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In a week when hardly anybody in their right minds will be blogging or reading them (I know this says a lot about me…) this is my last Sunday Setlists post.

On this blog.

In the next few days, I’ll be finalising some changes to my online-ness, one part of which will be the shutting down of Shaping The Space. So stay tuned for that.

Wait, no-one’s reading this…so…um…anyway…

We had a “review of 2009″ type message today, and a bit of preparing for 2010. A big part of that, in the early part of the year, will be the release of our album, which I mastered on Wednesday. Feels like a decade ago now, with Christmas in between and all that goes along with it, but it’s ready for replication and will be released in February. iTunes, etc will follow later.

Sunday AM Music

1. You Deserve (Hillsong, 2008)
2. Desert Song (Hillsong, 2008)
3. It’s Your Love (Hillsong, 2009)
4. He Is Lord (Hillsong, 2008)
…then for the tithes & offerings…
5. Give Thanks (198something)
…before the preaching
6. I Walk By Faith (C3, 1990)
…and then to close the service with the altar call…
6. Give Thanks, but then morphing in a spontaneous song, all of which went for around an hour. A wonderful time of Holy Spirit soaking.

In what is often a difficult week – mid-summer, straight after Christmas – we had most of our people there, and ready to worship & seek today. Margaret led that time of intimacy with God through music beautifully, as she always does. And the spontaneous song (yes, I recorded some as I was in the congregation…no, I’m not posting it here…it was to help the team remember how it went) was truly a blessing.

And with summer, we don’t have evening services until February 2010 either.  Just so ya know.

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I’m keeping this uber-short this week. Because no-one should be reading set-lists in the week before Christmas anyway

It was our all weekend Christmas/Hanukkah celebration from Friday to Sunday, with Bob Mendelsohn from Jews for Jesus offering powerful messages about Christ in Hanukkah and also Messiah-mas. Love that name.

Following is two lists from Sunday, as usual, except I’ve abbreviated the song credits because I’m a bit time strapped. Our AM service was a “normal” service, while PM was our Christmas celebration. In effect, this meant a 12 hour day for much of the team. Tis done, twas fun. Glad it’s over for another year. Actually, this is my last Christmas with Awesome Church…at least for several years, probably longer. Feels kinda weird.

Also, for anyone who is reading…I’m changing some of my online presence over the next week or so. More to come later, but anyone who subscribes to this blog will be affected, just so ya know.

Sunday AM Music

1. No Reason To Hide (Hillsong, 2009)
2. For Who You Are (Hillsong, 2006)
3. His Glory Appears (Hillsong, 2009)
4. To Meet You Here (Awesome Church, 2009)
…then following tithes, offerings, news…
5. Happy Day (Tim Hughes, 2006)
…and then to close the service with the altar call…
6. His Glory Appears

Sunday PM Music – Christmas Party

1. Let God Arise (Tomlin, 2006)
2. This Is Our God (Hillsong, 2008)
*introduction to the Christmas/Messiahmas party*
3. I’m Walking In Authority (Donnie McClurkin, 2009) – our KidPower sang while the CrossMovement junior dance team danced. Completely gorgeous.
4. The Light Of The World (Jews for Jesus, 1982) – considering our completely non-kosher team, this came off surprisingly yiddish, and certainly got the crowd dancing. The kids in particular loved it.
5. Away In A Manger – calypso style
6. Angels (Hillsong, 2003)
7. Six White Boomers (Rolf Harris, 196something) – a quintessential Aussie Christmas song. For da kids, ya know.
8. Aussie Jingle Bells (Colin Buchanan, 199something) – as above, but you all know the tune. Look up the lyrics…you might understand them.
9. O Holy Night – surprisingly for us, not radically rearranged, just with a gentle swing
10. Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer – because even though it’s hot here at Christmas, the kids love this too – even with the My Sharona style drums & bass we do…
11. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town – kinda like the Jackson 5 version, but ours goes for.ev.ah. while Santa arrives and distributes lollies to all and sundry.
12. We Wish You A Merry Christmas – the end.

See you next week, and Happy Christmas!

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As anyone in worship leadership knows, December is a busy month. For Awesome Church this year, this has mainly been for non-Christmas reasons – the completion of sessions for our album. We are also “doing Christmas”, but in conjunction with Jews for Jesus we’re having a Christian Hanukkah celebration next weekend. So one of the songs we’re doing has a very Jewish feel, which is weird for our rock-band oriented team.

But all good fun, and all next week.

For this morning’s service, our young adults pastor Sebastian Ferla preached a great message on rivers of God’s presence, drawing on a huge number of scripture references, mainly from Acts and Genesis, and linked the four rivers in the Garden of Eden.

Sunday AM

Music

1. Send My Sins Away (Murgida / Awesome Church)
2. For Your Name (Morgan, Gillies, Houston / Hillsong)
3. All For Love (Fieldes / Hillsong)
4. Shout Unto God (Houston / Hillsong)
…then following tithes, offerings, news…
5. It’s Your Love (Fieldes / Hillsong)
…and then to close the service with the altar call, healing prayers, soaking time…
6. In Your Presence (DeShazo)

Rachel was our worship leader this morning. And now that she’s finished high school and is in that limbo period waiting to find out what university course she has got into, she’s putting a lot of time into studying worship and music’s part in worship. I love seeing our youth raised up and taking initiative like this! She also did a great job this morning, despite some technical issues before our pre-service practice. She got the team prayed up and excited about bringing the church into God’s presence through music this morning. And she did. Though I will say, with the radical rearrangement of the first song (which will also be the first track on our album, I think) a lot of people were in “stop and stare” mode*. That’s fine though, they got over that and started praising & worshipping without worrying about everything going on around them pretty quickly.

This afternoon, after a marathon 16 hours in the studio yesterday and just a few hours sleep last night…I caught a few more hours sleep, though I’m still well behind and feeling it. It will now be a busy few weeks wrapping up post-production of our album ready for release at our Vision Sunday service at the beginning of February.

*And, in case your interested, the final song we recorded sounds a little bit like this this. Just a bit. Seriously. I like arranging and producing church music a little left of centre some of the time.

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December. Already. Wow.

Our Head Pastor Gary Costello is currently in Fiji as the main guest preacher at the Christian Mission Fellowship Youth Conference. I’m looking forward to hearing about his experiences when he gets back in a couple of weeks. This morning, Pastor Peter Abood preached an awesome message this morning on abiding in Jesus. Full of great wisdom.

Sunday AM

Music

1. Your Name High (Houston / Hillsong)
2. Happy Day (Hughes, Cantelon)
3. Rain Down (Seeley / Planetshakers)
4. This Is Our God (Morgan / Hillsong)
…then following tithes, offerings, news…
5. Happy Day
…and then to close the service with the altar call, healing prayers, soaking time…
6. This Is Our God (though – as normal – it was as much singing in the Spirit as it was singing in English)

Dante led us this morning and after a few “cumulative annoyances”, overcame the obstacles and led the team in a powerful time of prayer before the service, re-preparing us to lead the worship, and we certainly brought the people to the throne room of Christ this morning. A definite continuation of the season of soaking in the Holy Spirit that we’ve been in for coming on two months now.

This evening, following a yummy dinner at the beach on this most perfect of days, Diane and I went to the see the I Heart Revolution film, “We’re All In This Together”. It profoundly affected me; I cried for a significant portion of the running time. God spoke to me through the vision, the sounds, and reconfirmed a lot of things that have been formulating for days, weeks, months, years…

One thing is certain : inaction is not an option.

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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!

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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!

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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.

Come and join in with Sunday Setlists over at FredMckinnon.com, and see how churches around the world have been worshipping this week..

A fresh season is definitely upon Awesome Church. As I’ve said a few times over the last few weeks, we’ve been having some powerful/beautiful/humbling encounters with God in our services. Pastor Gary today said this is what church should be, and indeed, we have Biblical evidence to support that – music, teaching, prayer, healing, and the Spirit moving as He wills. We’ve said for a long time we don’t want just another church meeting. It’s starting to happen consistently now.

Sunday AM

Today’s message was “Don’t Lose It” which focussed on what we need to do to keep it (not really based on Craig Groeschel’s message/book, but not without similarities). It was great, and timely, and needed, and…you get the idea.

Music

1. Run (Houston / Hillsong)
2. No Reason To Hide (Houston, Crocker / Hillsong)
3. His Glory Appears (Sampson, Zschech / Hillsong)
4. He Is Lord (Fielding / Hillsong)
…then following tithes, offerings, news…
5. No Reason To Hide
…and to close the service…
6. In Your Presence (DeShazo)
7. His Glory Appears
8. Fire Fall Down (Crocker / Hillsong)

Dante led this morning, and as usual, did a great job leading all of us – the team and congregation – into the presence of God, ready for a powerful word from the pastor, and the encounter which followed. It’s exciting that what was once a “special” service is now becoming the norm – visitations of the Spirit to refresh, empower, equip and prepare us for the rest of our week out influencing the world we live in.

And, I have it on good authority that the harmonies in “His Glory Appears” were sweet today. Very. sweet.

Sunday PM

Tonight’s message was a continuation of the morning, with “Don’t Lose It, Part 2″. Full of wisdom served up with humour.

1. One Way (Houston / Hillsong)
2. Hosanna (Fraser / Hillsong
…then following tithes, offerings, news…
3. Glow (Crocker, Houston / Hillsong)
…and to close the service…
4. Stronger (Fielding, Morgan / Hillsong)
5. um, hard to describe…basically a few chords from “Fire Fall Down” over which followed around 30 minutes of free worship covering every part of the intensity spectrum. Love. it. Julie’s gift in prophetic worship really shone tonight.
6. He Is Lord
7. No Reason To Hide
8. Run
9. One Way
10. I Walk By Faith (Falson)

Merv may have been the team leader for the evening, but Darren led more songs, and as I noted, Julie led most of the free-worship. Team work is great. Darren is a natural ham, and when he leads it’s an all-out youth meeting, with his natural theatrics coming to the fore. I love fun praise which remains reverent to the One that these songs is honouring.

One thing I realised tonight – and I can’t believe it’s taken me this long – is the reason why I have enjoyed the music from bands like Spiritualized…even though I struggle with most of their lyrics (especially, and obviously, their anti-Christian songs like “Lord, Let It Rain On Me”, but just the druggy references are enough anyway).  The free worship tonight confirmed for me Spiritualized, and bands like Sigur Ros and even My Bloody Valentine, all create sounds which have some similarity to the free worship we experience at Awesome Church. We don’t really sound like Jesus Culture in our free-worship times (though Diane thinks we did tonight), or Hillsong (ditto), or Lakewood, or … anynumberofotherchurches.   While there’s elements of all of them (the main element being the Holy Spirit, of course) we sound like us.

Since it’s never possible to capture that sound on recording and reflect the real sound with any degree of accuracy (and hence why there’s not much of it on our upcoming album, but we don’t want to fake it either), if you want to get some idea of how our free worship sounds to these ears, without …check out those links…mainly the Sigur Ros one…

I even think the lyrics are all in the clear too. Have an awesome week with God, worship Him alone.

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Come and join in with Sunday Setlists over at FredMckinnon.com, and see how churches around the world have been worshipping this week..

I thought the last two weeks had been wonderful encounters with God, but this morning really blew that away. Following a week of prayer meetings, where virtually every member came at least once, the power and intensity of those seeking meetings continued into this morning. I’d love to write more, but I neither know how to put it down in words, or have the time to do it justice. So, on with the music.

Sunday AM

The message time was really just a summary of the week, focusing on what God wants us to take away from this past week – not just memories of the experience and encounter, but changed lives, refreshment, drinking in the Spirit, so that rivers of Him can flow out of us.

Music

1. No Reason To Hide (Houston, Crocker / Hillsong)
2. Forever Praise (Goodwin / Awesome Church)
3. His Glory Appears (Sampson, Zschech / Hillsong)
4. In Your Presence (DeShazo)
…then following tithes, offerings, news…
5. No Reason To Hide
…and to close the service…
6. His Glory Appears…though I should note, before this was sung, we had about an hour of unaccompanied praying, singing, everything in tongues. Hundreds of people, all worshipping in Spirit and in truth, not being led by anyone other than the Holy Spirit. All stepped aside. Amazing.

I had the privilege of leading the music this morning. The team did an awesome job of ushering in the presence of God for what followed.

Sunday PM

With a recording being done yesterday for our worship album (ie: 14 hours in the studio for me), Diane and I took the time this evening to spend some time together and also share a bit of it with some great new friends too.

For now, it’s time to get some sleep before I need to get up again, at 3am…!

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Today continued in the same space as last week’s meetings. Intimacy with God. Beautiful. This is one of the many things I love about corporate worship. Nothing compares.

Sunday AM

Pastor Gary preached on prayer – and blessing, humility, healing, sovereignty. Very full message, and like last week, set the scene almost an hour of free worship, healing, salvation, and humble prayer which followed.

Music

1. Salvation (Seeley / Planetshakers)
2. What The World Will Never Take (Sampson / Hillsong)
3. He Is Lord (Fielding / Hillsong)
4. To Meet You Here (Scarpato, Goodwin / Awesome Church)
…then following tithes, offerings, news…
5. Salvation
…and to close the service…
6. To Meet You Here (only went for about 20 minutes this week)
7. Let It Rain (Farren)
8. You Deserve The Glory (Richards)

Dante led today as I had my week off, so I got to share in the congregation – a rare treat in the mornings, and one which I treasure. Dante’s heart for worship shone through and he compelled us to worship along with him. It was also great to hear him lead “To Meet You Here” for the first time in the church, after he sang lead on the recording we did last week.

Sunday PM

We missed the evening meeting this week for various reasons, but I heard some great reports afterward about the service, especially Darren rocking it up on “Glow” again, and some didjeridu too! Yeah!

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