On the new album I have recorded a version of Amazing Grace with a refrain in between some of the verses which goes ‘Grace is the song, grace is the song, grace is the song He’s singing over us’.
Here’s a great explanation by Bob Kauflin about how God sings over us.
Thought you might like to hear a live version of our arrangement of Be Thou My Vision which will be on the new album out soon.
This is a video clip that my daughter did from New Hope church in Brentwood near Nashville where I got to play again with friends Neil Andrews and Chester Thompson.
Check out the amazing rhythms that Chester plays just at the end of verse 3.
Enjoy!
This sunday I’ll be at the Family Prayer Center in Tulsa Oklahoma (1818 West 86th Street, Tulsa, OK 74132) - speak soon.
As I write this I’m in Nashville enjoying 80+ degree weather (that’s like an ‘uber’ summer back home in Northern Ireland!) in the home of good friends Neil & Susan Andrews.
I’m in the US for 4 weeks as a result of an invitation from Troy Carver, a worship leader from Westminster in Maryland. Troy and I will be doing a live worship recording on Saturday 26th of July, a worship seminar and some worship leading events in an around Maryland during the previous week.
I decided to take advantage of being here and combine it with a family holiday with Shirley and our daughters hence the idea of coming for 4 weeks. We just arrived in Nashville a few days ago and will be moving on to Branson Missouri for a few days followed by Tulsa Oklahoma then to Columbus and Medway Ohio before going to Westminster in Maryland.
We’re doing the ‘Great American Road Trip’ this time driving to all these places and if you know of any other worship leading events that might consider booking me on the way through (Branson, Tulsa, Columbus etc) drop me a line - if I can fit it in around our schedule great, if not then no harm done as they say!
This Sunday I get the pleasure of leading worship at New Hope Community Church in Brentwood Tennessee and my band for both services will include the amazing, and all round nice guy, Chester Thompson. Chester is Genesis’ drummer and I just watched a DVD of him playing to an estimated 500,000 crowd in Rome last year on their world tour.
Here’s a snippet of that gig below.
I’ll try to post a clip from our session next week - speak soon
Tags: ChesterThompson, Genesis, andy rogers,
At the end of our set we did an impromptu version of Amazing Grace and a spontaneous song, partly in French - it was quite a charged moment!
I’m just back from Nice in the south of France. Shirley and I were leading a team invited by the local Vineyard church led by Alan & Sandra Gage.
Our time there coincided with France’s national day of music - La Fete de la Musique - and we got invited by the local town hall to be their musical contribution to this cultural event.
Now that in itself was quite a miracle! Sandra informed me that for a civic authority to sanction anything that had spiritual or religious element to it was unheard of in French culture yet they were willing to allow the local Vineyard church to bring in this little known Irish band to entertain the town.
It occurred to me that there were some striking similarities to the trip we made to Lithuania in eastern Europe last year. In both scenarios a significant door opened up for the church in the local arts, music scene and we got to be the first to walk through it.
So what do you do when faced with these opportunities? For me as a worship leader I’m looking for ways to lead people in worship so that they experience the presence of God even though they may not realize that’s what’s going on. The expectation is that we are there to entertain the audience but for me it has to be that and more.
So here’s what we do in these circumstances. We bring some music that has some Irish/Celtic culture to it, some cover songs that we like and infuse the set with some worship material that works in these contexts. And, where possible we get the crowd to participate.
One of the songs we do in these non-church settings is ‘Only in your love’ that Shirley & I wrote and, on this occasion we taught the crowd to sing the chorus in French. It’s a worship song that talks about searching for fulfillment that can only be found in the love of God - you can see a snippet in the video below.
We were talking about it on the plane on the way home and it was Karen, one of our team members, coined the phrase ‘Guerrilla Worship’ to describe that process of leading people into His presence without them realizing it.
I love the idea!
It’s part of what Jesus commanded us to do when he said ‘Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations’. Interestingly he didn’t say go and make converts but disciples.
The point at which someone exchanges their life for the Christ’s doesn’t have to be the start of the discipling process, people can experience the goodness of God as part of their journey before coming to faith and that’s where ‘guerrilla worship’ can help folks connect with the One who loves them like no other!
Anyway, enjoy these snippets of ‘guerrilla worship’ from La Fete de la Musique in Falicon, Nice in France.
You paste in the lyrics and chords to any song, tell it what key you want it changed to and hey presto, at the click od your mouse it’s done!
Let me know what you think.
There are tons of cool worship resources out there, some are marketed by the the big worship/teaching publishing companies (it’s a big industry now) but there are others provided by largely unknown but passionate worship leaders who are serving others on a peer-to-peer basis.
I want to recommend two of the latter that I have personally experienced and I have gotten to know the people behind them.
DevelopingWorship.com is a worship leader’s forum run by Sam Middlebrook, worship pastor at Christ the king Church in Bellingham, Washington. Sam has a real heart to develop a community of worshipers and worship leaders and his forum has grown to be a genuine cross-fertilizing place were you can get resourced from others who are on the same journey.
As a subscriber on my email list Sam and I ended up co-writing a worship song that will appear on the new album any day now!
WorshipTeleseminar.com started life as an idea by Kenneth Voritskul (worship leader from Rockville, MD) last year.
He has this idea about using today’s available technology to connect local worship ministries with today’s leading worship teachers -
right in people’s homes and right over the internet.
Amazingly over 3900 people from 72 countries subscribed to the free worship training from the likes of Brian Doerksen, Dan Wilt, Rory Noland, Carl Tuttle, Bob Sorge and another 17 respected worship teachers that Kenneth put together - all in his spare time.
He’s about to launch the 2008 WorshipTeleseminar.com soon - I’d recommend you register, it’s free!
I got to meet Kenneth a few months ago when I was doing a Celtic Worship concert in Maryland in February.
I don’t want to stir up your jealousy but I thought you might like to see around one of my ‘offices’…
Technorati Tags: songwriting, studio, office
I’m part way through the recording process for the new worship album (haven’t got a title yet - I may request your help on that too) and I thought I’d ‘kill two birds with the one stone’ as they say.
I wanted to let you hear a sample of some of the completed tracks and ask for your opinion.
In this short video you’ll hear three tracks and I’d like to know which you think would be the best opening song for album.
As an incentive I’ll credit you in the album notes (download version) if you let me have your opinion in the comments section below. By the way if you’d like a link to your website, blog, myspace etc then just let me know the details.
Let me know what you think…
Technorati Tags: christian worship songwriting, free, music, downlaods, andy rogers
If you’ve been following my musings for any length you’ll know that doing the Kingdom stuff for those on the outside has become something of a pre-occupation for me. Particularly since doing the worship in bars, brothels and nightclubs last year at various places round the planet.
So it was with interest that I read this great article from RELEVANT MAGAZINE by Brian Orme - I was encouraged, I hope you will be too - Enjoy!
There are two aspects of Jesus’ life and mission: His inside ministry and his outside ministry. His inside ministry was focused on his life with the disciples, those close to him, and his work within the religious structures of his day—inside the synagogue and the Temple.His outside ministry was comprised of his connection with the everyday people, often those on the margins, those forbidden entry into the righteous circles, the heavy drinkers, the sexually immoral and the tax collectors.
Most of this facet of Jesus’ life was also literally outside, in the marketplaces, on the hillsides, by pools, in porticos and at parties.
Reading through the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life it’s evident that the outside ministry of Jesus takes precedent. When we collate the outside versus the inside Jesus, the outside wins in every Gospel. And for good reason. In Jesus’ own words his mission was not to come for the inside, but for the out, “I have come, not for the healthy, but for the sick.”
Even when Jesus was ministering to those on the inside, he often chose to do it in the context of the outside world.
Read the rest at http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god_article.php?id=7448
