events become something of a starting point or center.  These events are God's extended hand to humanity--they pose a question; something to the effect of, "i have come further than seems appropriate to make things right--are you willing to enter into reconciliation with Me?"  Or perhaps, "I have fixed what was broken between us.  Do you realize what that means for you?"

Just A Closer Walk With Thee: This song explores the tension between the kind of life we are inclined to live when let to our own devices, and the kind of life that Jesus has shown us how to live.  We have a tendency to beat ourselves up when we knowingly fail to live like Jesus, but this song suggests that there is a better way to handle failure.  The line in the second verse, "In this world of toil and snare//If i falter, Lord, who cares?//Who with me my burden shares?//None but Thee..." God does not wait for us to fail so that God can have cause to be angry with us, but instead shares our burdens--God knows how far the gap is between the way we are and the way Jesus has shown us to live, and carries this weight with us.  Instead of lingering in self-pity or self-disgust, we can move forward knowing that we are not alone.

Wandering: We sang this song to proclaim that God is faithful to us even when we consistently misconstrue what it is to be faithful.  The verses of this song imagine various ways in which we recognize the power of God, then try to harness this power for our own devices--with what seem to be the best of intentions--and how God chooses to continue to journey with us anyway, coaxing us into understanding that God is not one to be tamed.

Diamond: To read Sarah's thoughts on this great song, visit the blog on her site here.

All the Poor and Powerless:  We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last weeks' songs.  This is what we said about All the Poor and Powerless then: We sang this song to proclaim God's identity as a God who is present with the lowly, the powerless, the hopeless, the hurting, the self-loathing, the addicts, on and on.  This is a God who not only lowers Godself to interact with humanity, but the lowest parts of humanity.

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

-JM

Setlist 8-9-2015

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

Songs

Just A Closer Walk With Thee

Because He Lives

Murdered Son by John Mark McMillan

To Be Alone With You by Sufjan Stevens

House of God Forever by Jon Foreman

Doxology

How They Fit In:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-JM

Setlist 5-31-2015

This week, Josh preached from Luke 12:13-21.  It was also Trinity Sunday, which is the day on the Church calendar that we make a point to acknowledge, contemplate, and appreciate the fact that God has been revealed to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--Three, yet One.  Our songs were gathered with the Trinity 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

Holy, Holy, Holy

Just a Closer Walk With Thee

House of God Forever by Jon Foreman

Wild One by Jameson McGregor

Fall Afresh by Jeremy Riddle

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.

Holy, Holy, Holy: This song presents the tension between God being glorious, such that there is no one else that stands on equal footing with God, and the fact that God is both One and Three.  This is most apparent at the end of the third stanza when "there is none beside Thee" and "God in Three persons, blessed Trinity" are placed side by side.  There are various ways to think about the word "holy," but perhaps one of the most straight forward, when speaking of God, is the idea that God is Wholly Other.  This means that what we can know about God is fundamentally limited--even though God created us in way that we can be in relationship with God.  The mystery of the Trinity is incoherent in terms of human reason, but it would be presumptuous to assume that we have the capacity to map out and comprehend One who is Wholly Other.

Just A Closer Walk With Thee:  We sang this song to focus on God the Son.  In Jesus, God crossed the boundary between being Wholly Other and experiencing existence as a human.  Though humans cannot hope to ascend to the heights of God and understand everything there is to know about God, God came to us and showed us who God is in a "language" that we can understand.  Aside from showing us what God is like, Jesus called us to be a particular kind of people--people of love.  With this in mind, we sang this not only to acknowledge Jesus as God, but to ask for help in being people who are more formed into His likeness.

House of God Forever: We sang this song to focus on God the Father.  Though God is Wholly Other, God cares for us.  Though there is much about God that we cannot understand, God fully understands us, and knows how to meet our needs.

Wild One: I shared a reading from N.T. Wright's For All God's Worth before we played this song, and I think his words sum up the place of this song better than I can articulate. You can read the selection here.

Fall Afresh: We sang this song to focus on God the Holy Spirit.  Though God is Wholly Other, God has come to dwell among us in the Holy Spirit, transforming us into something new, and connecting us to one another and to Godself.  We also sang this song to look over our shoulder at last weeks' songs.  This is what we said:  When we come to Pentecost each year, we are celebrating the coming of the Holy Spirit in Acts, thanking God for blessing the Church with the Gift of God's continual presence.  We are also reminding ourselves that this Gift has been given to us as well.  In reminding ourselves of this, we are hoping for a renewed awareness of the Spirit's presence.  We shouldn't reduce Pentecost to a yearly refilling station for caring about the Spirit, but we also should not pretend that we live lives that are fully aware of the Spirit at all times.  Pentecost is a time to remember that we are a people who have been given a Gift, and to live into that reality.

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 4-19-2015

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