A Thousand Amens: Live Worship with The Falls Church Anglican

At long last, the live CD my church recorded in March, has been released and is available to order/download at www.tfcamusic.org.

I couldn’t be more thrilled with this recording!

Here’s what we say about the heart behind it in the first page of the booklet:

How can a congregation lose nearly everything – its buildings, its property, and most of its money – but worship God with more unity and joy than ever before?

When that congregation knows that it has everything it could ever need in the precious cornerstone and sure foundation of Jesus Christ.

These songs are a taste of the vibrant, Christ-centered, Spirit-filled worship that has become a hallmark of The Falls Church Anglican. They were recorded in the Main Sanctuary over two evenings in early March, just two months before we vacated our property. This was the end of over 275 years on that campus but not the end of our church.

So, at the close of this sweet chapter in our church’s life, we went out lifting high the name of Jesus and thanking God for his faithfulness.

This recording captures the cry of a congregation that has learned and clung to the reality that Jesus is worthy of costly worship. And if that means we lose everything to gain Christ, then we say a resounding “amen”. So be it, Lord. We believe you’re all to us.

The CD features 14 congregational worship songs, a mixture of existing songs, original songs, and hymns. The songs are:

1. Behold Our God
2. Praise My Soul the King of Heaven
3. Praise the Lord
4. God of All Power and Grace
5. Here is Love (Grace Takes My Sin)
6. Now Why This Fear
7. More Than Conquerors
8. Come You Sinners
9. The Lord’s Prayer
10. All My Fountains
11. Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
12. All to Us
13. To Him Who is Able
14. A Thousand Amens

It was a joy to work with the amazing musicians on this CD. We used musicians from our own church (Jairo Viquez on electric guitar, Matt Brown on percussion, and Simon Dixon on the pipe organ). We used musicians from our sister churches (Jordan Ware singing and Chris Rothgeb on bass). And we used musicians from Nashville and L.A. (Carl Albrecht on drums, Luke Moesley on piano, and Russell Crain on electric guitar). Our own staff and volunteers engineered, recorded, and tracked the project (Jon Crocker, Andrew Schooley, Nathan Mitchell, Daniel Harlan and Tim Larson). And we got the project mixed by Paul Salveson and mastered by Jim DeMain in Nashville.

Here are just a few of the things I love about this CD:

It was recorded in our former Main Sanctuary. This was a beautiful space and I really miss it. You feel like you’re standing in that room with the bricks under your feet when you listen to it.

You can hear the congregation loud and strong. I told the congregation when we recorded this CD that we wanted this CD to sound like you’re standing in the midst of the congregation. I think we achieved that. The congregation sounds great.

All of the songs were recorded in congregational keys. We covered several songs that had been originally recorded in virtually un-singable keys but were still great songs. We brought them down to be more singable and accessible.

The songs reflect variety. We cover some Sovereign Grace songs, Passion songs, and a few songs from other sources as well. We have some fresh new arrangements of old hymns. And we have some original songs of mine (“God of All Power and Grace”, “More Than Conquerors”, and “Come You Sinners”) and Simon Dixon’s (“The Lord’s Prayer”).

The songs on the album are in the order we recorded them. We tried to make sure the songs flow into each other well and make sense not only musically, but thematically.

The packaging looks great. I know it’s much easier to download a CD on iTunes or Amazon or somewhere else, but if you can bear the wait (and pay a bit more) and order from www.tfcamusic.org, I think you’ll love to hold the actual copy in your hand, and see the pictures of our church and of the recording.

This CD has been a labor of love, and I just hope and pray that it blesses and refreshes and encourages everyone who hears it.

Order it through the link above, and in the meantime here’s a video with some pictures from the recording set to the last song on the album.

A Thousand Amens Promo Final-Vimeo Upload 720p from Daniel Harlan on Vimeo.

Free Song: Come You Sinners

My church is releasing its very first live worship CD this Sunday, “A Thousand Amens: Live Worship with The Falls Church Anglican“.

I wanted to share one of the songs I wrote that’s on the album called “Come You Sinners”. I posted a rough version of it on here about a year ago but this is the album version which is a bit (!) better quality.

I wrote this song one week when I was choosing songs for a communion service and wishing there was something I could sing over people as they walked forward to the Lord’s table. Having just taken a seminary class on grace taught by Steve Brown, I was freshly amazed at how scandalous God’s grace is, and how amazingly freeing it is, and I wanted to be able sing this good news over them.

The verses came fairly quickly. I used a couple of lines from an old hymn (“Come Ye Sinners Poor and Needy”) to start off a couple of verses and went from there. The chorus took a while to nail down, until late one night while sitting at the piano, I remembered the line from Augustine’s Confessions that “…our hearts are restless until we find our rest in You…”. The melody fit the lyric and then the song was complete.

Here are the lyrics:

Come, you sinners, poor and needy
Come behold your Savior’s face
Full of love and rich in mercy
Hands outstretched with endless grace

Nothing you have done has earned it
Full atonement, vast and free
Nothing you can do can change it
Rest on Jesus’ victory

Our hearts are restless till we find our rest in You
Our lives are hopeless till we find our hope in You
Jesus, You are my life
Jesus, I give my life to You

Come you weary, heavy laden
Burdened under shame and sin
There is never condemnation
When your life in Christ is hid

There is no one else to turn to
He will guide you all your days
His perfect love is perfect for you
Trust in Jesus’ saving grace

Jamie Brown © 2011 Worthily Magnify Music. All rights reserved. Used by permission. CCLI song # 6026956.

You can download the album version mp3 here: Come You Sinners recording

And here’s a free chord chart: Come You Sinners chord chart

UPDATE: Here’s the sheet music: Come You Sinners sheet music

And here’s a lyrics video:

Just Because That’s the Way They Recorded It…

I wrote a post a long time ago called “Just Because That’s the Key They’re Recorded In” which encouraged worship leaders to feel free (!) to change the keys of songs to make them more singable for the average person in the congregation.

This post, “Just Because That’s the Way They Recorded It” has to do with something else, and that’s to encourage worship leaders to feel free to not do the songs the same exact way they’re recorded.

Intro. First verse, second verse, chorus. Then the interlude with the cool electric guitar thing. Then the second verse and chorus. Then half of the interlude. Then the bridge once with just the drums, then the bridge again with the band building on 8th notes, and then the final chorus two times before ending with the bridge three times.

Every single time you do the song.

But what if instead of going back to the second verse after the chorus you want to do the first verse?

Or what if you want to start the song on the chorus instead of the first verse?

Or what if you want to leave out the bridge altogether (gasp)?

What if you only want to sing the chorus?

The arrangements songs are recorded in are usually pretty good arrangements. They were settled on by gifted musicians and/or producers, and I’m not suggesting we ignore them. Sometimes these arrangements need no adapting at all.

But sometimes they do need adapting, and too many worship leaders either don’t know how to adapt them, or are just afraid to mess with “perfection”.

Just like there’s no wrong way to eat a Reese’s (does that joke translate cross-culturally?), there’s no wrong way to do a song. Unless, of course, that way is singing all the backwards while being led by a bagpipe band accompanied by a ukelele. That, in every instance, would be a wrong way.

Want to start on the chorus? Want to skip the bridge? Would it serve the needs of the service better if you just sang a chorus from a song? What about if you want to just sing the first verse and chorus? Has the song gotten a bit too predictable and it would freshen it up to do it slow instead of fast?

Do it.

I suppose the only time you should not alter a song would be if you’re skipping over bad theology. In that case, it might just be better to skip the whole song.

But just because you heard a song a certain way on the recording, or just because your sheet music is written out a certain way, or just because you’ve always done it a certain way, you shouldn’t feel like your hands are tied.

When you lead a song, you need to own the song. You might not own the copyright, but you need to own the structure of it. Take ownership of it.

Where is it going? Where is it building towards? What is being emphasized? If the answers to these questions are different every time, then maybe your arrangements should be as well?

A Song of Trust in God

A few Sundays ago, June 17th, at our 11:00am service I got the sense that as we were singing familiar songs we were at risk of, yet again, doing what congregations can so often do, and that’s rush through, hurry along, and miss opportunities for heart-felt engagement with the living God.

We had a choir of men from our congregation that morning since it was Father’s day. I had chosen several familiar songs since we didn’t have much time to rehearse. But as we got to the end of “Shout to the Lord” I had a strong impression that God wanted us to put the brakes on, to come to a halt, to slow down, and to simply rest.

As a worship leader you can’t always bring things to a place of rest when you want to. We often want more time than we get, and we have to honor the Lord by honoring our pastor and keep things in the confines he’s given us. And we also have to be conscious of the fact that just because we’re a little frustrated with a disengaged congregation it doesn’t mean we should say so!

But on this particular Sunday I felt strongly enough about it to discern it was the Holy Spirit’s leading, so instead of rushing on to the next song, I sang a simple, spontaneous, song of trust in God. Several people mentioned after the service that it was helpful, so for them and for you, I’m posting it below.

So we run to you, O Lord
We hide ourselves in You
We come to you, O Lord
We trust in You

We cast our burdens at your feet
We lay our worries in your hands
We bring our lives to you, our Lord
We give our hearts to you, our King

You are our shelter, You are our help
You are our comfort and our defender
You are our Savior, You are our shield
And you never fail, You never fail

Time after time, day after day
Morning after morning your mercies are new
Lord, we love You. God, we trust You

You are our shelter and our comfort
And our shield

You’ll notice pretty quickly that these aren’t the most impressive words in the world. They didn’t need to be. They served a simple purpose that morning which was to help people settle in to a place of trust in God, instead of rushing through the songs and getting on to whatever was next.

Be sensitive, as you lead worship, to the moments when God wants you to put the brakes on. It’s in those moments that you might end up taking risks — some of which might not work at all — and God reveals himself afresh.

Where is Your Confidence?

Do you feel panicky when you’re not as rehearsed as you’d like to be? Do you feel anxious when you see a really full room looking back at you (or empty chairs)? Does your heart start racing before the service is about to start? If you make a mistake (say something dumb, forgot to take your capo off, mess up a song) do your agonize over it for days and replay it in your head?

If you’ve never experienced these sensations while serving as a worship leader, you’re not normal. But if scenarios above describe a regular experience for you as a worship leader, you’re missing the point. God very kindly allows us to feel all of these things – panicky, anxious, nervous, obsessive and embarrassed – so that we cease to seek our confidence in ourselves.

God is all about revealing the idols of our hearts and mercifully taking them away from us. For worship leaders, a common idol is self-sufficiency and self-centeredness. Feelings of anxiety are good for us because they serve a purpose: they remind us of our utter need for God.

The temptation is to think that if you’re panicky, you should have rehearsed more. Or if you’re anxious, then you’re not a good enough worship leader. Or if your heart is racing, you’re not ready for the big leagues. Or if you made a mistake (by the way, every worship leader in the world makes mistakes every single Sunday) that you ruined the service. None of these are true.

Maybe you should have rehearsed less, not more. Maybe you’re a great worship leader and you just need to relax. Maybe God has prepared you for this exact moment and you need to trust in him. Maybe your mistakes are helpful reminders to you (and your team and your congregation) that you’re a real person.

In all cases, and for all worship leaders, God is consistently reminding us that our confidence can’t be in rehearsals, polish, skill, or experience. All of those things are good things and you should pursue them. But none of them should be where we find our confidence. Our confidence is in God.

This might sound trite to you. It’s not. It’s the first building block of worship leading and if this one gets shaky, then everything else does too.

Allow God to humble you. Allow God to remind you that you need Him. Relax on Sunday morning and don’t stress over all the details and transitions and notes and chords and people and pressures. Fix your eyes on Jesus and you won’t sink. Look away from him and you will. He is our confidence!