Setlist 12-18-2016

This week was the fourth Sunday of Advent, 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:

Hope (There Will Come A Light) by ubcmusic

Joy (Brightest) by ubcmusic

Peace (Change Everything) by ubcmusic

Love (Gladdening Light) by ubcmusic

O Come, O Come Emmanuel

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 (There Will Come A Light): This song 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, is available for free download here. 

Joy (Brightest): This song explores the kind of joy that we associate with Christmas.  We take for granted that the wholesale change that Jesus brings about is something that we can be excited about.  This song isn't claiming that we shouldn't be excited about, but instead that the joy that arises out of this moment might demand something of us--that perhaps everything we've ever looked to for comfort or for a standard of goodness/love is about to be shown up, and that in God's changing everything, we too will be changed.  This song, as well as the rest of our original advent songs, is available for free download here. 

Peace (Change Everything): This song is a plea for peace to come into our lives in a number of ways.  The first verse asks when the night will be turned to day, a broad request for an answer to the uncertainties of life.  The second verse wonders when our weapons and violence will have no place among us.  The third verse longs for the dissolution of our worry and anxieties. And the fourth verse longs for a remedy for the existential concerns of death.  Through the chorus, this song raises the question of how exactly God plans on addressing these problems, wondering what a solution would even look like--a king (some kind of leader or outside force to set things right? Or a new way to breathe (a new way to be human--a new way to live)?  Neither? Both?  But the heartbeat of the song is the plea that closes out each verse: "Oh God, bring peace." This song, as well as the rest of our original advent songs, is available for free download here. 

Love (Gladdening Light): This song retraces the themes from the other three advent songs, and looks ahead to God's shining a light in our darkness.  This song, as well as the rest of our original advent songs, is available for free download here. 

O Come, O Come Emmanuel: As we near the end of the advent season, we sang this song to once again underscore our longing as we enter this final week leading up to Christmas.

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 12-20-2015

This week was the third week of Advent, and our songs were gathered around the theme of love. I guess it would also be true to say that the theme was simply "advent," but the candle-themes of advent are so intertwined when placed next to eachother, I have no problem saying that all of these songs were sung in light of love.  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

Hope (There Will Come A Light) by ubcmusic

Peace (Change Everything) by ubcmusic

Joy (Brightest) by ubcmusic

Love (Gladdening Light) by ubcmusic

Make This Go On Forever (Refrain) by Snow Patrol

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. 

This week's set doesn't seem to lend itself to the usual format I use to think about how the songs fit together.  These songs were all written as a unit to explore the themes of advent, which means they are pretty thoroughly interwoven with one another.  The hope was to create songs that voiced a longing hope that is never quite resolved or satiated, yet is so entrenched in the idea that God is faithful and is actively in the midst of telling a story that isn't over yet, that there is some sort of balance struck between pain and healing, joy and sorrow.  As I've said in the previous weeks, I think these songs carry broad enough images for them to take on a variety of layers of significance for different people, so I would encourage you to listen to them again and think about the words.  The links to the videos are below.  Also, a word about the piece of the Snow Patrol song we attached to the end of each song over the past few weeks: When we say "I don't know where to look//my words just break and melt//please just save me from this darkness," we confess that there are kinds of darkness that we encounter against which we feel helpless and struggle to imagine a way through, yet we know to Whom to take our pleas for salvation.  This seems to capture the advent spirit as we look back on the ways that God has been faithful to us as a way of fueling the hope that we carry forward.

Hope (There Will Come A Light)

Peace (Change Everything)

Joy (Brightest)

Love (Gladdening Light)

-JM