Set List 08.30.09

Here is the music that we used for 08.30.09:

[Opening Song]
D - Everyday - Joel Houston

[Welcome]

[Worship Set]
Bb - You You Are God - Walker Beach
Bb - O Praise Him - David Crowder
E - King Of Glory - Third Day

[Message]
Rev. Jamie Burdette

[Closing Song]
E - Your Love Is Extravagant - Darrell Evans

Our Senior Pastor Steve Hogg had a really busy weekend. So Jamie filled in for him at Reveal this week in order to give him a break. Jamie gave a great talk about Joshua staying focused on God even during the 38 years that he spent wandering in the desert before entering the Promised Land.

We had a great crowd (~70) this week and several Winthrop students came to worship this morning which was very encouraging.

This week the Reveal Band gets the privilege of leading worship at Winthrop's Baptist Collegiate Ministry (BCM) meeting on Thursday Night. We led back in the spring for them and had a great time. I am looking forward to this so I hope that you will come out and join us. Dinner at 7pm and Worship at 8pm.

As always part of Fred McKinnon's Sunday Set Lists.

Dream Big...Pray Bigger!

Will

Set List 08.23.09

Here is the music that we used for Sunday 08.23.09 - Week 4 of Indescribable

[Opening Song]
G - Creed - Rich Mullins (Third Day Version)

[Welcome]
B - Let God Arise - Chris Tomlin
B - In The Light - Charlie Peacock (dc Talk Version)
D - Desert Song - Brooke Fraser

[Message]
Rev. Steve Hogg - Indescribable (4)

[Closing Song]
A - Mighty To Save - Reuben Morgan

This was a crazy Sunday. We had the opportunity to lead worship for the Youth Group's kick-off event called "Rock The House" at 9:15. Then I had to run upstairs for 10:30 worship. The Reveal band played "Desert Song" for the offertory special in that service and then I had to run back down stairs to prep for Reveal at 11:55. On "Let God Arise" I broke a string and played "In the Light" with 5 strings. I got a back-up guitar for the rest of the set, but then when we came up to sing the closing song, the batteries died in my microphone. Thankfully, Stacy (one of the BGV's) picked up and led out on the song so that it was not too awkward. Anyway, Steve used it as a teaching moment that seemed to go over well.

Here's the set we did for "Rock The House"

G - Creed - Rich Mullins (Third Day Version)
E - Undignified - Matt Redman (David Crowder Version)
B - Let God Arise - Chris Tomlin
B - Marvelous Light - Charlie Hall
D - Desert Song - Brooke Fraser
A - Mighty To Save - Reuben Morgan

As always part of Fred McKinnon's Sunday Set Lists.

Dream Big...Pray Bigger!

Will

Help Us Out

If you are a regular at Reveal, I have two requests for you.

1. Can you be in the Apex by 11:45? This will help guests who show up feel more comfortable in a big room. It will also be easier for us to get started on time if more people are in the room beforehand.

2. If you're not volunteering, would you be willing to help with childcare or greeting? Because of schedule changes and moves, we've lost some committed volunteers. If you can help in either place, email me (jamieb@fbcrockhill.org). We are going to have a brief meeting on Sunday, August 30 immediately following Reveal for everyone who is already part of the greeter ministry and for anyone who is interested in volunteering for it.

Thanks for listening.

-- Peace, Jamie

Set List 08.16.09

Here is the music that we used for 08.16.09 - Indescribable (Week 3):

[Opening Song]
Eb - The Solid One - Jeff Zabel

[Welcome]

[Worship Set]
B - Counting On God - Jared Anderson
G - Hallelujah (Your Love Is Amazing) - Brenton Brown
G - Indescribable - Laura Story (Chris Tomlin Version)

[Message]

[Closing Song]
C - Everlasting God - Brenton Brown (Lincoln Brewster Version)

This was a crazy day for me. I felt really out of sorts. We changed up the service order for the 10:30 service on Friday afternoon but I wasn't in the office to find out about it because Lori and I closed on our house. Then because we were moving on Saturday, I didn't have internet for the weekend. So I found out at 8:00 when I got to church that we had made some changes.

We also planned to do an extended invitation time which meant that I was not able to practice with the Reveal band much before our service. I finished upstairs at about 11:35 and ran downstairs to practice. We had to run a song that we were not planning to do because Pastor Hogg wanted it close the service with it. So I had to also change the Song Show Plus show for the morning. When I finally finished, there was about 3 minutes left on the countdown.

During the first song, I messed up going back to the intro and could find my place for about 8 bars but the band did a great job just playing along and letting me get back together. Then I dropped my pick and didn't have an extra one on the stand. Luckily, I had the welcome to kind of re-group.

After that, worship went really well, and the sermon was one of the best that I have heard from him. All three services had a ton of energy and the invitation was strong in all three services. Steve preached on the omnipotence (power) of God and then he closed the sermon talking about how when we don't have any strength, God's strength is there for us. When we are tired - He's not. When we are ready to give up - He's not! We then closed the service with "Everlasting God" which was a great fit.

A friend of mine was really struggling during the invitation so at the solo break, I went down to pray with him. I wanted the vocalists to keep the song going after the solo, but the message did not get passed to them and there was kind of an awkward stop, but we sang the song again at the very end and everything went well. I'll discuss that situation at practice on Tuesday and we'll work out some arrangement if I need to step down from singing during a invitation again.

Overall, this was one of the best services we have had a FBC since I have been here.

As always, a part of Fred McKinnon's Sunday Set-Lists.

Dream Big...Pray Bigger!

Will

Night

Elie Wiesel in his Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance speech uttered the following:

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.

After spending a year in concentration camps in WWII Germany, Wiesel witnessed firsthand the terrible evil that is possible in mankind, the utter depravity that man apart from God is. Upon entering Birkenau for the first time and seeing the crematorium, he was astonished that such evil could happen in this world during this time without an outcry from the ends of the earth. He has dedicated his life to being the voice of the tormented and the victim.

What does this have to do with Reveal? Too often, we see those who aren't Christ-followers as the enemy. We condemn their lifestyles, their choices, their actions, and, in a very real way, we condemn them. Instead, we should see those who are follow the ways of the world as the tormented and the victim and Satan, the prince of this world as the true enemy, as the tormentor and the oppressor. More than that, we cannot remain neutral in the fight. We must take sides and overcome the darkness of this world with the Light. If the goal of Reveal is to shine Light into darkness, what are we as individuals going to do today to make a difference? Are we conscious of who the real enemy is? Are we aware of the brokenness around us? We must make sure that we aren't neutral, and, as a church, we must make the lives of those living in darkness the center of our universe.

-- Peace, Jamie

Friday Thots

It has been a busy and crazy week. The crazy Monday and the trip to Atlanta on Tuesday has kept me running to catch up. Will and Lori are moving on Saturday so Will has been busy as well.

Here are a few nuggets from the week, especially from the Atlanta trip:

• The Georgia Aquarium is really nice. While it should take about 2-2 1/2 hours to get through the whole place, part of our group went through the entire aquarium in 47 minutes.

• I got to see the whale sharks being fed. Finally, I found a shark that doesn't frighten me. I've never seen Jaws all the way through. I have read the book. I do NOT like sharks.

• We got to the ballpark an hour before the game started and I got to watch batting practice. The down side is that I was ready to go sometime during the third inning.

• I don't know if it's because I knew we had a four hour drive back or if I'm getting older, but I have a hard time sitting through a full baseball game. Can't they shorten the games to seven innings? Three hours plus for a ball game is a LONG time.

• On the way back, I ate a bag of salt and vinegar chips and drank an extra sweet Lipton sweet tea. Then I followed that with a bag of Peachie O's. My stomach was not amused.

• Because of the sugar rush and caffeine high, I didn't get to sleep until almost 5:00am on Wednesday morning.

• The rain on Wednesday made me want to move to the Pacific Northwest. I love rainy, cool days. If I could order up about 250 of those a year, I would.

• On Wednesday, Hunter and I had a great time planning some videos for the upcoming Marriage for Dummies series.

On Sunday, we will be in week 3 of Indescribable. Steve will continue a sermon series on the attributes of God. I hope that we will see you at Reveal!

-- Peace, Jamie

Set List 08.09.09

Here is the music that we used for Sunday 08.09.09 - Week 2 of "Indescribable"

[Opening Song]
Creed - Rich Mullins (Third Day Version)

[Worship Set]
Desert Song - Brooke Fraser
My Savior, My God - Aaron Shust

[Sermon]
Rev. Steve Hogg

[Communion]
Communion - Third Day

[Closing Song]
Nothing But The Blood - Robert Lowry

Well this week, I was totally immersed in "Creed". We had practiced the song for two weeks or so and I had been struggling with the intro vocals a lot. So I just decided to listen to the intro over and over and over...You get the idea. And that is exactly what I did...ALL WEEK! Needless to say, I became a little tired of the intro to the song after about a hundred run-throughs of personal practice. And I guess that I had psyched myself up about how well the song was going to go over. Because I was hoping for more energy from the congregation, but I felt like it was a little flat. Don't know if I was expecting too much or if people just were not familiar with it or what it was. We are planning on kicking off the "REFRESH" service on Sept 6 with that song, so we may bring it back once more to remind REVEAL of it so that they can kick-start the energy that morning.

On a much more positive note: Stacy was supposed to sing "Desert Song" again this weekend. But Saturday morning she came down with some kind of head cold thing. She texted me and my wife, Lori, to let us know. Lori basically learned the song Saturday morning and led it in worship on Sunday and did a GREAT JOB! For those of you who lead on a regular basis, you know how hard it is to lead a new song on short notice. Thanks Lori, for all your hard work on that song.

Finally, I broke a string during the set this week, but thankfully it was on the last 4 bars of the last song - PRAISE GOD! It is really distracting to break a string and I am grateful that it lasted through the service.

As always, part of Fred McKinnon's Sunday Set Lists.

Dream Big...Pray Bigger!

Will

Manic Monday

At about 10:00am I started a blog entry that recapped yesterday. Then the phone rang. Twelve hours later, no new blog, no recap. A lot of things can happen when we answer the phone.

I spent the rest of the day 'putting out fires' which is really just another way of saying I was doing ministry, maybe unplanned ministry, but ministry nonetheless.

Also at some point during the day, I found out that a question I sent to Andy Stanley had been published in Outreach Magazine. So I guess you could say that I've had a conversation with Andy Stanley AND my writing has been published in Outreach Magazine.

You could say that. I don't think I will though.

Tonight, I had a planning meeting for Refresh (September 6 at FBC). I tweeted after the meeting that I'm pumped about the worship experience that is being planned. Two hours later, I am even more pumped.

Refresh is September 6 at 10:00am. Put the date on your calendar. You do NOT want to miss it.

Tomorrow, I will be leaving for Atlanta with our college group in the morning to go to the aquarium and a Braves-Natinals game. We won't get back until 2 or 3 in the morning on Wednesday. No blog post from me tomorrow.

I will try to get a recap of Sunday up then. It was a really good day at First Baptist and Reveal.

-- Peace, Jamie

PS - I misspelled Nationals above on purpose. This happened at the beginning of the season and PTI hasn't let them live it down since.

View From the Top

On Thursday morning, I headed out of Rock Hill with Elizabeth and Victoria to go to Crowder's Mountain State Park. Our goal for the morning was to take the Tower Trail up to the top of Crowder's Mountain. A couple of years ago, we had made a similar drive and hiked to the top of King's Pinnacle.

My confession is that while I am not much of a camper - my idea of roughing it is a hotel room without ESPN - I enjoy hiking a lot. I like seeing the wildlife on the trail. I love hiking beside streams and waterfalls. But my favorite part of the hike is getting to the top and looking down over the houses, trees, and cars and seeing the landscape roll off in the distance.

When we crested Crowder's, we walked past the communications towers and up a small path to a rock ledge that gave us a great view to the east. We ate PB&J sandwiches, drank a bottle of water and took some pictures.

We'd been there about 30 minutes when I noticed that off in the distance I could see the skyline of downtown Charlotte. WOW! Thirty to forty miles from downtown and yet I could see the skyscrapers in the distance. In a few hours, we would be in the parking lot at the base of the mountin and not able to see the Charlotte skyline. We would drive toward Charlotte on I-85 and still wouldn't be able to see the Charlotte skyline. It was only from the top that we were able to get a different view on our surroundings, to see things in the distance, to see things that we wouldn't otherwise be able to see.

I don't get to the top of enough mountains. Life gets busy. Schedules get squeezed. I get too tired or lazy to make the climb. But when I do, I am always amazed by the view and awed by the perspective.

-- Peace, Jamie

PS - If you want to check out some pics from the top of Crowder's Mountian and you're on Facebook, go here.

This Weekend

Here's a quick update on Reveal for this weekend.

• We are in week 2 of Indescribable. Steve will be touching on the eternal nature and personality of God. God is much more than an impersonal force or idea. He is a personal God who desires a relationship with each of us. Some verses to check out to get ready for Sunday - Psalm 90:2; 102:12, 24-27; John 4:24; and Malachi 3:6.
  

• We will celebrate the Lord's Supper together. To me, this is one of the highlights of worship. Joining together as a community to remember and to celebrate the work of Christ should be both sobering and encouraging.

• Here are a couple of Scripture passages to look at to get ready for Sunday: Luke 22:14-20 and 1 Corinthians 11:23-26.I look forward to seeing you at Reveal this Sunday.

-- Peace, Jamie

Community

A book that I am reading has a quote in it that intrigued me: “There is a reason the word belonging has a synonym for want at its center; it is the human condition.”

The more I thought about that quote, the more I realized that much of what we are about in Reveal and in First Baptist is helping people find a place to belong, a group of people who are doing life together, a way of life that reveals to the world around us the fantastic, overwhelming, amazing love of the Father.

People in our culture are looking for connection. That's why Facebook and MySpace and Twitter have become so popular. But there is something lacking in those venues - the face-to-face interaction that brings with it a human touch. That's why we have small groups. That's why we do lunch once a month together. That's why it's so important for us to connect with one another.

-- Peace, Jamie

Set List 08.02.09

Here is the music that we used for Sunday 08.02.09: Week 1 of "Indescribable"

[Opening Song]
(F#m) - My Glorious - Martin Smith

[Welcome]

[Worship Set]
(B) - Song of Hope (Heaven Come Down) - Robbie Seay Band
(A) - God of Wonders - Steve Hindalong
(G) - Indescribable - Chris Tomlin

[Message]
Rev. Steve Hogg

[Closing Song]
(C) - Word Of God Speak - MercyMe

This Sunday kicked off our new series "Indescribable" - we are going to spend 5 weeks trying to describe something that we are telling you from the beginning is indescribable. (Insert laughter here). Actually, this series is about the Doctrine of God. I am so pumped about this series. I have been re-reading one of my systematic theology books from seminary (you know, just some light reading) and God has been blowing my mind and I know that this series will continue that trend. It has been my prayer for this series that the congregation will have their myths about God shattered and that truth will "flow down like rain" over them.

"Indescribable" was the only new song for us this week. All of the others we have done before. Once again we had a great crowd for the summer. Like I said before, I was really thinking that we would be doing good to be around 35-40 for each week during the summer. Boy did God blow that one out of the water. We have been averaging 55-60 each week. We have a ton of momentum going in to the Fall and hopefully with another marketing push, Winthrop students coming back, and a great relationship series coming up (Marriage for Dummies) in September/October we will be poised to get our average over 100 for the fall.

Lunch was great. We had subs from Wal-Mart, and it was good to chat with some of our peeps after the service. This has been a great time of fellowship for our group and I continue to look forward to what God is going to do in our church and our city through our people.

As always part of Fred McKinnon's Sunday Set Lists.

Dream Big...Pray Bigger!

Will

Sunday

Yesterday was week one of our new sermon series, "Indescribable." Steve was back after a well-earned vacation. The goal of Indescribable is to help us know God and what He is like so that we can experience life-change through His transformation and shaping of us and also so that we can explain more about Him to others so that they can experience life-change through knowing Him.

Because I was signed up for childcare for Reveal, I knew I was going to miss the message so I slipped into our 9:15 gathering for part of the sermon. Here are some of the highlights:

• Knowledge of God is intended to change who we are.
• Our view of God shapes our lives, our values, our priorities, our focus, our spending, our morals.
• The Bible assumes that God exists. (In fact, Psalm 14:1 says that those who deny God's existence are fools.)
• Knowing doctrine is important. It helps us with questions and different views that many people have.
  
• God reveals Himself to us through General Revelation (Nature) and Specific Revelation (Jesus & Scripture).
• We can learn a lot about God but it is useless if it doesn't change our lives.
• Steve ended with a great question - what are you doing with what you already know about God?

While I was supposed to be in childcare, I was in reality running around helping some of our volunteers get set up for lunch following Reveal. We have GREAT volunteers. We definitely could not have pulled off lunch yesterday without them.

I missed being in the room for Reveal but there was a good crowd there again yesterday. It has been a great summer and there are only two more Sundays before school cranks up again.

-- Peace, Jamie