Author: dan

start small

photo by frederic sean

DREAM BIG!! This is one of the catch phrases I love to live by. You? I love to dream in large numbers of people (not large people) and how they will be forever changed if they could just hear a bit of my music, read my lyrics, or listen to my wisdom.  And the more that can hear ME, the better?

I work with various artists (filmakers, musicians, dancers, photographers, webdesigners….you get the idea) and the one thing that seems to hold true for them all is that they always want their art to reach 1,000’s of people. They want their area to be GINORMOUS before it even starts.  That’s a good sentiment but sometimes a little unrealistic for a first step.  What if we just took it a step at a time and started small?

A filmmaker friend of mine recently completed a beautifully artistic film based loosely on his life.  The story could have affected so many people if he would have promoted it online, pitched it to a big studio, or tried to sell it to the masses.  But instead he submitted it to a local film festival.  It just missed making it to the finals in the short film category. So how successful was he?  He would tell you that he had a semester’s worth of film school through making the film. Oh, and he was just invited to show it at the opening of that same film festival.  The one he didn’t win.  This Thursday many people will see it, many people will be affected by small steps.

Maybe twitter can sum it up for us:

To a man on a mountain road by night, a glimpse of the next 3 feet of road may matter more than a vision of the horizon – C.S. Lewis

Don’t misunderstand.  DO DREAM BIG.  But first – take those next 3 feet of road.

start small.

DJ

Sunday [03.14.10] – Missions Conference In Review

Missions Conference Open 2010 from danieljohn on Vimeo.

Marc & Ruth Marques working with street children in Brazil. The Pinos, training young people and planting churches throughout the Philippine islands. The Painters, walking out daily life in now devastated Haiti and so many more that I hope to introduce you to. They all had so many stories and in the coming weeks I will bring you more details about these remarkable people and their lives of service and justice.

Below is our setlist for the week. We had a different choir with us each service, and on the last night had our youth band/orchestra play with us which made for an incredible time. Above is the video [made by one of our college students, James Powell] we used to open and close out this year’s missions conference. And below I have included all the main service setlists along with links to iTunes previews:

Sunday
Women’s Home
1. (G) You You Are God
2. (A) New Song We Sing
3. (D) Desert Song
4. (C) How He Loves

Monday
Men’s Center
1. (B) Counting On God
2. (A) Glory To God Forever/Shout Unto God
3. (A) God With Us
4. (Bb) Reign In Us

Tuesday
Kid’s Choir
1. (G) One Way
2. (G) Happy Day
3. (G) No Sweeter Name
4. (D) Revelation Song

Wednesday
Youth Orchestra/Band
1. (E) Again I Say Rejoice
2. (D) For Your Name
3. (F) A Greater Song
4. (Eb) Glorify Your Name

As usual, this Sunday Setlist is a part of the worship confessional/carnival hosted at the Worship Community.

Sunday [02.21.10] – Winter Wonderland

We had a wildly wintery day yesterday – so much so that half of our people did not make it for the second service. At first as we looked out over the crowd it appeared awkwardly small, but it ended up having a wonderfully intimate feel.  We did not run the music as hot (due to the size of the congregation) and you could hear everyone singing just a little louder to make up the difference.

Also, I do not usually do such Hillsong driven sets, but this mix of songs just seemed to work for us yesterday. It was so much fun to lead this with the band/team and the presence of God was very real as we worshipped with these songs:

1. (Dm) Your Love Is Beautiful – a little old-school Hillsong complete with guitar & drum solos. also added in a cool gospel riff to lead into the second song.
2. (D) For Your Name – newer Hillsong song. i use a delay on the keys to give a very U2-ish sound.
3. (D) Jesus, Name Above All Names – a new arrangement of a classic song. our church really responds well to this one.
4. (E) I Adore – more old-school (ala 2001) but still great.
5. (A) Majesty/My Soul Sings – a mix of some Martin Smith songs to finish off the set!

Thanks for stopping by to see our sunday setlist.  Be sure to check out what others around the country are doing here at the TheWorshipCommunity.com.

Sunday [01.31.10]

Well, it’s been long while since I last posted a setlist, but my good friend Harold (from onevoiceworship.org) encouraged me to resume the setlist fun. So here we are again. I trust that you have all been well. We’ve been good too and thanks for asking. 🙂

We had a good morning set with a smaller, yet very tight team (drums, bass, keys, & 3 singers). This was our setlist today:
Continue reading Sunday [01.31.10]

Sunday [11.08.09]

Welcome to the Sunday Setlist rundown. I’ll keep this short today (read: taking a nap) as we are starting some special meetings that start today and run until Wednesday evening. It was a good service this morning and we had a rather large crowd, with many visitors in town because of a wedding (for a lovely couple from our church) we held yesterday.

Worship went well, just not as great as I had hoped for. Don’t ask me what would have been great because I don’t have any actual criteria in place to measure this. It was just that feeling that things could have been a little more energetic, more engaged, more dynamic. But mostly, I think people were a little disengaged because we had a guest speaker and they were “curious” what he would be like. The speaker and I talked after service and he agreed that the people were a little reserved today. Regardless of all that, our band did a wonderful job, we enjoyed worshiping together, and here is the set for the day:

1. (F) Most High
2. (D) We Give You Glory
3. (E) Revive Us Again/Show Your Glory
4. (A) Shout To The Lord
5. (A) Agnus Dei

As always, thanks for stopping by and check out Fred McKinnon’s site HERE to see what other churches and teams are doing around the country. Be sure to come check out the free video section on Friday, as we will be posting a new video. Have a great week!

Sunday [11.01.09] – daylight savings fun

All I am going to say is that the technology I live with is now “officially” smarter than I am. We literally awoke (VERY REFRESHED) to the fact that everything we had set back one hour had also automatically set itself back one hour too. So yes, I fell back 2 hours instead of 1 which then caused our band to miss it’s rehearsal time. But even with my technological craziness, we were able to throw a quick rehearsal together in a back room, and worship was still wonderful because we were with God.

Below are our setlists for the day w/ links to iTunes:

– 1 –

1. (F) Forever
2. (Ab) Radiance
3. (Ab) O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing
4. (E) How Deep The Father’s Love For Us
5. (C) I Surrender All


– 2 –

1. (Ab) We Cry Out
2. (B) Glory To God Forever
3. (B) Jesus Paid It All
4. (B) Glorified // Glory To God Forever
5. (C) Let It Rain

If you would like to see what other churches and worship leaders are doing each week, stay on the internet for a few miles, and then take your first left down to Fred McKinnon’s site. Also, if you haven’t take advantage of our video series for keyboard players, come check it out HERE – IT’S FREE! Have a great week!