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Diane and I were away this weekend – enjoying our first minibreak (without any other people we know) in well over a year, probably two years – so this will be short. As in, it will be the AM song list. I’m sure it would have been a great day, and I’ll find out when I meet with the team tomorrow night too.
Sunday AM
Music
1. No Reason To Hide (Houston / Hillsong)
2. My Redeemer Lives (Morgan / Hillsong)
3. It’s Your Love (Fieldes / Hillsong)
4. In Your Presence (DeShazo)
…then following tithes, offerings, news…
5. In Your Presence
Marg was leading today, and I have no doubt would have brought the people into the throneroom of worship today as she always does.
I’m looking forward to meeting with the team to talk about it and our Christmas / Hannukah / Jews for Jesus celebration weekend coming up the week before Christmas, and right after we complete the last session for our album. Yay!
Note for Facebook readers : remember if I post a video or song, you’ll need to actually click through to my blog to see or listen. You know you want to.
One day, hopefully soon, Diane will write a post about her (our) involvement with Christian Solidarity Worldwide. My intercessory zeal for the persecuted has certainly been fueled by her passion in this area.
The story that follows is (yet another) heartbreaking reminder that we are blessed beyond comprehension, and can’t ever forget that.
As famine looms in Uganda, child sacrifice is on the rise. The crisis hits the poorest fuelling the demand for the rituals. A police report confirms 23 deaths since the beginning of the year. One child abuse worker says unemployment and poverty have caused people to turn to witch doctors in increasing numbers to try and sort out their problems. Lee DeYoung with Words of Hope agrees and notes a startling trend: “The numbers have increased, and at least in some cases, those sacrificed have been the children of believers.”
Christian radio broadcasts have contributed to the growth of the church. DeYoung says, “The church is being mobilized to speak against this terrible evil. When a child is executed in this kind of ritual sacrifice fashion, it is a violation of Ugandan law. However, human trafficking is less clearly prohibited in the legal code.” The rise of the grisly practice has been slow, but steady. According to government reports, last year ritual ceremonies linked more than 300 casesof murder and disappearances. Only a handful of perpetrators were found.
DeYoung says there is an increasingly aggressive presence of witchcraft. A specially trained police task force has been established to seek to control human sacrifice. Since then however, there have been 15 more murders. That concerns police, who are investigating another 200 disappearances. DeYoung urges prayer. “It does seem that where the Gospel is spreading, the enemy retaliates. We need to be in prayer that those who experience this may be able to respond, and that the Lord’s provision will prevail.”
Source: Intercessors Network via Australian Prayer Network
Come and join in with Sunday Setlists over at FredMckinnon.com, and see how churches around the world have been worshiping this week..
Our season of refreshing soaking in the Holy Spirit continues at Awesome Church. We were certainly well soaked today, both in the Spirit and in the natural…with perspiration from the 42C heat (107F)!! Despite this, the people were keen to soak in the Spirit, so we did – especially at the evening service.
Sunday AM
The Actsian church message series continued today. It’s so good to be studying what the Acts church looked like and assess ourselves against that. Are we being the church as it was birthed, and therefore (I believe) as God meant it to continue? Everyone was left anticipating the 2nd part of the message, but time/heat meant it’s been carried over to next week…!
Music
1. For Your Name (Morgan, Gillies, Houston / Hillsong)
2. Happy Day (Hughes, Cantelon)
3. This Is Our God (Morgan / Hillsong)
4. Come Holy Spirit (Fletcher)
…then following tithes, offerings, news…
5. Come Holy Spirit
I was back leading for the morning service, and apart from all going smoothly, we got lots of response from the congregation about God’s presence being “thick” during the worship. We’re all loving mixing up some of the older choruses into our sets of late. This Is Our God was particularly sweet, as we did a slightly different arrangement than usual, with more ebb and flow, and more opportunity for free-worship … which the congregation grabbed on to. It’s beautiful to lead worship and hear the congregation above the worship team. Truly amazing.
Due to the heat, we didn’t extend the service today at the morning service…but we did for the evening service, even though it was quite possibly even hotter by that point. It didn’t matter though; people wanted to worship, so they did.
Sunday PM
Tonight’s message was an insightful look into the story of Simon Peter’s encounter with Simon the Sorcerer. Looking at how people want to buy their way in to the good things of God, not understanding the price to be paid to go deeper in understanding, power, and victoriously living for Him doesn’t involve money.
Music
1. For Your Glory (Pringle, Smith / C3)
2. You’ll Come (Fraser / Hillsong)
…then following tithes, offerings, news…
3. Come Holy Spirit
…then to finish the service (Worship+)
4. Come Holy Spirit
5. To Worship You, I Live (Houghton, Houghton / Lakewood)
6. Rain Down (Seeley / Planetshakers)
Julie led tonight, and continued to flow in the spirit of the recent meetings with some prophetic singing. I was actually called up during the Worship+ part of the evening to help lead the free-worship, particularly in Come Holy Spirit and Rain Down, both of which were in male keys, and the male singers had wanted ministry so…kinda just left the girls on stage. I love our youth – so hungry for God! It was a privilege to lead and worship with these guys tonight, and offer some sweet harmonies for To Worship You, I Live, which was debuted this evening and inspired some beautiful, uninhibited free-singing from the congregation.
I love my church!
Note for Facebook readers : remember if I post a video or song, you’ll need to actually click through to my blog to see or listen. You know you want to.
Let me fill you in on the past year, creatively speaking…
Remember Our Creative Community? And my own personal goal to post 12 recorded masterpieces (humour me…) this year?
No? Well, seems I didn’t either.
Actually, I did…I was just ignoring it…
It all went so smoothly for about 5 minutes. Then I decided to go and produce our church’s first worship album, and it all went a little haywire. Great excuse huh!
The last song I posted here was back in May. MAY?!? Where did the last 6 months go? Wait, I know exactly where they went. Lots and lots and LOTS of hours in a recording studio with the awesome worship team from Awesome Church. It’s a sacrifice I’ve been glad to make, though Diane and I have definitely felt the strain too. The album is very nearly done though, and this is a good good good thing.
Anyway…
About a month ago, I did a post over at my good friend Jenni Clayville’s blog telling a bit of my story, because like everyone … I have one. Or two. Maybe more.
In the comments, Jenni’s amazing husband Brian requested a song for his birthday. Now, he may have been joking (I really don’t know – I never asked – it’s not like I haven’t embarked on this personalisedsong thing before), but it was the impetus I needed to write something of my own again and see if I could remember how to do this. I’ve been writing and recording congregational music all year, which involves a very very different process to how I approach my non-church music, which mainly comprises mini electronic pop epics (poptronica).
So I wrote this. You now have your own song, Brian.
And Jenni, I still want to re-do yours properly as a thank-you for sending me the audio file of Brian’s snoring that inspired this. I’m just looking for a big band… who’ll work for free…
Gotta say though…my snoring is WAY worse than Brian’s. Though the only time it’s been recorded I had sinus and a completely blocked nose, so…
Back to the song…
Lyrics: as usual for me, it took a long time to get the lyrics to happen. Music = easy peasy, but lyrics…no. Except when I’m writing church music, when the lyrics often come first and suggest the melody, etc. In this case, as for all my commissioned “song-for-a-friend” works, I try to dig up plenty of dirt from significant others, but usually most of the good stuff comes from Twitter and Facebook stalking anyway. Add in some inspiration from a great post on Brian’s blog, and we have a song that combines Biblical truth, snoring, fishing for sharks, gas and twittering…amongst other things.
Music: again, as usual for me, it’s crammed too full of ideas because that’s pretty much how I roll all the time; always lots going on. I love the production side of making music, even though this isn’t produced as well as I’d like it to be, purely due to time constraints. It also has a few of my now trademark twists, which are therefore not twists because it would be a twist to do something straight. I may be the M.Night Shyamalan of poptronica.
Waking everybody with a sound
That’s been likened to sawing
Some call it snoring
All the best husbands do it
So our wives have something to tweet about
As if the bobbleheaded conversation
sprinkled with some speculation
covering the sanitation habits of the generation
that we’re raising all across the nation
…wasn’t enough
(some choral wailing)
Kids are upside down in nearly
Every single family picture
It’s probably better that way
Definitely better than attempts
to fish for sharks from the car
I wonder whose genes he got?
Should this be rhymed with bergamot?
Maybe, but probably not
Though citrus-scented gas
Might be a winner
(some more choral wailing)
(Love)
Love never gives up, never looks back
Never gives up, never looks back, never gives up…
(endures)
(Love endures)…
Waking everybody with a sound
That’s been likened to sawing
Often called snoring
And if I’m not sleeping through life, you’re not going to either.
**Could I have possibly written a more tongue twisting bridge? Why yes, I could have. This abridged tongue twister (ha!) was the compromised version… It was also much harder to sing at 12.30am than it is now at 10.00am. Hmmmm… Did you hear the stumbles in there? I might as well have sung “dup nebber dip dup”…
As always with these newsy posts, anything I’ve added is in the bluey/greeny/turquoisey colour…
KEVIN Rudd (Australian Prime Minister) and Malcolm Turnbull (Leader of the Opposition) have offered an historic apology to “forgotten Australians” and former child migrants who suffered abuse, exploitation and neglect in institutions and foster homes. There were emotional scenes in Parliament House’s Great Hall as the Prime Minister said sorry to those children whose childhoods were snatched away, as some survivors sobbed while others stood and cheered. A few angrily demanded compensation.
The event was the second landmark apology by Mr Rudd, who in February last year said sorry to the Aboriginal Stolen Generations. Andrew Murray, a former Australian Democrats senator who was instrumental in establishing the first of several Senate inquiries into church and state-sanctioned abuse, demanded the government establish a reparations fund. He said helping survivors of childhood abuse was a matter of reparations.
“When you look worldwide, harsh things have happened to people, whether it’s the Jews in Germany or indigenous people in America – it is reparations that is the word used,” he told reporters in Canberra on Monday. “Compensation is just one part of that.”
In delivering the apology, Mr Rudd apologised for an “ugly chapter” in the nation’s history: “Sorry that as children you were taken from your families and placed in institutions where so often you were abused . . . Sorry for the tragedy, the absolute tragedy, of childhoods lost. “We look back with shame that many of these little ones who were entrusted to institutions and foster homes instead were abused physically, humiliated cruelly, violated sexually. And we look back with shame at how those with power were allowed to abuse those who had none.”
The Opposition Leader was choked with emotion as he recounted stories of small children separated from their siblings and abused. “You were failed by the system of care,” Mr Turnbull said. “For far too long, your stories were not believed when they should have been, and for that too we apologise, and we are sorry.” He urged Australians to speak out if they suspected children were being abused today.
Mr Rudd promised priority aged care services and support for those Forgotten Children, frightened to return to institutions. The government will fund a national database to help people find siblings and relatives they have lost, support projects with the National Library and Museum to ensure their experiences are not forgotten, and provide money to advocacy groups. About 500,000 children were placed in institutions and foster homes between 1920 and the 1970s. In addition, about 7000 British children were sent to Australia and institutionalised.
Source: Compiled by APN from media reports
APN Editors note: Ten years ago the British Prayer Movement, at the invitation of the Australian Prayer Network, sent a team of around 50 leaders and Intercessors to Australia to apologise for the sins of their nation in the foundation years of European settlement, in what became known as British/Australian reconciliation. I was privileged to be part of some of these early reconciliation meetings in my hometown of Moree, a town known for its past racial problems and now a centre for the ongoing reconciliation work between Aboriginal & white Australia
In particular they apologised for the massacre and ill treatment of the Indigenous People of our nation by those who came in the name of Britain to the shores of this great land, and also to the many thousands of child migrants who were sent here by the British Government without their parents knowledge or permission, to empty crowded orphanages in Britain.
Whilst the issue was dealt with on a spiritual basis ten years ago it has only been in the past two years that the natural outworking of that intercession has been seen. The apologies given by the Federal Government to our Indigenous Australians last year and the apology given on Monday to the forgotten and abused Australians, including the child migrants sent here by Britain, complete in the natural what was begun in the spiritual 10 years ago.
We praise God for these apologies which will have far reaching consequences in both the spiritual and natural realms, not to mention in the lives of those people directly impacted by the events for which the apologies were given. The apologies go a long way in helping to heal some of the “wounds of our childhood” as a nation, which were spoken of prophetically at the time of the British visit as being on the heart of God in convicting both the British and Australian prayer movements to journey down the path of repentance and forgiveness relative to these areas of our nation’s life.
Come and join in with Sunday Setlists over at FredMckinnon.com, and see how churches around the world have been worshiping this week..
Today, I’m really happy to say that my worship post has been shared from my wife’s perspective. So, please welcome Diane for her first worship service summary/confessional/setlist/thingy.
Another refreshing Sunday this week, with Awesome Church continuing to have an expectancy and rest in God. It’s been really exciting to see this happen, and a real encouragement to me personally for a multitude of reasons. True humility really thrills me, and I know that’s mostly because I need to be humble myself. It can be a tough lesson to learn, but sometimes we make it harder than it should be.
It’s almost like Pastor Gary is saying ‘ok, I’ll do what God’s called me to preach, and then I’ll get myself out of the way!’ Love it. I really hope and pray this season keeps on going, as a church we do need it. We need it individually and corporately.
Next up is a proposed 24/7 Day of Worship! We don’t know when or how (our pastor will be in Fiji for 2 weeks in December) but it will certainly happen.
Sunday AM
The message was on being an Acts church. We are still part of the book of Acts, as the story of the church continues to be written. We were reminded that Jesus’ ministry was startling and miraculous – there is a time to be meditative and quiet, but as a church we need to move in God’s power to change this world, and do what Jesus did – preach, teach and heal. The Acts church were a church of action, and a people who relinquished their control to God. They were united and prayed together with one accord, and were blessed through that; their experience was the wind and fire of the Holy Spirit’s anointing when they met together, and God’s power was poured out. Lastly, what did they do? They changed the world. We are no different, and this is what we are called to do as well.
Music
1. No Reason To Hide (Houston, Crocker / Hillsong)
2. I Walk By Faith (Chris Falson)
3. His Glory Appears (Sampson, Zschech / Hillsong)
4. I Exalt Thee (Pete Sanchez Jr)
…then following tithes, offerings, news…
5. Show Me Your Glory (Murgida / Awesome Church)
…and to close the service…
6. I Exalt Thee
7. His Glory Appears
(though as has become the new norm for us, those last two spent a lot more time in free/prophetic worship than singing the written songs. Just over an hour actually.)
Rachel led today, and I continue to fairly burst with pride when I see these ‘young’uns’ step up to the plate. She’s moved from being a young girl who could sing well and lead nervously to a young woman who really can worship and lead others into the presence of God in a prophetic way. Move over, Kim Walker!
The band were super tight today (give or take the odd stumbled lyric), Tyson did a fab job on drums – again, someone who’s come a long way and has become a fantastic artist. (Editors note: It’s good for our worshippers to ALSO be artists)
The harmonies on His Glory Appears were SO sweet, I love what our team does to this song. We continue to resurrect some oldies but goodies with I Exalt Thee, which really focused the congregation. Many people did not want to leave after the time of free worship, and that is always a good sign on a Sunday morning!
So there you have it, straight from a completely unbiased congregation member. Seriously, Diane is probably less biased than many other people; no messing about with my wife.
As usual when I spend a Saturday in the recording studio, Diane and I didn’t attend the evening service so we could actually spend some time together, otherwise we don’t see each other for quality alone time at all in those weeks. And Saturday’s session took a long time – the day was over 16 hours for me and the engineer – but it was very fruitful.
Note for Facebook readers : remember if I post a video or song, you’ll need to actually click through to my blog to see or listen. You know you want to.
Came to bed and noticed that Maebh wasn’t in her usual spot sleeping…because she was fascinated by this rather large spider (and even though this is the land of all things poisonous, this one is fine…except fir the potential nasty bite)
So a few snapshots later, said spider is now outside…still on the vase because no amount of banging the vase on the lawn would convince it to loosen it’s grip
It’s Remembrance Week (that’s what I call it, since Remembrance Day falls on Wednesday this year, and some churches call the Sunday before it Remembrance Sunday). As we remember those who fought and are fighting in the various wars – regardless of your views on the validity of those wars – remember Somalia too.
My heart aches for all peoples wiped out by genocide; regardless of religion, they are God’s beloved people, and I believe this is yet another aspect of His creation which breaks His heart daily.
Somalia is currently the hardest place in the world to be a Christian citizen. There are thought to be no more than a thousand Christians in a resident population of 8m people, with perhaps a few thousand more in the Diaspora. The Islamist Shabab militia, which controls most of southern Somalia, is dedicated to hunting them down. Christian men attend mosques on Fridays, so as not to arouse suspicion. Bibles are kept hidden. There are no public meetings, let alone a church. Churches and Christian cemeteries have been destroyed.
The only Christian believers left are local Somalis. Catching and killing them is useful propaganda for indoctrinating its young fighters and suicide-bombers in the belief that America, Britain, Italy and the Vatican, are all “crusaders” trying to convert Somalis to Christianity.
The transitional government of Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, is unlikely to speak up for anyone caught with a bible. Though professing moderation, he promotes a version of sharia law whereby every citizen of Somalia is born a Muslim and anyone who converts to another religion is guilty of apostasy, punishable by death.
Every month several Somalis are killed for being Christian. Christian groups monitoring Somalia from abroad, report at least 13 members of underground churches have been killed in the past few months. Most were Mennonites. They include:
a 46-year-old woman shot dead after a Swahili-language bible was found in her shack;
a 69-year-old man killed after Shabab fighters found 25 Somali bibles in a bag he was carrying;
and two boys, aged 11 and 12, who were beheaded by the Shabab after their father refused to divulge information about an underground church.
Hundreds of Somalis may have been killed for being Christian since the Shabab arose in 2005. Such atrocities – and reports that the Koran has been read over the victims even at the point of their beheading – are upsetting to evangelical Christians.
Mr Ahmed’s government sorely needs money to shore itself up. But if he fails even to hint that Christians should be tolerated, he may find America’s Congress increasingly loath to help bail him out. (While I don’t think religion should be used as a political tool, I do think there needs to be assurance – whatever that means – that if a govt is going to help another one that there won’t be genocidal behaviour for any peoples. How you ensure that is another matter entirely)
Source: Intercessors Network via Australian Prayer Network
It was also much harder to sing at 12.30am than it is now at 10.00am. Hmmmm… Did you hear the stumbles in there? I might as well have sung “dup nebber dip dup”…
