"Wrap Me In Your Arms"

Out of the blue this week, I had this strong urge to learn and to play the song "Wrap Me In Your Arms." I had no idea who the song was by, nor what it sounded like. I simply had the words and the chords sitting right in front of me, as well as a nudge from God to learn the song. I looked up the song title and found out who it was by, then looked up the song on youtube, where I found many different versions. Here's one of them:

I played this song on Wednesday night, but the urge to do it didn't happen until Tuesday night, meaning I didn't have time to give the music to anybody who was there. I hope we can work something out with this song, as a worship team, and make it one of the regular songs.

Man I'm getting really sick of allergies.

God Bless,

Mike

We will bury them!

It's been almost a month since I've updated, and I must say, I know exactly where my time has gone. To a few things, actually.

One of those things is babysitting. I've been asked to babysit so much lately that it's getting annoying. The plus? I'm getting paid for it.

Another is Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge. It's an RTS (Real Time Strategy) game that pits the allies against the soviets against Yuri in an alternate timeline where Hitler never rose to power. Yuri is a mind controlling fool, while the allies can warp time and space. The soviets just get a lot of power and nuclear missiles. However, the game is good fun and more goofy than anything. My friends and I have had quite a time playing it.

Another reason? I got my acoustic electric guitar a week or so ago. I love this thing. I've since picked up on fingerstyle much quicker than I thought I would (To see my guitar, click here). I'm using this during worship from now on, unless I'm playing on Michelle Grassau's team, in which I'll, for sure, be playing the bass.

A few times I've even spent hours upon hours studying up on one subject or another. Things like, "Is it ALWAYS Satan's fault when something bad happens to us," and various other things that people consider sins, but others don't. You learn much, much more when you actually have a focus, rather than just reading through the Bible by itself.

Oh, and Brad is re-joining the youth band, if I remember correctly. This is a good thing.

God Bless,

Mike

"Into Your Glory"

I had to take some time to have a chat with Brittany, before worship, which was rather uncomfortable. My mom keeps telling me how Brittany only performs, but I haven't the foggiest idea about what Brittany does when she's behind me to my right side. I look down and to the left when I look anywhere (the words and the neck of my guitar, respectively). I simply told her what my mother had said and then asked her what she thinks being on a worship team means. She told me what she thought. I didn't tell her she was wrong, I simply stated that she should keep in mind, "We're not worship leaders, we're lead worshipers." I think it upset her, and I don't blame her for being upset. I did let her know that we're not kicking her off or anything, so she doesn't have anything to worry about.

I honestly don't remember what the first song we played was, which is rather sad. I didn't care for it much, since we simply needed a third song to fill time. We played "Hungry," however, which I absolutely loved. Bryce had a special drum pattern for it and it worked out perfectly. The key was rather low, however. Either way, it worked.

The other song we did was "Into Your Glory," which is by a boy from Corrie and Elissa's school. We almost couldn't remember how to play it, but I figured it out right before it would have been a disaster, and it worked out. The song is simply about pressing closer to God to be closer to "His Glory." It's really a very well written song and pretty fun to play, too. I'm not so certain how popular it is with the kids in the youth group, however. I've never really heard them worship to it, not once, but the idea of the song was exactly what I was looking for.

Reinstalled Linux as my operating system, last night. Gotta get the wireless back up to working 100%, and the speakers are a bit wonky, but other than that, it's fine.

God Bless,

Mike

"Mighty to Save"

This Wednesday went rather well, with a few shakeups thrown into the music, as well as Elissa not being there. We actually got a few soft areas with some buildups thrown into the mix, which is unusual for our worship band.

Starting two weeks ago, I had a rather large amount of time to pick out worship songs. I decided not to do it right away, but to do it with enough time to get the music to Corrie, for once, so she could actually practice. Turns out, that was a good idea. She practiced, and, for once, in a few of the lulls, I could hear her playing. I could even hear her singing at certain intervals.

We opened with "Hallelujah (Your Love is Amazing)." During our practice, we realized that none of us had a copy of this song, so Corrie wrote out the chords, as she remembered them. She was only off on ONE chord, so that was pretty good. This is one of the few songs that starts off with a vocal intro, so that was a bit different for me, but I got it, and the songs took off from there. This particular song is about how God's love is "steady and unchanging." Basically, the whole song talks about how God's love never changes, it's amazing, and it makes you want to dance and sing.

The second song is a classic. "I Could Sing of Your Love Forever." I talked with Bryce, during the practice, about how to lead into this song. Either he could keep going with the drum pattern he used for "Hallelujah," or I could do an intro to the song. During practice, I always intro'd. During the real deal, he did. This was the first song we worked a lull into in the music, and I loved it. During the bridge, which talks about dancing and such, some people choose to plow right through it at the same speed with a slightly different drum pattern. I chose to keep with the improv'd lull that was thrown into there during the practice. Originally, I had also planned to plow right on through, but it worked better without it. I could even hear people singing that weren't on the stage, during this lull!

The song talks about how we will "always sing of when His love came down." We will "sing of His love forever." And "when the world has seen The Light, they will dance with joy like we're dancing now." It's such a straightforward message that it doesn't need much explanation.

The final song, "Mighty to Save," wasn't the big and amazing thing that it is on the Hillsong CDs, but I didn't really mind. The song, basically, talks about how God has enough power to do anything, and He still chooses to save your soul. It talks about how "everyone needs compassion; a love that's never failing." "Everyone needs forgiveness; the kindness of a Savior." The message is extremely powerful, and I wanted the youth to get that. After reminding them that this song wasn't just words, and that they should actually believe it if they're singing it, I asked them to join me, one more time, if they really meant it, in singing the chorus. Then, we worked in a final lull in the music, in which it was just vocals singing the chorus for the song.

All in all, I'd say we thechnically did well, but we didn't really do as well as we did the last few weeks, when it comes to the spiritual aspect of it. The last few times we did worship, you could feel the spirit of God in the room. This time... well... not so much. I'm disappointed in myself, as a worship leader, but there's nothing more to do but get over it, pray on it, and try again next week.

Speaking of next week: The youth are leading worship on August 24th, for the Sunday morning service!

God Bless,

Mike

"Aha!"

This week is my first (and probably only--for a while) week off from the worship team. We're having a VBS for the little kids. VBS stands for "Vacation Bible School." Our whole idea is that we're in a "Power lab," as "Jesus gives us the power to [insert idea here]." We've had three days of it, and we have two days left.

I'm a crew leader, meaning I get to lead around a small group of kids from station to station, helping them out with what they're doing. I was actually hoping for a more diverse group of kids, but two of my crew seem to enjoy the fact that I'm their leader, whereas the other two are "too cool for school," so to speak. Ah well.

I enjoy it either way.

God Bless,

Mike