Large group worship leading training

Further to the last post about training small group worship leaders, we're also going to do a training morning for large group worship leaders.

This is for anybody who leads small group worship already but feels they'd like to have a go at doing something on a bigger scale, leading 25+ people in worship.

If you fancy the idea of that then come along on Saturday 25th November. Further details will appear nearer the time.

Small group worship leading training

Hey

If you're in need of some help with leading worship in small group. Come along to our clinic on the last thursday of every month.

Starting Thursday 31st August, we will help get you to the next stage in your playing and worship leading so you can comfortably lead worship in small groups with your either your guitar or keyboard and not feel like a total muppet when you're there doing your thing!

We will give you help with such things as your singing, technique and song selection so you can feel totally at ease leading people into the presence of the Lord in worship.

However, we will expect you to know how to play at least 8 songs and be able to sing or attempt to sing at least 3 of them as a minimum standard.

Will let you know where it is in due course.

Worship retreat talks

Vineyard Records have released all the talks from the Worship retreat held earlier this year onto the internet. The speakers were Mike Turrigiano, Cindy Reithmeier, and Jeremy Cook.

Check it out if you have the time.

http://www.vineyardrecords.co.uk/worshipretreat/

New Tim Hughes Album on the way

Hey,

Tim Hughes is working on a new album, and is doing a daily blog about how its going, with details about what songs are going to be on it and what arrangements they are working on etc..

Really interesting stuff if you like that kind of thing.

I've linked up days 1 to 3 and will try and do a daily link.

http://www.aboutlife.com/timhughes/new_album_day_1

http://www.aboutlife.com/timhughes/new_album_day_2

http://www.aboutlife.com/timhughes/new_album_day_3

http://www.aboutlife.com/timhughes/new_album_day_4

Tim Hughes on 'pleasing God'

"I've been thinking about a little verse in Ephesians 5:10 - "and find out what pleases the Lord."

It's a worship question. Worship is about living lives to the glory of God. Being a people that seek to bring Him pleasure. That is what I want to do with my life. It's funny then that I rarely take time to ask God - "what can I do to please You?" I fail to spend time thinking and endeavouring to 'find out,' what it will take to please the Lord. Maybe it's to spend more time in prayer and worship, maybe it's to give something away, maybe it's to say sorry to someone, maybe it's to go out for coffee with someone you'd rather not. I don't know what the answer will be each day, but He does.

As we begin to live in this way I'm sure our worship will deepen and our lives will be transformed."

From Tim Hughes blog http://www.aboutlife.com/timhughes/find_out

Psalm 85 (NIV)

For the director of music. Of the Sons of Korah. A psalm.

1 You showed favor to your land, O LORD; you restored the fortunes of Jacob. 2 You forgave the iniquity of your people and covered all their sins. Selah 3 You set aside all your wrath and turned from your fierce anger. 4 Restore us again, O God our Savior, and put away your displeasure toward us. 5 Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger through all generations? 6 Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?
7 Show us your unfailing love, O LORD, and grant us your salvation. 8 I will listen to what God the LORD will say; he promises peace to his people, his saints— but let them not return to folly.
9 Surely his salvation is near those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land.
10 Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other. 11 Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven.
12 The LORD will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest.
13 Righteousness goes before him and prepares the way for his steps.

I love this Psalm. It tells of God's mercy to His people, starting with a the earnest prayer of the Psalmist to the Lord. It then catches the moment of intimacy with the Lord where the He forgives His people and promises better days ahead as long as they don't return to their old ways. A word for us all, in the 21st century.

'He will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest.'

Band Co-ordinator summer changes update

July

week 5 - Chris Perkins and week 2 band

August

Week 1 - Chris Perkins
Week 2 - Steve Parsons
Week 3 - Mike & Laura Aspinall
Week 4 - Chris Perkins and David Breen

September

Week 1 - Chris Perkins
Week 2 - Mike & Laura Aspinall
Week 3 - Mike & Laura Aspinall
Week 4 - T.B.A.

A welcome return to Steve Parsons, who is on summer break from holiday at University, and Dave Breen who decided that life in Stowmarket was much more appealing than a Melbourne winter. Good to have you back guys!

Laura Davies's Sponsored Worship Marathon for Durban!!!

Laura will be playing keyboard and singing worship songs for six hours to raise money to help her go to Durban, South Africa, with Soul Action/Tearfund.

The venue is Barton Mills Village Hall on Saturday 5th August 10.30-4.30pm. Everybody is welcome to come along and join in

If you have an instument to set up, come early from 9.3oam.

Sponsor Laura (she has to raise £1400!) by linking onto her website or by sending your donations to the WSVC church office with envelopes clearly marked 'Laura Davies'.

http://www.lauradavies.me.uk/

God stories.........a testamony from Paul Cook

In 1977 I broke my ankle in a car accident, after the operation the consultant who operated on me said it was a horrible mess! I suffered with pain ever since. Some years ago I was told that eventually, when I was old, my ankle would be removed and my leg fused directly to my heel, but I think you can have a replacement fitted nowadays. Well, I guess I’ve gotten old now because the pain had gotten pretty bad and walking was getting difficult at times. So I eventually gave in and went to see my G.P. who sent me to get an X-ray and the report came back saying that I had a gross degenerative condition, so my G.P. is referring me to the specialist at West Suffolk Hospital with a view that the time has come to have that operation. Although I had always known that time would come now that it was a possibility it kind of threw me a bit.
So off I went to Re:fresh, on Saturday morning at the end of the morning session the speaker said if you want a sign from God that He loves you ask your neighbour to pray for you. So I asked Roger to pray for healing of my ankle. Within seconds I had a sensation in my ankle similar to pencils being rolled on a table which I can only believe it was bones and tendons in the move, also a movement just surged through my body from top to bottom leaving me in a state of total peace, this could have only have been the Holy Spirit! When I got up I could not walk unsupported for a few minutes, the pain was so immense, was I walking on a new ankle?
I had more prayer healing that day that again left me in a state of total peace, although I felt nothing in my ankle this time. As the day progressed I began to realise that I was not feeling as much pain as usual.
The next morning I realised that I could walk normally to the bathroom, in the past I had to walk sideways until my ankle had freed up, and that I could now rotate my foot just as well as the other one and that the ankle no longer looked like a golf ball. Because there was no give in my ankle whenever I stepped off a pavement I had to ensure that I led off on my good foot, after giving a testimony on Sunday morning I just jumped off the stage with no problem. I still have some pain but not as much and in a different area, is the plate hindering progress? I don’t know!
I am looking forward to seeing the specialist now and having another X-ray, what will it show?

GOD IS GREAT!

Paul Cook

New Brenton Brown CD out!!

Fans of the songs of Brenton Brown will wanna hear his new CD produced with EMI. Sounds very much like the Brenton Brown of the Vineyard CDs and is chock full of great new songs with thought provoking lyrics. Its definately worth checking out and is available on teh CD desk (I beleive!) at church, from itunes (for all you cheapskates and tech-ies-like me!), or from all good christian book shops.

Hear a couple of the songs on his myspace, along with a good biograpghy of what he's been up to since he moved on from Vineyard UK.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=74875704

Psalm 100:4 (N.I.V)

"Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name."

There is something quite special about opening up our worship and prayer times with praise and thanksgiving. Adoring God for who He is and what He has done.

The psalmist knew it and in my experience, the best times of worship and prayer start with it as well! It opens up out eyes to God.

Everything Glorious

Following on from the brilliant 'How great is our God' is 'Everything Glorious' recorded live at Passion 2006 in Nashville, USA.

Passion are at the forefront of modern day worship music with Matt Redman, David Crowder band, Charlie Hall and Chris Tomlin all featuring on this CD.

Chris Tomlin's contributions, inparticular, 'How awesome is the Lord most high' and 'Glorious' are the stand-outs. He writes the most singable congregational worship songs, and is getting extremily prolific having penned such favourites as 'How great is our God' and 'Forever'. There's a new song from Matt Redman 'You never let go' which is also very usable, if slightly on the wordy side, and Charlie Hall's 'All we need' was used at Re:fresh this year.

Its another first rate worship CD from the 'Passion' guys!

Check out the e-link to hear mini-clips of all the songs
http://ecards.sparrowrecords.com/passion_glorious/eg_ecard.html

Singers wanted for Church choir starting soon

From Simon Young;

I've spoken to most of you about getting together to see what we can do with a gospel/worship choir.

Ideally it will consist of four-part harmony (soprano, alto, tenor, bass), with a small backing band probably consisting of piano, organ/synth, bass, drums and maybe lead guitar, but with the emphasis on worship through the singing. There will probably be a (different) lead singer for each song as well as the choir.

I'd like to have an evening to explain a bit more what the idea is, arrange time for practising, listen to some music and maybe even to sing one or two chords!

If you'd like to join in, can you contact me asap with evening days which are good for you. Also dates you can't make in the next month or so. If it works we'll aim to have a practice/worship time once a week or once a fortnight. Please could you also let me know if you haven't the time.

Please pass this message on to others you think would like to sing. The key things are 1) a passion for worship and 2) I would like the singers to be able to hold a part in a four-part choir and to sing in tune, although if you haven't done choir singing before it doesn't matter - we'll have a go at teaching. But it will be different from the normal bands in that we'll spend much more time learning the parts, with printed music.

Thanks!

Simon

Stories behind the songs.....Lord, I lift your name on high

From 1997 to 2002, one of Rick Founds's songs had the distinction of being the number one praise and worship song being sung in America's churches, according to Christian Copyright Licensing International's Top 25 list. Although "Lord, I Lift Your Name on High" is only one of more than three hundred songs that Rick has written, it is by far his most popular. As a young child in Idaho Falls, Idaho, Rick became fascinated with music, often climbing up on the piano bench to explore the keyboard. By age ten he was writing songs for his Sunday school class, the first of which was "Come to Me." Young Rick loved hymns and the presentations of the church choir. He also developed a love for the guitar and honed his skills by playing along with television commercials.
Rick graduated from college with a degree in media technology. He had wanted to pursue a degree in music but was steered away from that goal by a high school choral teacher who had become discouraged in his own career. Rick did, however, take a number of music courses in college, giving him the background he needed for his future ministry.
Following college, Rick taught visual technology at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, California, for seven years. He led worship on the weekends and sang in special meetings with his praise team. From that employment he went full-time into the ministry of music at a church in California and continued there for fourteen years. It was while music director at that church that he wrote his nowfamous song, "Lord, I LiftYour Name on High."
The song was born out of Rick's typical morning devotions. He had a small Macintosh computer and an electronic Bible, which he would bring up on his monitor and begin reading where he had left off the previous day. Since his office at church was far away from other people, Rick had developed a habit of playing his guitar while reading the Bible on his computer screen.
One day, as Rick was having his daily devotional, the Lord impressed on his heart that His work on our behalf was a cycle of events~Christ came from heaven to earth, gave His life on the cross for us, was buried and three days later rose from the dead, and went back to His heavenly Father, making the cycle and our salvation complete. That, essentially, is the lyric of the song. Rick picked up his guitar and began to sing "Lord, I Lift Your Name on High. "
Rick explained, "It is just a simple song, but it is what the Lord dropped into my heart. The whole song came quickly; I didn't struggle with it at all. I did, however, continue to work on the latter part of the song for another four or five days before I felt it was complete. I then sang it for an evening Bible study. They seemed to love the song. At the time I had no idea that it would be sopopular~1 bad simply written another song, much as I had done so many times before. "
Rick was thrilled to hear thousands of men sing his song at Promise Keepers rallies. The song has become widely popular and now can be heard in other countries of the world, in many languages. Rick rejoices in letters of how the song has impacted people around the world. Rick and his wife, Debbie, have three daughters and make their home in California.

From the website 'Integrity resources'

Re:FRESH 2006

Hey hope you all had a great time at Re:fresh!! (if you went?)

Loads of good fun to be had, God seemed to be doing lots of good stuff with lots of testamonies flying around! David Parker was good and there was some great worship too from the Reading and Winchester Vineyard bands.

Both bands had a great collection of talented musicians and did some great stuff that could easily match the fantastic 'Trent band' and it seems that the standard of local Vineyard bands has increased significantly. Its great to see local church bands getting a chance rather than the usual collection of talented musicians who usually get to do all that stuff.

Its good to see the local churches getting stronger in this area and it won't be long till we see more albums coming out of other Vineyard churches which are as good as Trent and St Albans.

Worship Central Conference

As mentioned at the band members meeting, a group of us are going down to the Worship Central conference at HTB, London on Saturday 23rd September. It promises to be a cracking day with Tim Hughes and team, all for the small cost of £8.
Worship will be led by Tim Hughes and Al Gordon, with guest speakers Tre Sheppard (One hundred hours), Graham Tomlin (principal, Wycliffe Bible College), Terl Bryant (Psalm drummers) and Nick Herbert (St Mary's Bryanston Square) along with the following afternoon workshops;

ENCOUNTER - God the Creator, Graham Tomlin.Enlarge your view of God, as Graham helps us unpack God as Creator and inspires us to worship him in fresh ways.
EQUIP - Drum Workshop, Terl Bryant. Calling all drummers and percussionists! Terl will be taking us through some practical and spiritual approaches to drumming. Not to be missed.
EMPOWER - Band Dynamics, Tim Hughes. How do you work as a band? How do you musically arrange songs? How do you keep things creative and fresh? Tim gives practical tips which will help you get the best out of your worship team.

Its going to be great!

If you fancy coming along, you can book through their website.http://worshipcentral.org.uk/

Also, Intermediate Guitar Lessons starting soon.....

These will follow on from the beginners lessons and take people to being fully competent small group worship leaders.

Ideal for those who can already play 8 or more songs and sing a little bit, and want to jump to the next level!

Probably looking to start them in September. Again, speak to Chris Perkins for more details.

You just never know, the next Matt Redman may be amongst us! (eh Jonners??)

Beginners Guitar Lessons for worship

We are starting Beginners Guitar lessons this month for anybody who wants to learn guitar or has ever wanted to learn the guitar to play worship songs but had no idea of where to start.

We'll do six easy lessons with the aim to get you to play 8 vineyard worship songs and sing or attempt to sing at least 3 of them. 'Ve 'ave vays of making zis 'appen'!!

The cost is £5 to cover costs and if you're interested then speak to Chris Perkins.

What is worship?

From the 'Worship Central' podcast

"I think Worship is an all-consuming response to an all-consuming God"

Tim Hughes

"I think worship is shifting myself out of the centre of the universe, dealing with my ego, so I can fall on my knees"

Charlie Makesey, artist

"Worship is closely linked to sacrifice. In the old testament, you went to the temple and brought a sacrifice, and even the pagan's when they worship recognise that when they do the same. And even if the New Testament in Romans 12 where Paul says to present your bodies as living sacrifices. Also you often can tell what someone worship's by what they would sacrifice themselves for.
So therefore, I think it is the offering of all we have, good and bad, and laying it at the altar of God.

Graham Tomlin, Theologian at HTB