10-10-10

Awesome.

That's my one word for RBC last night. It's overused I know, but it fits. I dont know how people were there, but it felt pretty full at Centerpointe around say 5:10pm. A few sweet non-worship things:

1) Centerpointe Pastor Mike Barris (we lease their building) prayed for us, during the serice. Their tech guru has been helping us twice a month in the soundbooth since June. These guys have lived the Gospel to us. Church A helping start Church B... in the same town.... at the same place... these are guys who understand what is important to God, not man.

2) Pastors Leron Heath and Gino Cunninghman led us in prayers of dedication and for our offering (respectively). I know these guys have been and are very close to Scott. Really neat to see that many godly men are affirming Scott and Rock Bible Church.

As for worship, I went for exalting. I hope that was clear. I wanted to start our worship as a church with Hosanna (Praise Is Rising) "You are the God who saves us / .... / Come have Your way among us / We welcome You here Lord Jesus". After that, Holy Is The Lord, How Great Thou Art and Agnus Dei rounded out the evening. My thought process: "....the anthem of the Lord's renown" is "How Great Thou Art".

It's hard to think about yesterday - I'm already looking forward to this Sunday!

See you then...


www.rockbiblechurch.com

Lift-Off is coming!

How can you have a "launch day" without a lift-off?

Rock Bible Church, the Tri-valley's newest church officially begins (lifts-off!!) THIS SUNDAY 10/10/10 at 5pm. www.rockbiblechurch.com

Personally, this is a day I have been looking forward to dating back to November of last year. Since then, we have moved from (grown out of, really) a living room to a space leased to us by Centerpointe in Pleasanton. Unplugged, solo-led worship has become a 4-piece rock-tastic experience (slight exaggeration). We have sung songs that I have led for years (Here Is Our King, Holy Is The Lord, etc.) and a few new ones for me (Hosanna, Awesome is Lord Most High, etc.).

In the coming weeks and months we will be exploring the Beginning. Scott Berglin (Senior Pastor) will teach from Genesis and I will (attempt to) lead praise of our great, eternal and creating God.

More to come soon!

Song of the week: Constant by Charlie Hall from his latest album "The Rising".

...I love that bridge: "God, You are here with us, constantly here with us!"

Happy Blogtober (haha).

A poorly updated blog gets updated, poorly.

My october resolution is to blog more. (sound familiar? ...one day it will stick and I wont be a liar anymore)

http://www.rockbiblechurch.com/ is coming and I want to use this place as an outlet of thought and insight into God, music, Rock Bible Church and more importantly, how they fit together.

Rock Bible Church: 5-23-2010

Yes.... another post! I'm sure one day I'll stick with it.

Anyway, tonight was great. So great in fact, I deemed it worthy of blogging about. Tonight Pastor Scott defined to us what Rock Bible Church is currently and what we will strive toward. Acts 2:42 says, "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers." Luke (the writer of Acts) goes on to say, "they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God..." (v46/47ish).

We are a church that gathers together to hear the word of God, be together in fellowship, eat meals together and pray together/for one another. I love our gatherings. There's a simple joy that is in our group; I think we gather with "glad and generous hearts."

Our Sunday evenings, though relaxed, have Acts 2:42 all over them. We begin with praise and prayer to our Lord (more on that below). Pastor Scott has been teaching from Acts (appropriate, no?). There is a unique vibe right now between him and us in the congregation; our proximity allows for questions and comments and interaction. After teaching, we break bread together. Food is fun! (No shame, I know). I've been fighting allergies and I'm a wuss when it comes to being sick so I was being a little anti-social tonight, but I got to kinda sit back and observe. It was a joy to watch the fellowship at our church tonight. I'm excited to keep this vibe going for our transition to having our evening service at Centerpointe here in Pleasanton. The pastor and his church have been so kind to us. We will still break bread together and have community afterwards.

More will come about RBC in the coming weeks/months. We are looking toward a formal "launch" at Centerpointe in the fall and thanking God for His provisions - past, present and to come.

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As for worship, an unamplified setting is tricky. I'm looking forward to having some better volume control and lyrics on a projector. There are some great songs I'm looking forward to introduce to RBC. Appropriateness and timing, of course, apply to this however. I won't show up on June 27th at Centerpointe with 5 new songs :p ...no worries. (For those interested, go to youtube and check out "Glorious" and "Our God Saves" by Paul Baloche, "Our God (is Greater)" by Chris Tomlin and "How He Loves" by David Crowder.)

Tonight, we sang Everlasting God and Oh Praise Him (by Brenton Brown and David Crowder, respectively)- an appropriate follow up to last weeks' Holy Is The Lord and Forever (both by Chris Tomlin). Everlasting God is straight from Isaiah 40:28-31. Praising the Lord by singing His word up to Him, in my opinion, can't be topped. It's the bible. It's the truth. It's His praise. Oh Praise Him is a song I could sing every Sunday (don't worry, I won't). I've probably said this before, dear blog, but oh well - There are two themes in worship that I just love. One is praising the height, depth, and width of the Lord's love for us (see Jesus, Lord of Heaven below in the previous post). The other theme is joining the angels. After reading Revelation over a few weeks a few years ago in college, I was struck by the role of the angels in praising our Lord. They were unrelenting. They were loud. And, they wasted no words. Oh Praise Him, to me, captures this.

"For who is God, but the Lord? And who is a rock, except our God?" - 2 Samuel 22:32

Rock Bible Church: 3-15-2010

So, I owe the blog a post about Rock Bible Church (RBC). Whoops. This blog is like that part of the room I always neglect to clean, yet think about it all the time. Meh, once every 2 months is better than never!

Following the theme of the previous post, I want to share some of the "method behind the madness" if you will, of these sets I "throw" together. Also, I want to provide a semi-easy way us to recall what we are singing and by whom so you, if you want, can go to iTunes (or equivalent) and download the track for your own worshiping pleasure!

We started singing at our every-other-week prayer and planning meeting for the RBC two weeks ago. Last time, we sang: Holy Is the Lord, Hosanna (by Paul Baloche), God of this City, and The Solid Rock. I will talk about these songs later, I'll definitely be leading them again. Tonight's set was:

Indescribable by Laura Story / Chris Tomlin

Our God (Is Greater) by Chris Tomlin (now to be honest, I'm not sure he wrote this one)

Jesus, Lord of Heaven by Phil Wickham

Indescribable is one of my favorites. Come worship with me for a few weeks and you'll hear it, at least once. It captures a beautiful picture of worship: all creation (not just man!) worships the Lord, their creator. The chorus' lead-in lines really get me: "All exclaiming: " and "None can fathom: ". Creation yearns (as we do, perhaps?) for the Lord and has, like us, been redeemed by Christ! (Romans 8:19ff). No man can fathom the magnitude of the Lord, nor the heights of His grace and love (more to come later on this). All creation too cannot comprehend this; we join their praise and their song to the indescribable, untamable, all powerful, uncontainable, unchangeable, incomparable God.

Our God (Is Greater) is from the latest Passion CD, "Awakening." What a proclamation: "Our God is greater / Our God is stronger"! I think about 1 John 5:21 when I sing this. It says "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." This is John's warning that idols and their lure and their "promise" can negate what we the body are called to do: share and be the love of Christ. When I hear this song I think, "My God (read: our God!) is greater and stronger than any idol the world can offer me." I need this truth. The song doesn't stop there however, it firmly (and defiantly) declares Romans 8:31. "...and if our God is for us / then who could ever stop us? / and if our God is with us / then what could stand against (us)?"

(side note, i kinda butchered the lyrics tonight, sorry... I'll get it next time :p )

Lastly, after a brief message on Acts 1:12-26, Jesus Lord of Heaven. I've mentioned this to a few people, but one of my favorite themes in worship is the unfathomable love and grace of the Lord. Paul prays that the Ephesians (read: we) would know "the breadth, length, height and depth" of His love. (3:14ff). I deeply enjoy the creativity of this truth as found in this song: "Your love has no bounds." When I lead this song, we sing this line alot. Honestly, I want to sing it more. I want to believe deeper and deeper in my mind and heart and soul that His love for me, for us, has no bounds.

Worship in song is a beautiful form of preaching the gospel to ourselves - proclaiming the truth of His word, from our mouths to Him. Sometimes it's truth we have held and will continue hold dear in our hearts and other times it's truth we must digest further. These songs, are praises to our Lord, and they truly are prayers too. "Lord, teach me more of Your love! Thank you for seeing the depths of my heart and loving me the same (from Indescribable). Praise You for being greater and stronger than all of and in the world and being accessible through the saving work of Your Son, in whom we are more than conquerers (Rom. 8:37). Amen"

A New Year, Resolution, and Church

Blog-town - been awhile, I apologize.

I have made a New Year's resolution to blog more and given that about 4% of the year is over, I better get started in order to secure an 'A'.

I am helping plant a new church: Rock Bible Church (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=182241546809). Many blogs will (hopefully) be written about this. I am going to be leading worship and helping with main services. The feelings of joy, excitement, anxiety and unpreparedness have taken (and will continue to take) their turns dominating my psyche. My old youth pastor and soccer coach, Scott Berglin, has the vision for this church. We have been holding planning/prayer meetings, men's bible study and soon a women's study as well.

One of the reasons specifically I want to blog again is to share about worship. My thoughts on leadership, song choice and whatever else comes up. That being said:

Here Is Our King

by David Crowder

Big surprise: a song by the guy in my profile picture. Well let me share a bit (story time). There was actually a 15-month period where I played this song only once with the college band - yeah, once. I had gotten "over" it. It wasn't new or cool anymore to me. I didn't take the time to ask myself "What's it about? Why play it in the first place? What's the purpose of the song? ...etc." During my last year of college and again a few weeks ago (but deeper), I got so struck by the declarative nature of the chorus, given the verses. Let me explain.

From where ever Spring arrives, to heal the ground

From where ever searching comes, the look itself - a trace of what we're looking for

So be quiet now and wait

Spring. Blossoms. New Life. (See an earlier post "Spring"). Faith is a journey. We take faith because there is an unsatisfied longing in us for something yet to come, but the beauty of this is in this journey to find Him, who is our longing, we encounter Him (well, He encounters us). "Be still and know that I am God." (Psalm 46:10). That power and glory and beauty that makes healing Spring come is here and with us. Here is our King....

And what was said unto the rose, to make in unfold,

Was said to me here in my chest,

So be quiet now, and rest.

My dad is a tree doctor (seriously, Ph.D. in trees) and my mom runs her own garden business. Needless to say, I have been surrounded by plants my whole life; I love them and their beauty. The rose unfolding is breathtaking. There is a reason that for Valentine's day that the ladies like roses, not pansies, iris', or even daffodils. The rose is majestic, and the creator of the rose - the whole world - similarly unfolds and perfects (Phil 1:6) the human heart. He is with us (Emmanuel, Isaiah 7:14). Here is our King.

Lastly, the bridge, is simply "Majesty, Finally." Though not fully perfected and with Him in heaven, He is here with us! Not leaving us nor forsaking us (Deut 3:16), He leads us and grows us in faith. His eternal Majesty is here. Psalm 8. Finally.

Peace, love and rock'n'roll.

Other things on my mind

(the post below this is from Sept 29th also, not August 3rd. it only took me 57 days to finish. please read that too, actually, if you were to only read one post in its entirely, please skip this one and read "the proverbs 31 man." thank you. Love, Brendan.)

The Beatitudes, learn them, love them.... live them. Matthew 5: 3-12 (my comments in parentheses)

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they inherit the earth. (The Beasties Boys rhyme this in "Shadrach". even the Beastie Boys use the bible in conversation. So can we.)

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. (BOOYAH!!!!)

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. (yesss)

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. (praying for a pure heart now, well, more earnestly.)

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons (or daughters) of God.

Blessed are those who are persecutes for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.