jon mark

sooo, here we are for another week of the madness over on fred’s blog…make sure you take the time to stop over and see what other churches are doing this past weekend…for me this was a long weekend…i was not in the source this week, but i have over leading worship for the three lima live services…our campus pastor from the source was teaching and we were able to go along with him for the long trip across the parking lot…we packed a TON of stuff into our setlist…so here goes…

1. never alone…by barlow girl

then we went into the our meet and greet time…followed by a welcome video(i’ll try to get the link put up here shortly…)

2. halleluah(what a Savior)…by vicki beeching

3. hosanna…by starfield

4. marvelous light…by charlie hall…with a little building intro that i put together by repeating the pre-chorus

5. Jesus paid it all…as performed by kristian stanfill

then we had announcements and offering set up by our executive pastor and lead pastor…

6. love is here…by tenth avenue north

then we had our message presented by the source campus pastor…the roll-in video was a great clip from national lampoon’s Christmas vacation…the focus of the message was on relationships with our family members and reconciling them…

7. sweetly broken…by jeremy riddle

it was a long weekend for me, compared to normal…instead of one service, i was leading worship for three…we packed a ton of music into those services…and there were a few “technical difficulties”…saturday evening we get the third song…i move from the piano over to the mic at center stage with my guitar…as i walk up to the mic i see where someone had vomitted in the middle isle…i was distracted and lost the first two lines of the song…then during the first service sunday morning our speaker’s mic went out about half way through the message…

the coolest thing…despite our “technical difficulties” i am aware of two people that prayed to receive Christ as their personal Savior…not only that i just haven’t cried out to God like that, in song, for a while…i had absolutely nothing left in me when we were done…i gave every last ounce of strength and energy  both in the preparation and more so in the services…i have to say that sweetly broken really hit home with me this weekend and moved up my favorites list…

so there you have it…

sunday setlists…take fourteen…

sooo, yesterday was thanksgiving day and we had a couple of family gatherings to attend…quite a bit of driving to do, but nothing to get excited about…we were able to visit with family from illinois, texas, kentucky, and all over ohio…we have family staying at our house from missouri…it’s been good this year…it’s been a long time since we’ve been able to visit with some family and others, it’s their first time to be a part of our family for the holiday…good times!!!

but there was this 15 minute time span yesterday that will stick with me forever…i was chasing molly through the house (making sure that she didn’t break anything)…and i wound up in the front room of my grandparents’ house…i had a seat on the piano bench and it wasn’t minutes later that i was asked to pull out a hymnal and play…STOP…

can i say that sight reading is not a strength of mine, let alone when it comes to a hymnal…pretty much every song that was called out had somewhere from three to five flats…not to mention the countless accidentals throughout the song…let’s just say it wasn’t pretty!!! GO…

they got grandpa to come in the front room and sit next to me in a chair…he has always loved to sing…but in recent years his health has really been failing…his activities are limited and singing in the men’s chorus hasn’t been on the list of activities for quite some time…but boy did he sing…i can’t say for sure who all was in the room, because my eyes were glued to the notes on the pages…but there was only one voice that my ear was tuned in to…just over my left shoulder…he was SINGING…and right along with that one voice you could hear the sniffles of all the grown men and women in the room, as they watched and listened to their father…he was SINGING!!!

i’ve done a lot of singing throughout my life…some big venues…others not so big…but very few of those opportunities have impacted me the way that i was impacted yesterday…in 15 short minutes…

it had nothing to do with the songs that were sung…it had nothing to do with how good/bad the pianist was playing…it had everything to do with the heart of the man that was singing…it had everything to do with the God that he was singing to…it had everything to do with the stories behind these songs and what they meant to him…this weekend i will lead worship for at least 1500 people…i can only pray that people will sing like my grandpa was singing…i pray that i will sing like he was singing(and that i’ll play a little better on the keys and the guitar!!!)…

it wasn’t pretty…but it left an impact…

sooo, i was watching a video podcast this morning of francis chan…from his church…not only did he have a very powerful message, he also had a great singer/songwriter visit back in july and sing this song…listen to her explanation of the song, as well as to the powerful lyrics…here is a youtube video of the song as kendall payne performed it that morning at cornerstone church…as well as his challenge with the song…