I just wanted to email all of you and share the excitement of preparing for worship tomorrow.

I know we do this every Sunday, but stop and think for a minute of what we get to be a part of:

We will meet with fellow believers in the hallways and find out ways we can be praying and encouraging one another.

We will all take focused time to pray together as we approach a Holy God.

We will joining our brother's and sister's in Christ in singing about and to our Creator.

We will learn from the very word's Gods has given us in scripture.

We will have an opportunity to give towards the ministry God has given us in our church.

We will stand and read God's word.

Are you ready for this? Is your soul prepared? Will we come with repentant and humble hearts?

I hope so, because I think it's going to be awesome!

What are some way's you personally prepare for Sunday morning?

"Bless the Lord, O my soul! Worship His holy name!"

This song is a great petition to our hearts, to praise God through the trials and blessing's of life!

Here is a new song we will be doing this week at GraceJax. Enjoy!

Songwriting can be a daunting task. Although I have only just gotten my feet wet in this area, the list of "11 Worship Songwriting Mistakes" that Andy Piercy of WorshipLeader.com put together is full of pitfalls I have come across in many songs out there. 

Below are the first 3…You'll have to visit there site to get the rest

"1. “Help, help, I’m stuck in a worship song…”

Try and give your song an ending or at least a way that people can escape. Some churches have been singing “Light of the world” non-stop for 2 years now because they can’t find a way to resolve it.

2. Beware of the ‘Fyllables’!

“Fyllables” are sounds that ‘fill’ up the space of a ‘syllable’ but contribute nothing (e.g. ‘just’, ‘really’, ‘that’ or even ‘Lord’). They can suddenly appear as if from nowhere. “Stretchers” are bad too. They sneak in and add extra syllables to words that ‘shou-ouldn’t’ be ‘ther-ere’ (e.g ‘ev-er-y’ instead of ‘ev-ry’). Writers often just don’t really notice that it really is just happening. Make each word really count!

3. Dead-end streets

These are lines with words at the end that force you into using an obvious rhyme (e.g. ‘love’ and ‘above’, ‘life’ and ‘strife’). Reverse out slowly and move the offending word somewhere else."

Click here to read the other 7!

Thanks for reading!

Joey

"All authority, every victory, is Yours!"

Today, we had the opportunity at church to celebrate in 8 baptisms of our fellow believers in Christ! It is times like this that you see such great display of worshiping our King.

I wanted to highlight a line in the song “Sing To King”. This song was actually introduced to me many years ago by my brother in law who serves as a pastor here in Florida.

Here’s the line:

“Come, let us sing a song! A song declaring that we belong to Jesus! He is all we need.”

Now we might glance over this song when we normally sing it, but the message which we declare when we sing those words is a bright and deep one.
There are 3 main points we are communicating when we sing this line:

- We acknowledge that we need Christ alone, and nothing else.
- We declare that we belong to Jesus. We are His servants. We live for Him.
- In light of this, we sing a song of worship to Him.

This song is a song that only the redeemed can sing, just like baptism is only something that saved sinners take part in, as we recognize our great need for a savior, and God’s great love for us.

Here is a link to the song:

I hope it encourages you!

This will be the first month in about 2 1/2 years where I will not be leading the worship at GraceJax. It will be the first time in about 6 years where I wasn't doing something on Sunday morning with the worship team.

Why do I mention all of this?

Well, all of that adds up to countless hours where my wife has been the "single mom". Even as I write this, she is at home, pregnant (due in 2 weeks), and taking care of our 2 little ones. So I guess this post is really for my wife, Kari.

Kari, thank you. Thank you for being a gracious and loving wife. Thank you for being a caring and sacrificial mother to our children. Thank you for always putting God first, even when it meant you had a long evening ahead of you. Thank you for loving the church. Were it not for your faithfulness to our family, I would not be able to do a fraction of what I do. You truly have a great ministry. I love you and I am beyond grateful for you.

So, to my readers, I look forward to the time ahead where I can join the congregation at GraceJax in the seats to sing to our great God! Please pray that this will be a refreshing time for my family and mine's souls.

Thanks!

Joey

The Bono Effect and Corporate Worship from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

I thought they raised some very good points here. We all as worship leaders feel this tension between keeping current with song's that are more "mainstream" and songs that are "long time classics" to lead our local churches in.

No matter what side you lean towards on this matter, they do a good job in this video of showing the importance of knowing your congregation. That requires constantly asking for feedback, prayer, interaction, humility, and Godly counsel from the leaders of the church. 

I am repeatedly humbled and encouraged by those in my church that stop me to give their thoughts on our time of worship. It is awesome and interesting to see where the "culture" of the music at GraceJax is landing. God sure is faithful.

After watching this video, what are some thoughts you have?

This is quickly getting up there in my "favorite songs" list…I hope you enjoy it and worship along with it!

Thanks for the recommendation Philip Sanders!

But I should. We should.

What is confession? What is repentance?
When we confess our sins to God, we are saying “God, you are Holy. I am not. You are pure, and I am stained with sin!”

When we repent, our heart cries “God, I will turn from my sin. I will stop putting my own desire above what honors You. Destroy my sin and help me to bring glory to You with my actions as I depend fully on the cross of Christ!”

That, my friend, is worship.

How do you feel after putting a specific sin to death? Read the following scripture. I would love to hear your thoughts.

“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming.” – Colossians 3:5-6 ESV

Thanks for reading!