Darlene Zschech

Set List: Faith Community Church (17 November 2013)

I’m really excited as Fantastic Team 3 prepares to lead worship this Sunday at Faith Community Church. Every time our team is on, there is a real sense of excitement, as if it were all playing together for the first time. And I think that’s the way it should be! So often, our service to God can become dutiful, as if we were just going through the motions. I am grateful for all the members of the team who practise hard and approach serving with enthusiasm!

This week, Ps Benny is continuing his series on Spiritual Warfare.

As I was preparing for this week’s worship, I sensed God speak through 2 Corinthians 2:14:

“But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him.”

We often see this passage as saying that “God leads us in triumph”. But I think “triumphal procession” is more correct. God doesn’t lead us into triumph because He has already brought us victory through the cross. Rather, he leads us into a triumphal procession – an act of recognising and celebrating His victory!

In Roman times, the victorious Roman army would parade through the city with the captive enemy in train. In Colossians 2:15, Paul says that “having disarmed the powers and authorities, [God] made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” Not only has God won the victory, but the captive enemy is made a public spectacle. Imagine that! This is what happens every time we praise God and testify of His goodness in our lives. When God brings healing, He also makes a mockery of disease. When He brings provision, He makes a spectacle of financial lack. When God brings salvation, He makes a statement against sin and death!

One more thought: in those days, when the winning general rides in procession, his family rides with him. That is a picture of us – the church! We did nothing to win the victory. Jesus did it all on the cross. But as His family, His brothers and sisters and co-heirs, we partake in the victory which we did not earn or achieve! What an amazing blessing!

So here are the songs for this Sunday.

// Nothing is Impossible (A)

// In Jesus’ Name (E)

// 10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord) (G)

// Anchor (D)

“In Jesus’ Name” is a new song from Darlene Zschech’s album Revealing Jesus. Here’s the youtube video so if you are worshipping with us this Sunday, you can learn the song beforehand.

Finally, I’m also super-excited that this Sunday I’ll be leading worship with Ps Yoy. We’ve been waiting for this moment for well over a year! We’ve led worship together in other events, but this is the first time we are doing it together in our home church! It’s going to be an awesome time in God’s presence.

Set List: Faith Community Church (23 June 2013)

I had the privilege of serving yesterday with Band 4 at Faith Community Church for the Sunday Service.

Continuing from my thoughts yesterday on “Personal Genesis”, I felt that God was releasing a new anointing on our band. I actually wish I had the music recorded from yesterday’s service because the sound that was released was quite unconventional.

When it comes to worship, I err on the side of predictable. I like familiar, tried and true arrangements. Like my wife likes to say, you don’t mess with the classics.

But our music director on the band, Joe Wee Chuah, is a consummate musician and I wanted him to explore and push through his own creative frontiers so I asked him to attend to the musical arrangements. Joe Wee ended “scripting” some incredibly fresh renderings of old, near-weary songs.

At first, I was a bit cautious because, as I said, I like predictability. But I was personally challenged too – if we could pull it off as a band, why can’t we have a “both/and” mentality dabbling in both familiarity and surprise?

What also really impressed me was, apart from some novel musical arrangements, some of the guys were so dedicated to see it through that they spent an extra session rehearsing together, without my even asking for it! To me, it was a sign of our band’s maturity to take personal responsibility for the delivery of worship and to support my leading, without leaving me to carry the load on my own.

And deliver they did! It was one of the freshest of Sunday worships we’ve done as a band. For me, this was the raising of a new water mark and a breaking through of the glass ceiling.

May we only go from strength to strength from here on in!

Here is the list:

// God is Great (B)
// Lay Me Down (B) (Chris Tomlin)
// Here I am to Worship/Call (E)
// Your Name/Cry of the Broken (A)

Here is the version of Your Name which we did from Darlene Zschech’s Revealing Jesus album.

Set List: Faith Community Church Sunday Service (28 April 2013)

I had the privilege of leading worship with Faith Community Church’s Team 4 recently. The theme of the set was “Transcendence”. In Exodus 33, Moses asked God a rhetorical question: “what would distinguish God’s people from the rest of the nations if it were not His presence?” God has set eternity in the hearts of men. We long for transcendence – for something that is beyond ourselves. God’s provision for that longing is His glory!

Here is the songlist:

// Today is the Day (C)

// I Am Free (C)

// Magnificent (Darlene Zschech’s version) (G)

// I Stand in Awe (A)

// The Stand (chorus only) (A)

Thanks to Joe Wee Chuah our music director for the awesome arrangements!

Reference

Check out Darlene Zschech’s version of Magnificent from her new album Revealing Jesus.

Worshipping Generations

I shared the following thoughts with the band of which I am a part at Faith Community Church on 20 October 2012. We call ourselves “Fantastic Team 3”. Below I reproduce my sharing almost verbatim (with a few edits).

Lisa (the worship leader of our band) has asked me to do a 10 minute sharing with you and I asked what she wanted me to share. She said I could share anything I wanted – which actually is a bit dangerous.

But I think it’s important for us to every now and then get back to the roots of why we do what we do because worship is so much more than what we do here on stage once a month. It’s so much more than singing songs, playing music, dancing, even about getting into God’s presence, although all those things are important.

John Maxwell said this (quoted from Darlene Zschech’s The Great Generational Transition):

Unless the WHY behind the WHAT is taught consistently, that unless we preach a standard and not just a method, then clarity, precision and most importantly the original WHY becomes distorted in all the DOING.

This is why for me, even though I love to be involved in worship, I am always trying to understand more about what the Bible teaches about worship, the foundational things.

In fact, I said to Lisa a few weeks ago, that it’d be a really awesome exercise to go through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and study all the texts about worship. That’s probably going to take a few years to get through!

Anyway, as I was thinking about what to share today, I thought about this team and the fact that you are all so young and vibrant. I’ve been in Faith Community Church for about 7 months now and one of the things that drew me to this church was its worship and the sense of God’s presence when I first step foot into the auditorium.

When I joined the worship team, I was wondering which team I’d be put into and I was actually really really glad that I got put into the so-called Fantastic Team 3. As I said, you guys are so young and vibrant and there’s always a great sense of excitement, but also a sense of unity.

So the thought came to me to share about worshipping generations.

Have a look at Psalm 145:3-7:

Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
his greatness no one can fathom.
One generation commends your works to another;
they tell of your mighty acts.
They speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty—
and I will meditate on your wonderful works.
They tell of the power of your awesome works—
and I will proclaim your great deeds.
They celebrate your abundant goodness
and joyfully sing of your righteousness.

The psalmist says that because God is great and worthy of praise (or in the Message, it says He can never be praised enough, there are no boundaries to his greatness”), one generation praises His works to another.

There is a powerful principle of worship here: worship is never confined to any one generation.

Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with say Hillsong United, grungy, guitar driven worship. That’s something you may enjoy. Nor is there anything wrong with Gaither Homecoming and old-style country gospel. These are really matters of personal preference (and things you’re used to as you are growing up!)

But if your worship is confined to one generation only, then it is incomplete.

Because of the greatness and transcendence of God, a God whose greatness has no boundaries, it takes the crossing of generational boundaries to fully express worship to Him.

So one generation commends God’s works to another.

Notice that there is no “chronology” to this. We often read this and think: well the older people must pass on the baton and teach the next generation how to worship; to leave the right principles and to blaze a trail for the next generation to follow.

I used to think this. In fact, at one time, I was so proud as to think that there had been a “degeneration” in our worship.

When I was growing up in the church, we used to have break out in spontaneous worship for extended periods; people would shout prophecies and tongues and interpretation of tongues, people would fall over in worship. And the songs… Well the songs were so much more Word-based, theologically robust and yes, simpler to sing. None of this syncopation stuff and “fluffy” words with very little biblical references. And I used to think “man, as I’ve seen how the worship of the church has developed in the last 20 years; it’s just not the same as the good ‘ol days”.

What the psalmist is saying that one generation will commend God’s works to another generation. There’s no sequence. The old teach the youth, the youth will teach the old, the children will teach the youth, the youth will teach the children, the old will teach the children and the children will teach the old. One generation will commend God’s works to another.

And as far my worries about “degeneration” are concerned, once I began to understand this principle of generations standing side I side, I realised that the next generation wasn’t degenerating; they were simply different and they ways they expressed their worship were different.

And in fact, sometimes when we reminisce, we often give our memories a good deal more force and gravity than they actually deserve. As an aside, music is particularly good at carrying memory. Recently, I was at a Chinese restaurant when (as they do) an old theme song from a Hong Kong television series was playing. I remember watching that serial when I was a kid and how wonderful it was; the great storylines; the intricate plot; the great acting. I suggested to my parents (with whom I was eating dinner) that it’d be quite fun to take out the DVDs of the old serials and watch them again. They categorically told me that it wasn’t worth it – those old serials aren’t as good as I remember them to be.

I think sometimes we need to recognise that our memories play tricks on us. Yes, the events of the past were great. But they were great for that time. What was great for then may not necessarily be great for now.

Anyway, back to our main thought. We must embrace the different generations and their different expressions, because it is when we can be united in our diversity that we can fully express a worship that’s due God and His unbounded greatness.

Lastly, notice the echoes of the Psalmist in verses 5 to 7. They (the generations) speak of God’s glorious splendour, so I (personally) will meditate on His wonderful works.

They (the generations) tell of God’s power, and I (personally) will proclaim His great deeds.

Worship is at once an individual pursuit, but it is also a corporate one. And an intergenerational one at that! Our collective worship inspires our private devotion.

So, that’s why I’m really glad to be in Fantastic Team 3. I’m glad that older ones like me can work side by side with some of you younger folks. And I’m glad that our songs reflect that intergenerational-ness.

Let’s continue to strive to be excellent worshippers in our generation, but also inclusive of the generations before and after us. Let’s be a generation of worshippers, but also generators of worship across the generations!

Wineskins, Patches and Paradigm Shifts

I think Christianity has been one of the most enduring faiths because of its ability to reinvent itself within the parameters of its core tenets and beliefs. It is a revolutionary faith.

One of the things I love doing is to look at paradigm shifts in the church, particularly in the context of worship. Certainly, the church’s understanding of worship has come a long way, and its expression of worship has taken quantum leaps, even in the last 20 years or so.

Jesus’ parable about new wine and new wineskins is interesting. I have heard many teachings about how we need to change the church’s methodologies (new wineskin) to contain the new wine that God is pouring out.

I have often taught from this passage when I talk about changes in the worship landscape, but I never really understood the first part of the passage about shrinking a cloth before using it as a patch. So I happily ignored that part and hoped no one ever asked me questions about it. (Actually one of the great things about teaching at church is people tend not to want to ask you pointy questions!)

But I think I’m getting a clearer revelation of this passage now and want to offer you some of my thoughts. But first, here is the passage from Luke 5:36-39:

[Jesus] told them this parable: “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.”

The problem I had in the past with interpreting this passage stemmed from an erroneous approach: I always thought the two images (wineskins and cloth) are reinforcing images, i.e. they are two ways of saying the same thing. Actually, I now understand that the key to this passage is in the fact that the two concepts are complementary. The wine imagery tells us about the need for renewal, and the second imagery of the cloth tells us about the method to implement that renewal.

If you are a wine drinker, you will know that really good wine needs to mature over time. New wine can often be harsh with undeveloped flavours. That’s why Jesus says that no one who drinks old wine actually wants new wine, because they say “the old is better”.

Recently a friend of mine opened a bottle of wine which was apparently bottled on his actual birthday 30 years ago. He thought it tasted okay, but whilst I politely agreed, inside me I actually had some doubts. It tasted a bit funky in my opinion. In any event, I think most people know the general principle that when wine gets really old, it turns to vinegar.

So even though most people like old wine, we can’t hold on to old wine forever. It will go off.

Even though the pentecostal tradition eschews liturgy, in fact, we often have a strange reliance on “unstructure” to the point where it can become its own structure and liturgy. In fact, step into most contemporary churches and the service is entirely predictable: singing, followed by announcements and then the sermon. Depending on how “spirit-led” you are, you may get some ministry time at the end too.

No matter how much we like the old, we can’t hang on to the methods, models and strategies of the past. They will become stale and ineffective.

The fabric analogy however, tells us about the way we bring about change and renewal. The patch of cloth from the new garment can’t be used to patch up a hole in an old garment unless the new patch is preshrunk. Otherwise, it will tear away from the old garment. Often, we want to transplant a new idea or a new method onto existing structures without holding back a little. The new idea becomes too radical and a shock to the system for those used to the old, and the radical idea gets rejected entirely.

Twenty years ago, the idea of a woman worship leader was unheard of. (There are still some remnants in the body of Christ who don’t believe that women should lead worship). But then Darlene Zschech came onto the scene. She started out as a strong backing vocalist and she began to write songs which captured the heart of the church. Before long, having her lead worship was a natural choice. Darlene paved the way for women worship leaders to start taking up that mantle all over the world.

Once, a church I knew began to flow into prophetic worship in the vein of Rick Pino. However, the worship leader began the service by singing free worship and then sang one song over and over again for 25 minutes. A good deal of the congregation failed to engage and was lost in the process. Whilst moving the church into prophetic worship is desirable, doing it too quickly when people aren’t ready or educated can result in a church rejecting the new move of God.

This is what Matt Redman refers to when he says that as worship leaders, we must balance the prophetic with the pastoral. Worship leaders must keep prophetically forging ahead, breaking new ground with new styles of music, new songs, new prophetic flows and new artistic expressions. But we must also be pastoral: we need to bring people with us; we can’t go too far ahead that they can’t follow; we need to hold back a bit and let the new cloth shrink slightly, so it doesn’t tear from the old cloth.

True renewal is necessary. Psalm 102:25-27 says this:

In the beginning, you laid the foundations of the earth,

and the heavens are the work of your hands.

They will perish, but you remain;

they will all wear out like a garment.

Like clothing you will change them

and they will be discarded.

But you remain the same,

and your years will never end.

God is the same, but He is always on the move and bringing change.

As revolutionaries, we must love the church, even those who seem to be slightly lagging behind. We need new wineskins to contain God’s new wine. But we must also be careful to preshrink the new patch from the new garment before applying it onto the old garment, lest we tear away from the old garment and destroy it so that even the cutting off from the new garment would have been in vain.

Epochal Songs of the Praise and Worship Movement

I have been leading worship for the last 19 years within the Charismatic Renewal and I have seen the style (and to some extent) the content of our worship evolve. Rewind 20 years back and it would have been unimaginable for the church back then that we would sing the types of songs we sing today.

The instrumentation has changed. From keyboard-driven and big band orchestral music, the forerunner music of today’s worship is guitar-driven grunge and electronic techno.

We have also moved on from traditional hymnology to a much more prophetic, apostolic lyric but at the same time, injecting elements of heartfelt personal poetry and imagery. Worship music is beginning to bridge the cultural divide between sacred and secular.

The praise and worship movement had its origins in the 1960’s. Two streams were particularly influential: presentation blue-grass gospel songs (popularised by the Gaithers) and the Jesus People movement (which brought rock-and-roll music and musicians into the church). (It is interesting to see even then how the generations converged in Charismatic worship).

Since then, those on the cutting edge have continued to revolutionise worship music, bringing to it strong artistic merit without comprising biblical content.

An epoch means an era or season. And so when I refer to “epochal songs”, I am referring to songs that are significant to an era or season of the church in one of two ways: either it defines the season (i.e. it captures and articulates the heartcry of the church at a moment in time, usually an emotion or perspective which was felt but not yet expressed) or it is defining of the season (i.e. it catapults the church into a new prophetic direction).

Here, I want to list what I believe are the epochal songs of the praise and worship movement. I don’t pretend to be an expert on this but my opinion is based on extensive reading, listening and thinking about praise and worship and also experiencing it first hand for the last 22 years of my Christian walk.

So here they are – my list of the 15 epochal songs of the praise and worship movement in chronological order:

All Hail King Jesus (Dave Moody, 1977)
Give Thanks (Henry Smith, 1978)
I Love You, Lord (Laurie Klein, 1978)
As the Deer (Martin Nystrom, 1984)
Ancient of Days (Jamie Harvill and Gary Sadler, 1992)
Power of Your Love (Geoff Bullock, 1992)
Shout to the Lord (Darlene Zschech, 1993)
Everything That Has Breath (Michelle Hira/Parachute Band, 1994)
I Could Sing of Your Love Forever (Martin Smith/Delirious, 1994)
Did You Feel the Mountains Tremble (Martin Smith/Delirious, 1994)
Breathe (Marie Barnett, 1995)
History Maker (Martin Smith/Delirious, 1996)
The Heart of Worship (Matt Redman, 1997)
How Great is Our God (Chris Tomlin, Ed Cash and Jesse Reeves, 2004)
How He Loves Us (John Mark McMillan, 2005)

In my next several posts, I will explain why I have picked these songs and their significance to the worship life of the church. You may not agree with my list or you may think other songs should be included. What would be interesting for me (as a bit of social research) is to hear your thoughts on my list. What songs do you think should be here? Why do you think they are significant? I look forward to reading your comments!