Setlist 4-8-2018

Yesterday was the second Sunday of Eastertide, 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:

Crown Him With Many Crowns

Amazing Grace by Citizens & Saints

There's A Wideness in God's Mercy by Jameson McGregor

Murdered Son by John Mark McMillan

Inbreaking by Jameson McGregor

Mystery by Jameson McGregor (adapted from Charlie Hall)

Doxology

How They Fit In:

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

Crown Him With Many Crowns: We sang this song to orient our attention toward Jesus as the Risen Lord, whose power is made perfect in weakness and whose reign is underscored by nonviolence and love.

Amazing Grace: As we enter Resurrection season, this song offers us language to articulate the sustaining presence of God's grace through the deaths and resurrections we experience in the course of life.

There's A Wideness In God's Mercy: We sang this song to celebrate God's mercy and to remind ourselves that any view we hold about God's rigid wrath says more about us than it does God.

Murdered Son: This song speaks to the death of Jesus as it relates to our own deaths; namely that Christ has grabbed us and raises us with him.

Inbreaking: This song is a plea for the Slaughtered Lamb to raise hope out of brokenness and draw us into the Resurrection life.

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

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 10-29-2017

This was the twenty-first 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:

Wandering by Jameson McGregor

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

Murdered Son by John Mark McMillan

Bonfire by Jameson McGregor

Death In His Grave 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. 

Wandering: We sang this song to proclaim God's faithfulness to us in the midst of our tendency to attempt to steer God toward our own devices.  In doing so, we reminded ourselves that God has decided to pull us into God's story, and our own shortcomings or inconsistencies are not powerful enough to change God's mind about that.

O Love That Will Not Let Me Go:  This song gives voice to the hope against hope that not even death can separate us from the love of God.

Murdered Son: This song proclaims the work of God in Christ, holds up the truth about how far God was willing to go to set things right with us, and ultimately poses an open question to us about what this means for a group of people who are seeking to be formed into the presence of Christ in their time and place.

Bonfire: This song traces the vast distance between what it is to be God and what it is to be human, and looks ahead to where that divide is ultimately transgressed.

Death In His Grave: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about Death In His Grave then: We sang this song to tell again the story of Christ's entering into suffering to the point of death and emerging victorious over Death and sin.  This story is the foundation of our hope, and one of the most revelatory moments regarding the lengths to which God is willing to go to set things right with us, and it is also an image of the re-Creation that God is actively working in history.

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

-JM

Setlist 4-3-2016

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

Songs:

All Creatures of our God and King

Murdered Son by John Mark McMillan

Because He Lives

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

Wayward Ones by The Gladsome Light

Doxology

How They Fit In:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-JM

Setlist 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 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