Setlist 2-3-2018

Yesterday was the fifth 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:

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

Wayward Ones by The Gladsome Light

Rise Up by BiFrost Arts

Family Band by Jameson McGregor

Wideness by ubcmusic (adapted from F. Faber)

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: This song invites us to join our voices with the rest of creation in celebrating the Creator and Sustainer of all that is.

Wayward Ones: This is our communion hymn, and it contemplates Christ's self-giving love that is displayed and remembered in the eucharist.

Rise Up: This song is a petition for God to come to the aid and defense of people who are trampled by our systems of power.

Family Band: This song is a plea for God to draw our withered selves into God’s family.

Wideness: We sang this song to continue to remind ourselves on our Epiphany journey that our most grandiose views of God’s mercy and love are in fact minimizations.

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 10-28-2018

This past Sunday was the twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost.  Our songs were gathered with this in mind, along with the fact that the sermon would be about Deconstruction.  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:

How Great Thou Art

Crown Him With Many Crowns by ubcmusic (adapted from M. Bridges)

Future/Past by John Mark McMillan

Waking Life by Jameson McGregor

Wideness by ubcmusic (adapted from F. Faber)

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. 

How Great Thou Art: We sang this song to begin our time together focusing on attention on the God who is greater than our words can capture, who spun the cosmos, entered into our suffering, and is making all things new.

Crown Him With Many Crowns: This song invites us to give voice to the reign of Christ above every so-called authority, whose Kingdom is and is to come, and flips the script on our ideas of power and grandeur.

Future/Past: We sang this song to remember that the love of God comes to us across an impossible gap between what it is to be God and what it is to be human, and this love swallows up the whole of our numbered days.

Waking Life: This song is about God breaking into the systems we make with our brain to organize the world around us. This in-breaking calls into question the ways we reduce our neighbors to empty phrases, and the way we let ourselves off the hook for dehumanizing our enemies.

Wideness: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week’s songs. This is what we said about Wideness then: This song proclaims that God’s mercy is more complete than our minds can handle, and offers a word of repentance for the ways in which we represent God as less merciful than God is.

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 10-21-2018

This past Sunday was the twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost.  Our songs were gathered with this in mind, along with the fact that the sermon would be about Deconstruction.  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:

Wild One by Jameson McGregor

Wideness by ubcmusic (adapted from F. Faber)

Where God Has Always Been by Jameson McGregor

Collision/Dread by Jameson McGregor

Pulse by ubcmusic

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. 

Wild One: We began with this song as a way to speak the truth that God is greater than our greatest ideas about who God is, and crushes the idols we make our of our notions of God. It also invites us to consider the areas of our theological systems that we have elevated beyond their station.

Wideness: This song proclaims that God’s mercy is more complete than our minds can handle, and offers a word of repentance for the ways in which we represent God as less merciful than God is.

Where God Has Always Been: This song celebrates the One who is near to the weary and lifts up the lowly.

Collision/Dread: This song is a mashup of two short songs about the experience of existential anxiety, the feeling of absence that such a state brings, and suggests that God is not hiding apart from our pain, but is instead found within our pain.

Pulse: This song is a confession that our loves are fragile and selective, and invites the Spirit to reawaken us to the interconnectivity of creation.

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 9-9-2018

Yesterday was the sixteenth 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:

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

Mystery by Jameson McGregor (adapted from Charlie Hall)

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

Where God Has Always Been by Jameson McGregor

Crown Him With Many Crowns

Doxology

Recording

Here’s a demo recording of Where God Has Always Been:

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. 

There's A Wideness In God's Mercy: We sang this song to begin our time contemplating the wideness of the mercy within which we find ourselves. 

Mystery: This song offers us a shorthand version of the Gospel story (Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again) as an anthem to raise in the midst of struggle, and a reminder that the way of Christ is costly.

All Creatures of Our God and King: This song invites us to consider our place amongst the family of all of creation, and to offer praise to the Maker of us all.

Where God Has Always Been:  This song was written while thinking through the texts from Psalms and Isaiah from the lectionary for last week.  It is in praise of the Lord of all with their backs against the wall, reminding us that God has thrown in with the oppressed and forgotten of the world and rises to their defense.

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: We sang this song to begin our time by singing about Jesus as Lord of everything.

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 7-8-2018

Yesterday was the seventh 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:

SMS [Shine] by David Crowder* Band

Wild One by Jameson McGregor

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

Eternal Father by Jameson McGregor

How Great Thou Art

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. 

SMS [Shine]: This song offered us language to cultivate an openness to the hope of Christ.

Wild One: We sang this song to proclaim God's being greater than our greatest ideas about who God is.

There's A Wideness in God's Mercy: This song helped us express the breadth of God's mercy, beyond our greatest hopes.  

Eternal Father: This song is about the prodigal love of God for God's creatures.

How Great Thou Art: We sang this song to celebrate what God has done in time and space in the hope of training our minds to notice God's continued presence in the 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 6-10-2018

Yesterday 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 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

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

Be Thou My Vision

Anthem by Leonard Cohen

O Love That Will Not Let Me Go by ubcmusic (arranged)

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 celebrate God's faithfulness to us in the midst of our inevitable falling short of being the presence of Christ in our time and place during Ordinary Time.

There's A Wideness In God's Mercy: This song proclaims that God's mercy is beyond even our most generous definitions of mercy, and offers us a new way to conceive of the way God views us, and challenges us to rethink the way we think of other people.

Be Thou My Vision: This song is a plea for God to be our vision, wisdom, security, and hope in the whole of our lives.

Anthem: This song proclaims that Light finds its way into brokenness, and offers us hope to hold onto in the midst of darkness.

O Love That Will Not Let Me Go: We sang this song to celebrate and cling to the transforming love of 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 4-29-2018

Yesterday was both the fifth Sunday of Eastertide and Children's Sunday.  Our songs were gathered with these things 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:

Jesus Loves Me

Lord, I Need You by Matt Maher

Fall Afresh by Jeremy Riddle

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

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. 

Jesus Loves Me: The littlest of our little ones began our gathering by offering us this theological gut-punch that proclaims the truth of Divine Love, God's strength in weakness, and our connection to the Word of God in Christ that is mediated through the Bible.

Lord, I Need You: We sang this song to speak of our dependence upon God in our journey to being formed more fully in the way of the Resurrected Christ.

Fall Afresh: We offered this song as a petition for the Spirit to reinvigorate our hearts and help us to seek to know God more fully.

There's A Wideness in God's Mercy: We sang this song to offer ourselves a critique of the limits we place on the love of God, and to celebrate God's generous mercy.

All the Poor and Powerless: This song reminds us that God stands with the poor and powerless, and offers us a challenge to proclaim the Gospel: God's freedom for the captive, vindication of the oppressed, and weaving together of history to raise the lowly from the depths.

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 4-15-2018

Yesterday was the third 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:

All Creatures of Our God and King

Noise by Jameson McGregor

Pulse by Jameson McGregor

Because He Lives by Bill and Gloria Gaither

Heart With No Companion by Leonard Cohen

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

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 find language to worship the Creator, Sustainer, and now re-Creator of all that is.

Noise: We sang this song to voice Christ's redemption in our stories, his entering into our condition and rewriting it.

Pulse: We sang this song to acknowledge the interconnectivity of Creation and to draw ourselves toward loving our neighbors as ourselves.

Because He Lives: We sang this song to speak of the everyday hope that the Resurrection offers us--not merely a hope that it will all shake out in the end, but that the the Kingdom is breaking in in glimpses even now.

Heart With No Companion: This song is a meditation on the implications of the Resurrected Christ; specifically, the hope that reaches every kind of despair.

There's A Wideness In God's Mercy: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we sang about There's A Wideness in God's Mercy then: 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.

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 4-8-2018

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 1-28-2018

Yesterday was the fourth Sunday of Epiphany, and the 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:

Hope by Jameson McGregor

House of God Forever by Jon Foreman

Future/Past by John Mark McMillan

For All That I Don't Know by Jameson McGregor

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

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: Among the things we come to find revealed in Jesus is how far God is willing to go to set things right with us.  In the incarnation, long before we reach the love revealed in the Passion, we find an act of radical love and empathy: the self-emptying of God into humanity.  This song gives voice to a hope rooted in God having demonstrated God's decision to set things right in Creation.

House of God Forever: We sang this song to proclaim the care and belonging that permeate the life and ministry of Jesus, which embodied aspects of the character of God already articulated in Psalm 23.

Future/Past: We sang this song to proclaim God's having chosen to be God-with-us in Christ.

For All That I Don't Know: This song is about the difficulty of believing in God--the One who is love, at least--when the world seems to be getting darker, but finds room for the twilight hope of faith in the midst of the long night of human history.

There's A Wideness In God's Mercy: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about There's A Wideness in God's Mercy then: We sang this song to remind ourselves that our best ideas of God's love fall short of grasping it in fullness.  During Epiphany, we hope to suspend our assumptions about God's love along with everything else we think we know about the Person of Jesus, in hopes of encountering Jesus anew.

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 1-21-2018

Our last liturgy was the second Sunday of Epiphany, and the 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:

Bonfire by Jameson McGregor

All the Poor and Powerless by All Sons & Daughters

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

Shadow by Jameson McGregor

How Great Thou Art

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. 

Bonfire: This song explores the contrast between God and humanity, and looks forward to the coming reconciliation of all things to God; the reconciliation that is sometimes glimpsed in the world around us in justice, redemption, and love. You can hear an album version of this song here.

All the Poor and Powerless: This song is about the hope of Christ in the lives of the oppressed, trampled, criminal, and hopeless, and more broadly about the love of God for God's creatures.

There's A Wideness In God's Mercy: We sang this song to remind ourselves that our best ideas of God's love fall short of grasping it in fullness.  During Epiphany, we hope to suspend our assumptions about God's love along with everything else we think we know about the Person of Jesus, in hopes of encountering Jesus anew.

Shadow: This song is about the impossibility of dying to self and the vision for humanity embodied in the person of Christ. You can hear an album version of this song here.

How Great Thou Art: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about How Great Thou Art then: As we travel through Epiphany, most of the gospel readings will depict someone acknowledging Jesus as Lord.  This song offered us language to join in this posture of acclamation. 

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 10-22-2017

This was the twentieth 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:

How Great Thou Art

Death In His Grave by John Mark McMillan

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

Wild One by Jameson McGregor

Crown Him With Many Crowns 

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. 

How Great Thou Art: This song offers us the chance to rehearse responding to the wonder of what God has made, what God has done, and what God will do, with an acknowledgement of God's greatness.  In Ordinary Time, this becomes important because how we respond to this wonder is indeed a part of discerning what it means to be the people of God in our particular time and place.

Death In His Grave: 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.

There's A Wideness in God's Mercy: This is a reminder that we offer ourselves and one another about God's grace and mercy toward us.  We are quite adept at thinking of ways which we might be excluded from the love of God--thinking that it might be true for other people who are less flawed than we--but the truth is that the love of God is much broader than our broadest notions of this love.  Aside from thinking of how this love relates to ourselves, this song also reminds us that the same is true for those who are different than us--those who we might not care much for at all.  Taken together, this song offers us the opportunity to lean further into loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves (which also presupposes that we love ourselves well).

Wild One: This song seeks to remind us that who God is and who we expect God to be are not the same thing--that God is in fact greater than our greatest assumptions.  This idea poses a challenge to us in Ordinary Time to continue to carry the holy curiosity of Epiphany.

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: We sang this song to give voice to the lordship of Christ, with language of power-in-weakness.  In doing so, we call ourselves to imagine how this self-giving savior would have us live and move in the 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 9-17-2017

This was the fifteenth 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:

Come Thou Fount

Amazing Grace by Citizens & Saints

Your Love is Strong by Jon Foreman

Breathe for Me by Jameson McGregor

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

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: When this song is in the set, we almost always sing it first.  This is because it offers us language to orient our attention toward inviting God to shape us around who God has been for the people of God in the past.  By some measure, one of our main concerns in our liturgy is to remember the work of God in the world.  This implication is made most plain in the second stanza that talks about raising an Ebenezer, which, if you don't know, is a monument to signify God's showing up in a time of need.  It is a monument of remembrance.  The song also has some significant themes of God's faithfulness to us, and a petition for God to transform us through God's Story.  During Ordinary time, this is doubly significant, because it mirrors the part of the story that we now find ourselves in--Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again (but hasn't yet).  These words serve to reorient us toward God in a time where we are left to work with the Spirit to look for and lean into the inbreaking of the Kingdom in our particular time and place.

Amazing Grace: We sang this song to remind ourselves of the grace of God both in our particular stories and the larger Story in which we find ourselves.  In the context of this week's sermon text, this song served to remind us of the forgiveness extended to us through the grace of God that we are called to extend to those who wrong us.

Your Love Is Strong: This song gives us words to acknowledge the work of God in our lives in both mundane and significant ways, and rises into an offering of the Lord's Prayer, where we essentially ask God to keep showing up and to transform us into people who relate to one another in a way that is transformed by the grace we have received.

Breathe For Me: This song is a prayer for re-creation.  It gives voice to the sort of wearing thin that comes about when we live in a broken world, and asks the Spirit of God to form us anew and breathe life into us.

There's A Wideness In God's Mercy: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about There's A Wideness In God's Mercy then: This song is a reminder to us that God's mercy is greater than we deem reasonable, and that our thinking is much more bound by rules than God's.  We sang it to proclaim the good news, and to challenge ourselves together to imagine the breadth of God's mercy.

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 9-10-2017

This was the fourteenth 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:

Hope by Jameson McGregor

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

Noise by Jameson McGregor

O Love That Will Not Let Me Go 

All Creatures of Our God and King

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: We sang this song to begin our time together by locating ourselves within a story whose hope is described as light in darkness--not light that merely comes after darkness, but light that exists within and alongside darkness.

There's A Wideness In God's Mercy: This song is a reminder to us that God's mercy is greater than we deem reasonable, and that our thinking is much more bound by rules than God's.  We sang it to proclaim the good news, and to challenge ourselves together to imagine the breadth of God's mercy.

Noise: This song narrates the divine-human relationship, both in broad strokes and on a personal level, and notes two things: 1) humanity consistently fails at being faithful to God, but God always pivots to carry the relationship forward; and 2) God has entered into the depths of humanity and transformed what it is to be human.

O Love That Will Not Let Me Go: This song proclaims God's constancy in relation to us, and offers us the hope that not even death can separate us from the love of God.

All Creatures of Our God and King: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about All Creatures of Our God and King then: We began with this song to join our voices with the rest of creation in expressing thanks and wonder toward the Creator.  

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 8-6-2017

This was the ninth Sunday after Pentecost.  Our songs were gathered with this in mind, and heavily influenced by the lectionary texts.  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:

Crown Him With Many Crowns

SMS [Shine] by David Crowder* Band

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

Wearing Thin 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. 

Crown Him With Many Crowns: A central focus of Ordinary Time is on seeking to be the presence of Christ in our particular time and place--that means to seek to be formed in the way of Christ in such a way that our lives are outposts of the Kingdom.  This song praises Christ as Lord, and speaks of the fact that his Kingdom is marked by peace and self-sacrificial love, thus helping us recenter on our minds on who we are called to be.

SMS [Shine]: This song is a petition for God to be present where God feels absent, and to make Godself known in love.  This presence applies to us personally in the midst of our own pain and doubt, and also asks that we ourselves be made into torches that spread the Light all around us.

There's A Wideness In God's Mercy: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about There's A Wideness In God's Mercy then: This song serves as a reminder of two things: 1) God's mercy extends to us far more generously than we think we deserve; and 2) God's mercy extends to other people far more generously than we think they deserve.  

Wearing Thin: This song is about anxiety, specifically the anxiety that arises when the brokenness of the world seems far too great for us to push back against, but it ultimately serves as a petition for God to draw us in to the work of redemption that God is already doing.

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 7-30-2017

This was the eighth Sunday after Pentecost.  Our songs were gathered with this in mind, and heavily influenced by the lectionary texts.  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:

Amazing Grace by Citizens & Saints

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

Mystery by Jameson McGregor (adapted from Charlie Hall)

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

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. 

Amazing Grace: This song moves from a general sense of God's grace in our lives to a more particular consideration of what effect the grace of God has on the way we live.  This is gathered into an implicit challenge to live as stories of grace and agents of reconciliation.

There's A Wideness In God's Mercy: This song serves as a reminder of two things: 1) God's mercy extends to us far more generously than we think we deserve; and 2) God's mercy extends to other people far more generously than we think they deserve.  

Mystery: This song champions the story of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection as a song of hope for all of creation.

O Love That Will Not Let Me Go: This is a hymn to God's enduring presence with us.  Rather than speaking of the difficulty to hold on to God in the midst of suffering, it proclaims God's presence with those who suffer.  

Hope: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about Hope then: This song clings to the hope that the work of redemption made visible in the Resurrection will spread to the entirety of the cosmos.  This hope is characterized as such because, at the moment, things are still not as they should be--the weeds are growing up with the wheat, so to speak.

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 4-2-2017

This week was the fifth 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

Deliver Me by David Crowder* Band

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

At the Gate by Electrofolk Revival (performed by Emily Hass)

Wayward Ones by The Gladsome Light

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.  

Deliver Me: As we draw near to Easter, this song voices the longing that is going to be addressed in the Resurrection.  In the resurrection, our deepest existential anguish is confronted and shattered.  But standing before this moment in our journey through the Christian story, the weight of tragedy, the madness of the world, our own fears, and our own tendency to be driven by scarcity, presses in all around us, and we begin to wear thin from holding on to the hope that this Jesus we have been coming to know is who we think he is.  

There's A Wideness in God's Mercy: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about There's A Wideness In God's Mercy then: This song speaks a word of mercy into our desert of Lent.  Even as we take time to notice our sin and to lean more deliberately into transformation, we sang this song to remind ourselves that the ever-wide mercy and ever-broad love of God wholly embraces us.

At the Gate:  I asked Emily what drew her to this song.  This is what she said: I forget that eternity is something to look forward to.  This song refreshes my understanding.

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.

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 3-26-2017

This week was the fourth 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

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

Pulse by Jameson McGregor

Up to the Mountain (MLK Song) by Patty Griffin

Wandering by Jameson McGregor

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.  

There's A Wideness in God's Mercy: This song speaks a word of mercy into our desert of Lent.  Even as we take time to notice our sin and to lean more deliberately into transformation, we sang this song to remind ourselves that the ever-wide mercy and ever-broad love of God wholly embraces us.

Pulse: This song is a confession that the love of God and the love that we claim to embody are not always the same thing, and a plea for God to reconnect us to God's active, dynamic, life-giving Spirit and rewrite our notions of love.

Up to the Mountain (MLK Song): This song was selected and sung by Natalie Ramirez, so I asked her for her thoughts on it--here's what she said: There's a lot of humanity and struggle and hope expressed in a simple way in this song. Sometimes life feels like it is too much. Sometimes I question myself and my ability. Sometimes it feels like the good places God wants to take me are going to be too much work or I distrust they won't actually be good. Sometimes God is hard to notice or see or feel and it's hard to see the good or even enjoy the good even when it's there. Sometimes it feels like life is only going to be hard and tiring. But there are moments and glimpses to hold onto where God speaks in what can feel like quick whispers reminding me that I am loved. Reminding me that He asks me to carry on not as an order or a test or to make me more tired but because He loves me and believes in me and is with me.  And even if this life may not have a complete peace, trusting in the Voice that may feel like it's coming and going allows me to hope that I'll hear it again and one day will know it fully.

Wandering: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about Wandering then: During Lent, we enter the wilderness to ask the question of who we are and what we are for, using Jesus as our mirror, and ask the Spirit to transform us more fully into this identity.  Though we make a point to do this for 6 weeks, this sort of wilderness wandering is something most of us do often.  The Christian life is a push-pull between being more fully formed in the way of Christ and settling back into the rhythms that we are seeking to be transformed away from.  If we look inside of ourselves for some sort of consistent cause for hope, we will not find it.  But if we look to God, we will find that God is faithful to us throughout our own ebb and flow of learning to live like Jesus.  So if we build our hope on God's faithfulness to us, we are well on our way to having more solid footing to move forward.  We sang this song to proclaim this truth, to worship God in light of it, and to remind ourselves that our overarching life of faith is tied to who God is for us (not solely if we can look in the mirror and see a perfect Christian).  You can find a studio version of this song here.

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 2-5-2017

This week was the fifth Sunday of Epiphany, and Josh's sermon text was Matthew 5:13-20.  Our songs were gathered with both of these things 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:

Pulse by Jameson McGregor

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

SMS [Shine] by David Crowder* Band

Rise Up by Bifrost Arts

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. 

Pulse: We sang this song to begin our time together confessing that we have been selective with the way that we have practiced love in the way of Christ, and petitioning the Spirit to recreate us into a people who relate to one another as God has revealed to us through Jesus.

There's A Wideness In God's Mercy: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs.  This is what we said about There's A Wideness In God's Mercy then: Through the Beatitudes, the fourth week of Epiphany allows us to consider the upside-down logic of the Kingdom that Jesus came proclaiming.  Those who are truly blessed do not necessarily look like it when viewed through the lens of prosperity that our culture has offered us.  This song carries a similar theme in that it proclaims God's love to be broader than our minds can handle, and God's strictness to be much more malleable than we expect. 

SMS [Shine]: This song both celebrates the "shining" of Epiphany, and also functions as a petition for God to continue to shine in the world through the Church.  The Light that the Church carries is revealed when people who are being formed in the Way of Christ relate to God and one another as Jesus did, rehearsing his story with their lives.

Rise Up: This song is a lament that highlights vulnerable and forgotten people and petitions God to rise up and defend them.  It also petitions God to strengthen God's people as they live as strangers in a strange land.  There's sort of a double-meaning in this song.  It equal parts asks God to do what we cannot, and asks God to enable us to do what it seems we cannot.  This tension is all over the Christian faith.  Because God is in the habit of using the weak to overcome the strong.

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