AndyRogersMusic.com - Blog

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.

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.

Oh, and you can still download all of last year’s training for free!

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

As I write this I’m still in Nashville and I thought you might like to see how the recording of some of the songs from the 20/20 project is going.

We’ve been working on song number 3 (and others) from the 20/20 project ‘Your Name Is A Refuge (and we are refugees)’

Here’s a quick clip from the studio to let you see how it’s going.

Oh, if you’re interested I’m going to need some help with some lyric ideas for the other songs we’re working on. If you’d like the opportunity to help co-write on these make sure you’re registered over at OpenSourceSongs.com and I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime here’s the video..

My producer, Neil Andrews, is also a great worship leader and really understands recording worship music. If you need a project worked on I could really recommend his services - you can work completely remotely with him via the internet (if you don’t live anywhere near Franklin, TN) you’ll get Nashville quality without Nashville prices!

Drop him a line at nra.minimoog [at] gmail.com

Cheers - Andy

Here are two different models for Leading Worship in Bars, Night Clubs and Brothels that I have experienced recently.

Last year I had the opportunity to do two trips within weeks of each other, one to Lithuania the other to Thailand.

On both occasions we were scheduled to do music/worship in bars and night clubs but both situations were different.

In Lithuania our brief was to work with the local Vineyard church initiative in helping engage the arts and music culture of the city. We got booked to play the premier music night club in the area - we were there to entertain the paying customers. However, we really wanted to do a set that was infused with worship so we put together a set that was a mixture of covers, worship songs and one song that we had written for the occasion.

The response was amazing. The night club manager told us at the end of the evening that, in the 13 years that he had worked there and booked artists, no other band’s music had touched his heart like A Perfect Stone.

And, without sounding like hype, there was a real sense of God’s presence in the venue, especially during ‘Be Thou My Vision’ which you can see at the end of the clip below. Despite the fact that many of the revelers were doing their regular ‘bloke-girl’ night club thing!

Here’s a video clip to give you a bit of a flavour (the sound quality isn’t great but I hope it gives you an insight into how this can work).

During the Thailand trip I was waiting to play bass in the band that my good mate Ian Hannah had put together for a missions trip to ‘Pattaya Praise’, an intercessory worship and mercy ministry happening in that city. As part of that we had been scheduled to play a series of worship sets in the ‘Love Hearts’ bar and other venues.

On this occasion we were very openly a worship band and rather than being a ‘covert’ operation. The gigs involved the band and a crowd of believers all piling into the venue, with the permission of the bar owners I might add, and worshiping together.

Here’s the Thailand version in operation with our Irish Salsa band!

One of the important things in both Lithuania and Thailand is that it was a co-ordinated effort with local believers developing ongoing relationships with the influencers in their cities.

In my opinion both models work, one isn’t any better or more ’spiritual’ than the other. It depends on context and partnering with the local believers, churches and ministries.

What to you think?

Recently, in a moment of idle curiosity I Googled my own name and saw an interesting thing.

Firstly, I was was pleasantly surprised to see that 4 of the 10 links on the first page of Google were to my sites and blog.

Secondly, prominent results for other folks who share my the name ‘Andy Rogers’ were also musicians and artists, engineers (I too studied mechanical engineering) and sportsmen (I used to race motocross at expert level).

Is this just a coincidence or is there something about your destiny wrapped up in your name? - just a thought.

I know we named our kids based on what we sensed was their God given nature and call

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My good friends Kevin & Rosemary Sambrook have invited me to join them on a few dates in the US later this month.

If you’re anywhere nearby why not swing by and catch up.

I’ll be doing some music, some worship leading, some recording and some catching up with good friends.

Here’s the broad schedule as it looks so far:

Feb 24th - Silver Spring, Maryland. Immanuel’s Church  http://www.immanuels.org/ 16819 New Hampshire Ave. Silver Spring, MD 20905

Feb 27-28th - Florence, Alabama. Christ Chapel - http://www.christ-chapel.org

Mar 2nd - Brentwood, Nashville, Tennessee - http://www.newhopechurchtn.org/

Last year when I was over I had the pleasure of playing with some outstanding musicians including Neil Andrews (who’ll I’ll be doing some recording with this time) and Chester Thomspon, legendary drummer with Genesis, Phil Collins, Carlos Santana, Frank Zappa etc and all round nice guy.

Here’s a clip of Chester in action.

As I mentioned, I’ll also be doing some recording in Nashville - you’ll soon get to hear proper versions of some of the 20/20 songs!

Oh, and here’s something else you may be able to help with. I quite fancy a return to the USA in the summer (July/August-ish) and combine a family holiday with some ministry/music events.

I know it might be a bit early planning a return trip before I’ve actually gone on this one - but I wasn’t endowed with the ‘organized, forward planning gene’ so I’ve got to at least start thinking about it now to give the Lord something to work with!

If you know of good opportunities to explore for my particular brand of ‘Ethno-Celt’ worship experience please let me know.

Speak soon - Andy

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