70×7 Captain’s Log

This report will be shared with those worship leaders who enjoy reading the “Sunday Setlists” blog carnival hosted by Fred McKinnon.  If you’d like to see what worship teams all over the country are doing on Sunday, follow this link:
http://www.fredmckinnon.com/myblog/2009/02/22/sunday-setlists-31/

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My 17-year-old son and bassist, Bo, had a great song idea this week.  He’s still working on it, because Bo is a typical teenager who is ALL OVER THE PLACE with his life.  Kids have so much going on these days, and Bo is one of those kids who wants to do everything.  When he entered his first year of high school, my advice to him was to get some focus and eliminate some of the activities in his life that kept him spread so thin and unable to really excel in any particular area.  His chosen focus:  Music.  The things he decided to let go of:  Basketball, Tang Soo Do, and gaming.  As a result, Bo started to spend a lot of time with his trombones and his bass guitars, and he had time in his schedule to take a choir class.

Three years later, I couldn’t be prouder of the way he has grown as a musician and vocalist.  He’s writing good songs, he’s creating great bass lines, he’s expanding his vocal range and finding harmonies, and he’s effortlessly moving from 1st part tenor trombone to 4th part bass trombone and back, playing in several scholastic ensembles.  He even made district jazz band this year.  In short, he’s so far ahead of where I was at his age, it’s kind of scary how good he could be, particularly since he’s decided to major in music in college, and then attend seminary after he graduates.

Of course, Bo has had a lot of encouragement in his chosen direction.  We could see that he had natural ability early on, and we equipped him with professional gear at an early age.  I know from experience that pro gear makes a huge difference in a musician’s development, so when Bo is practicing his chops, he’s using a Fender Marcus Miller jazz bass and an Ampeg bass head with 1×15 and 4×10 cabinets.  At school, he’s blowing through a King 3b tenor trombone and a King 6b Duo Gravis bass trombone.  Bo’s tone, whether it’s bass guitar or trombone, is inspired by the vintage sounds that prevail in the greatest recordings in music history.  I have to admit that we’re immensely proud of Bo’s development as a musician and his decision to pursue music ministry.  But I also have to admit that as a worship leader, I have some selfish motivations for assisting Bo’s growth.  After all, what worship leader wouldn’t want to have the luxury of working with a great instrumentalist who knows all the same songs, is available for in-home rehearsals several days a week, who sings a LOT like himself, and who shares the same beliefs?  This year, Bo has spoiled me.

Ninety-nine percent of the time that you come to worship at my churches, the bass player is Bo Collins. But this past Saturday Bo had a commitment to perform for a fancy dinner dance with his school’s stage band.  I had taken him for granted, and didn’t realize that he had a schedule conflict until the middle of the week.  This presented me with a couple of problems.  For one, Bo was the only backing vocalist on the schedule for that week.  I got lucky with my first call, and our church’s choir director, Jen, graciously agreed to sing on Saturday night.  But finding a bass player on short notice would prove to be much more difficult, despite the fact that Central Highlands Church is blessed with an amazing depth of talent.  After all, the bassist from that awesome Christian band “Ten Point Ten” plays at our church every eight-to-ten weeks, so we should be covered.  Oops.  Schedule conflict.  No problem!  Our most skilled guitarist is also pretty handy with a bass, right?  Sorry!  Schedule conflict.  Hmmm…  No big deal – I can call the thirty-year pro bassist who plays with me in 70×7, because he is always there for us when we need him.  What?  Schedule conflict?  OK, it’s already THURSDAY, and so it’s time to call on the SECRET WEAPON!

One of the real benefits of having worked in the local Pittsburgh local music scene for so many years is the exposure I’ve had to virtuosity.  The last group that I worked with, Elmoz Fire, featured some of the best musicians ever assembled in our area.  Every singer and instrumentalist in the group was an experienced, seasoned veteran, and the band’s bassist was easily the best I had ever worked with.  When the music of Elmoz Fire gets down into some heavy, funky grooves that make you move your shoes, you will always find my friend Eric at the bottom of it. Eric routinely goes from way downstairs all the way up to the penthouse as he pops, slaps, and hammers everything in between. He is easily the most entertaining bassist in town, and his uncanny ability to lay down the foundation and take it to the rooftops gives audiences thrills they don’t expect from the bass guitar.  The definition of “funky” is: Combining elements of jazz, blues, and soul and characterized by syncopated rhythm and a heavy, repetitive bass line. Eric is all that and more.

It was an easy call to make, because Eric is a Christian man who attends worship at the Christian and Missionary Alliance church in downtown Pittsburgh where I got my earliest lessons as a worship leader.  I had also called on him in the past, much to the delight of those who got to hear him play in their churches.  God was smiling on me, and Eric was available, and eager to make a return visit to CHCUMC on Saturday night.

When I found out that Eric would be playing with us, I was tempted to change up a couple of the planned songs in order to feature the man’s incredible skills.  He would be amazing on songs like “Stand Up And Give Him The Praise” or “Let Your Power Fall.”  But Pastor Starr was preaching on the transfiguration of Christ, and I had very carefully planned a service with that in mind, also taking into the consideration that I was coming off of a serious bout with the flu, and had no idea what kind of shape my voice was going to be in by Saturday.  Vocally speaking, I was very conservative in my selections, opting for songs that didn’t push the high end of my range.  So I decided to keep the plan that I’d worked up and see how Eric would blend in with some classic choruses.

As soon as I arrived at the church, my pulse quickened.  Upon walking into the building, I was overwhelmed by the most wonderful smell coming from the church kitchen.  I had completely forgotten that this was the Saturday of the youth mission trip fundraiser.  Over a hundred guests were expected to enjoy an old-time Pennsylvania Dutch dinner of chicken and waffles.  It smelled delicious!  And since the dinner was planned to end shortly before the 6:00 service, we could probably expect to have some visitors and Sunday morning worshippers attending our Saturday service.  My anticipation grew.

Until recently, Eric was attending services at a predominantly-black church, so I wasn’t surprised to find out that NONE of the songs in our worship plan were familiar to him.  The Alliance church he moved to uses a blended style of worship with a band that’s practically an orchestra, and they definitely play some of the same songs that we do, but Eric is fairly new there.  Even though he hadn’t heard the songs before, he embraced them and appreciated their lyrical content as well as the dynamics we employed in playing them.  He caught on very quickly, as we ran through each song twice in our rehearsal time.

As expected, we had a larger-than-usual crowd for the opening of the service, thanks to the fundraiser dinner.  With all of the guests, it turned out to be a great night to have a set list that included some much-loved classic songs.  We opened with an energetic arrangement of “Shine Jesus Shine,” augmented with some terrific and melodic high bass guitar during the intro sections.  The people sang loudly, and there was a tremendous applause at the end of the song.  Next, we moved on to my slow-fast-slow arrangement of “Open The Eyes Of My Heart.”  The song starts as a mallet-cymbal swelling ballad that dies out, comes in strong with an uptempo, driving rhythm, building up to the chorus and “holy, holy, holy” sung in a round, and returning to the cymbal swells and a passionate ending.  After asking the congregation to be seated, we played the Michael W. Smith arrangement of “Breathe,” with a whole step modulation from B flat to C.  After an extended ending on the “I’m desperate for You” section, we transitioned immediately into the song, “Better Is One Day.”  My arrangement of this song starts with a much slower tempo than any other version of the song that I’ve heard, and the choruses become very large, giving the song a wonderful dynamic character, with a powerful ending.  I prayed over the tail of that song, and after singing the “Lord’s Prayer” song written by Eric Park, we released the young children to “The Fold” and announced that the offering would be received.  For our offering song, we played one of my original compositions entitled, “We Open Our Eyes.”

Pastor Starr finished a thought-provoking lesson by exhorting the congregation to wake up from their slumber and become more aware of the beautiful presence of God that is evidenced by everything around them.  It was the perfect time for us to sing the John Wimber song, “Isn’t He?”  As simple and delicate as this song is, it never ceases to amaze me how people react to it.  I saw tears in some of the faces as I looked around while I was doing some heart-felt vocal improvs towards the end of the piece.  After the service, several people told me how moved they were by the song.  No matter how old that song gets, it will also have a place in my worship planning.

For our time of communion, the band played “Draw Me Close.”  Our pastor encourages people to take time to kneel at the altar and spend a minute with God after receiving communion, and the words to this song are particularly poignant in moments such as those.  To close out the service, we played Shawn the guitarist’s favorite, my arrangement of “I Believe In Jesus.”  It’s got a little guitar hook on the end of each line of the verse that sounds a lot like “The Joker” by Steve Miller.  The people appreciated it, and we were cheered by a joyful applause at the end of the song.  Our band played great that night, with George and Shawn being very well prepared, and Eric and Jen adding so much to our mix even though they had little or no time to prepare in advance.  Eric was just Eric.  His musicianship was superb as always, and his style of play was a big departure from Bo’s style.  But Bo is a huge fan of Eric, who can astound even the most experienced of musicians.  I’m sure Bo will be most interested to hear the recording of the day’s music.  Most importantly on this day, God was praised, and some visitors to our Saturday night service at Central Highlands got an excellent taste of the kind of worship we present, as well as some really good chicken and waffles!

Sunday morning came too early for me, as our Samoyed jumped on and off the bed repeatedly at 4:30 a.m., followed by the ear splitting barks of our Yorkshire Terrier as he announced that the canine contingent of the family was ready to go outside.  My voice still felt strong, even though I had sung for a District pastor’s meeting at Eric Park’s request, and then a full rehearsal and a worship service the day before after not-quite-fully recovering from the flu.  Bo got home late Saturday night, clad in his tuxedo, after performing thirty-one songs on trombone with the stage band.  His chops were shot, and he was pretty tired, so I made him a big travel mug full of Colombian coffee to start his day.  We had to get to Homestead Park UMC earlier than usual that morning, because I had to take my Roland V-Combo keyboard, 165-watt Crate amp, Roc N’ Soc seat, the stands and cables with me to the District meeting the day before.  Time to make the donuts!

A fresh blanket of snow was covering the ground as we left the house that morning.  Snow on Sunday mornings is always interesting on the hills of Pittsburgh, as some boroughs are better than others at treating their local roads, and some folks have a harder time getting out of their driveways and getting to church on time.  The borough of Munhall, where the church is located, apparently has NO road crews that work on Sunday mornings based on the road conditions this day, and we had to take our time getting there.  Pastor Rich was preaching about God’s sacrificial love for the three services that Sunday morning, continuing his “Radical Christianity” series.   Here is the spoken call to worship that I wrote for our traditional 8:15 service that morning at Homestead Park UMC:

Leader:    Christ loves us, and He gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
People:   LORD, HELP US LIVE A LIFE OF LOVE.
Leader:   No one has greater love than He who laid down His life for His friends.
People:   LORD, MAY OUR FRIENDS SEE THE LOVE OF CHRIST IN US.
Leader:   God has demonstrated His love for us as Christ died for all sinners.
People:   LORD, HELP US TO TURN AWAY FROM SIN AND ACCEPT THIS SACRIFICE.
Leader:   God’s love is always giving, even when we do not return His love.
People:   LORD, MAY OUR HEARTS BE ONLY FOR YOU.
Leader:   God’s sacrificial love is the gift that keeps on giving, forever.
People:   LORD, YOUR LOVE IS ETERNAL, AND WE ACCEPT THIS GIFT OF LOVE.
Leader:   With loving and joyful hearts, let us come before the Lord to worship Him now.
People:  YES LORD!  MAY OUR LOVING PRAISES BE A SWEET SOUND TO YOUR EARS!

The reading I selected for the day was Psalm 36, and we opened the singing with “I Love To Tell The Story.”  Our hymn of invitation was “How Great Thou Art,” and following pastor’s message, we closed the service by singing “Amazing Grace.”  Due to the weather conditions, only around forty souls came to the traditional service, which is favored by many of our older church members.  As I looked out the large rear window of the sanctuary, I could see that the cars were creeping very slowly down the snow covered road to the church.

In the 9:30 and 11:00 services, we called on Marsha to sing our prelude, which was “El Shaddai.”  We play this song similarly to the Michael Card version.  To open our worship set, we got everyone going with “Hallelujah!  Your Love Is Amazing,” followed by “Beautiful One.”  Keeping the energy up, we sang Chris Tomlin’s “Indescribable” next.  That’s around the time when a flaw in my worship planning became evident.  At HPUMC, our next song would normally be a quiet song to prepare the people for the time of prayer that follows it.  I was so focused on Pastor’s message and on finding the perfect song to come right before it that I had chosen Aaron Shust’s “My Savior, My God” as the song of preparation.  Anybody who knows this song knows that it’s definitely a power ballad, starting quietly, building, briefly quieting, and then building to a crescendo at the end.  The song has tremendous dynamic qualities, and the writer is from nearby Beaver County, but it was really ill-suited as a song of preparation.  In the later service, I actually switched it with our final song, which was “Amazing Love.”  I hope that the planning mistake didn’t frazzle our prayer leader too much!  I love both of those songs, but even “Amazing Love” had to have an impromptu modification at its end to make it more suitable as a prayer song, because it usually ends with a big buildup as well!

It’s almost shocking that we are about to enter the Lenten season.  Ash Wednesday is this week, and it seems like I was just putting up Christmas decorations a couple of weeks ago.  (In reality, I was finally taking them DOWN a couple of weeks ago!)  This will be a busy season of planning and preparing, and at HPUMC we’ll hold our Easter Sunday service at the high school auditorium in anticipation of a large throng of believers who will gather together for one very special worship time.  There will be plenty of work being done by our staff and all of the volunteers as we set up for that special event, and our prayer team will be asking God to move powerfully in the lives of those people who only seem to make it out to church at Easter or Christmas time.

Bo’s song idea?  I love it.  “When we work, we work.  When we pray, God works.”