Setlist 10-25-2015

This week, our songs were gathered around the theme of healing.  Yesterday we had a celebration service for the life and legacy of Kyle Lake, our former pastor, marking 10 years since his death in 2005.  If you weren't able to attend the service, I'd encourage you to go check out kylesfilm.com where you can read about Kyle's story.  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

Because He Lives

How He Loves by John Mark McMillan

Rescue Is Coming by David Crowder* Band

Wayward Ones by The Gladsome Light

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. 

Because He Lives: We sang this song to name the hope of the resurrection of Jesus over/against the pain of loss.  This is not merely future hope, but infuses every moment of life with great significance, making it worth living.  

How He Loves: John Mark McMillan has a video telling the story of this song--I think it is important to hear him talk about where this song came from, so I really hope you'll watch it. He wrote this song in response to the death of a close friend, and we sang this after Craig, a close friend of Kyle's, had just shared with us about the way in which Kyle was a gift of God to him and to ubc, and about the journey he has had since then.  I suppose there are several reasons we needed to sing this song in this service, but perhaps the greatest is to put a voice to the fact that the love of God is not beaten back by the anger and grief of loss.  Instead, this love holds strong through those seasons--in the midst of those seasons.

Rescue Is Coming: Josh asked me to put this song in the set this week because he remembered Kyle having a visceral and joyful reaction to it one of the first times Dave played it at ubc.  He told the story of that moment before we sang it and encouraged us to join with Kyle in that moment in singing this song.  As with Because He Lives, this song sets our eyes on some sort of future hope, but the purpose is to affect the here and now--to not give up in the midst of pain--to have the courage to let deep wounds heal.  [Note: Letting deep wounds heal does not mean getting the scars lasered away--while wounds can be debilitating, scars are vessels of memory and carry the story of healing in their own way.]

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 proclaim a story that is fundamental to the story of the cosmos: God lit a fire in the darkness that the darkness did not overcome.  We can think about this in many ways--creation and the life/death/resurrection of Jesus are pretty straight-forward examples-- but we sang this song to proclaim it as the story of ubc in the past 10 years.

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 10-18-2015

This week, our songs were gathered around the theme of struggle.  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

Amazing Grace by Citizens & Saints

Future/Past by John Mark McMillan

Oceans by Hillsong United

Unyielding by Sarah Dossey Keilers (Dossey)

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. 

Amazing Grace: We sang this song as an exercise in perspective--to champion what God has done for us already over/against the struggles that we now face.  When I find myself in the midst of a difficult or dark time, and I can't see the end of it, that sometimes the only comfort I can find is in looking back on the things that God has brought me through in the past, and that is sometimes enough to convince me that there will be a day when my present pain is something I can look back on as well, knowing that it ended.  Probably the most straight-forward line of this song for our purposes this week is Through many dangers toils and snares i have already come//Twas grace that brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home.  I want to be clear that I am under no illusion that looking back can cancel out the struggles we face in the present, but I am convinced it can be enough to give us strength to keep moving forward.

Future/Past: I suppose this song, too, is an exercise in perspective.  We sang it to put into our mouths an expression of the fact that, though God commands unlimited cosmic power--and is thus a fundamentally superior and more real Person than any of us--God has bent low to regard us not simply as creatures who exist, but creatures with whom God desires to relate; creatures for whom to care.  This is great and terrifying news for us, and it makes a difference in how we view both the future and the past.  It means that there is significance to every moment that is beyond us; that there is hope in the midst of struggle around which we cannot wrap our minds.

Oceans: We sang this song to proclaim that God not only delivers us from struggles, but is with us in the midst of them.  God's faithfulness to us allows us to keep our eyes above the waves of chaos, which is to say that we can maintain a sense of perspective marked by trust in the midst of uncertainty--that our eyes can in some way maintain contact with God, though the rest of us in caught in despair.

Unyielding: Sarah has written a blog about this song on her band site--check it out!

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 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.

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 10-4-2015

This week, our songs were gathered around the theme of identity.  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 atjamie@ubcwaco.org.

Songs

This is Amazing Grace by Phil Wickham

Because He Lives

All the Poor and Powerless by All Sons & Daughters

Fever 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. 

This Is Amazing Grace: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  Here's what we said about This Is Amazing Grace then: We sang this song to think about the radical grace of God, who is clothed in unlimited cosmic power, yet cares for humanity enough to endure suffering and to patiently coax us into a relationship with Godself.

Because He Lives:  We sang this song to proclaim our identity as resurrection people--people who are able to find significance day-to-day because we believe that the resurrection of Christ has fundamentally changed the story of human history, and that all of our stories (even the tragic ones) are being woven into a greater story that is decidedly un-tragic.

All the Poor and Powerless:  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.

Fever: This song acknowledges the tension between the identity that God has given us and the identity that we continually read back onto ourselves.  This song thinks of our various ways of reminding ourselves of how worthless we are as a fever--fevers are our body's way of trying to eradicate pathogens and to return order to our normal biological environment--and thinks of the grace of God as a pathogen that is not so easily eradicated.  The idea is that owning our identity as children of God, as people who are loved by God, does not come naturally, and even when we find ourselves giving verbal assent to this truth, it takes an act of God to truly believe it.

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