Life Church WorshipLife Church Worship - Worship from The Life Church

New Song “Our Victory”

admin — Fri, 18 May 2012 18:23:40 +0000

This is a demo of our new song called “Our Victory.” This song is a declaration that in every season and every battle we are not alone, and that we can stand through our strength in God! It’s a song centered around the truth that we have Our Victory through Christ alone. Our hope is that it would be more than just a song but an anthem of hope and victory in the church! Check out the demo version of the song “Our Victory.” The song is up on our bandage on our Facebook

Mother’s Day 2012

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 22:33:49 +0000

We were planning to do a Good Charlotte song for Mother’s Day, but felt like we needed to change it up a little bit because the feel of the song was mellow and came across kind of down. We kept trying to make tweaks to it, but it didn’t sound any happier and just wasn’t communicating the celebratory feel we wanted. The following Thursday, we got inspired to try and write a song ourselves and that’s when “My Mom” was birthed. We felt the song was fun and upbeat and even decided to bring back the Momma Boyz. Check it out, we’d love to get your thoughts and hear what you did for Mother’s Day.

Mother’s Day 2011

admin — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:36:27 +0000

Here’s a video we did last year for Mother’s Day. We lifted it from a youtube video we found, and added our own elements to it. Check it out!

Shake It!!!

admin — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:59:05 +0000

How many times have you been on a busy street, and you look over and see someone shaking a sign to advertise for a business nearby? It seems like sign shaking is happening more and more theses days. Most of the time I drive by and don’t give a second thought to these guys, until one Saturday afternoon.

There he was with his mullet wig on, powder-blue spandex, and guitar shaped sign that read, “Little Caesars”. He was different than the other guys, he had passion, he had zeal, and he owned that intersection. I almost missed my light cause I had to stop for a minute and rock out with him. It got me thinking (does not happen often), why do I drive past most sign shakers, but stopped and gave mullet man my full attention?

I believe it’s because that sign shaker knew his role. He did not go out on the intersection with an attitude of this is stupid, I am so much better than this, nor did he walk back-and-forth checking his phone the entire time. He went outside with the goal of demanding your attention to get you inside to purchase some super cheap pizza.

I starting thinking about Luke 14:23 where it says, “And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled”. I’m not suggesting we go out and shake signs to get people to come to church, but we could conduct our lives and use words to compel people to know God more. We could lead worship with such passion and conviction that people are drawn to God. We could provide an atmosphere of love so that when people walk into our church doors they feel special and they belong.

We obviously have a different agenda than Mr. Sign Shaker, but what if we take on the same attitude as he did? What if we got a little more undignified in our approach to our role in church. Whatever role you play at church whether it’s on the worship team, greeter, nursery worker, or facility team. Let’s make sure we serve in a manner where we are so compelling that people can not just drive by our church.

John Farmer-Band Director

Axis Youth Conference

admin — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 21:48:17 +0000

Axis Youth Conference is an incredible 3 days and 4 nights of young people coming together to encounter God, experience amazing worship, and be challenged to revolutionize their sphere of influence. It is an awesome opportunity to inspire your young people to live as the champions God has called them to be and make a lasting impact on their world. Our hope is that each student would grow in their faith, gain wisdom for life, and be challenged as a leader! For more info click here

Countdown Clock Videos

admin — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 15:15:34 +0000

Here are some countdown clock videos made from our creative team at church.

2012 countdown

Night Driving Countdown

Time Lapse Countdown

Interview with Matt Adcox from Celebration Church

admin — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 15:30:38 +0000

We’re always asking other churches how they do things so that we can get fresh ideas and new ways of approaching challenges. Every now and then, we’ll be sharing interviews from worship leaders/musicians who aren’t from The Life Church, it’s a great chance to hear their heart and learn how they do worship at their church. This is an interview with Matt Adcox a great worship leader, writer, and a great friend to our church.

Matt Adcox is a Worship Pastor at Celebration Church in Jacksonville, FL under the leadership of Pastors Stovall and Kerri Weems. He has been playing and leading worship since a very young age and has a heart and passion to lead people into the presence of God. Before coming on staff in 2005, he graduated from New Life School of Worship. Throughout his 6 years at Celebration, he has been a part of writing and producing four albums: Awakening, Kollide, Greater Than All and their latest Fuse EP. Matt has been married to his wife Karla for almost six years and they are expecting their first son in May.

1. What’s your background when it comes to music/worship?
Well I grew up in church as a kid and I have been playing music in church since I was 8 or 9. I started on the drums then moved to keys and acoustic. I went to New Life School of Worship in Colorado Springs, Colorado from 2004-2005 and sat under some amazing teachers and writers some of which were Ross Parsley, Jared Anderson, Glenn Packium, and Jon Egan.

Once I graduated I moved to Jacksonville, FL where I have been a Worship Associate at Celebration Church for the past six years. Just over the past few months, myself and Doug have moved into the Worship Pastor roles and we are now responsible for everything Worship.

As far as my musical background goes I do not have any formal training. I play by ear and I cannot read a lick of music. I learn from watching others play and lead and I always try to take away one thing when visiting a different church or watching a worship service online.

2. What’s one area of the Celebration Worship team that you and Dougie are working to improve right now?
Since we no longer have Tuesday rehearsals, we’ve been trying to make sure everyone is prepared spiritually and with their skill for Sundays.

3. What is your team’s songwriting process?

We actually just added a song writing team. It’s a group of team members who have a passion to write and see the church move forward musically. They want to set the bar! Basically right now we are all working on song ideas and we will kind of show them around to different team members and get their thoughts, as well as ask them to be apart of the song if they are the best fit.

My take on songwriting is knowing your weaknesses. If you are a strong melody writer, and are not good with lyrics you need to surround yourself with people who have a gift in writing lyrics. If you are great at writing music and not melodies, then you need to write and surround yourself with people to complement what you are doing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with co-writing. I actually prefer it because you are not stuck in your “box”. You now have someone else’s “box” to pull from as well.

4. Would you rather fight Mike Tyson, or talk like Mike Tyson?
Fight – all the way.

5. If someone on your team has a diva mentality, how do you deal with it?
First off we do not tolerate it. If someone has the persona of being a diva, we will talk to them directly and let them know how they are coming across. Sometimes we have found that people that have the “Diva” mentality are really just insecure in themselves.

6. When you lead worship what’s your biggest pet peeve?
Mmmmm. I would say for me personally, my biggest pet peeve is when the band is not paying attention to me or I cant’ get their attention during a song like if I am feeling we need to go a different direction. Specifically the drummer – in my opinion, the drummer can make or break a set.

7. As a team leader/worship leader how do you help your team keep the vision of your church?
We are constantly putting the Vision of Celebration Church in front of them. We as leaders have to be 110% on board with the Vision of the house. We have to eat, live, and breathe it! I believe that it will naturally be an overflow out of us to the team and when it isn’t in our heart, it’s very apparent to everyone.

8. Living in Florida, what SPF sunblock lotion do you recommend?
8SPF. Farmer, I know you must have added these crazy questions! LOL.

9. What’s one artist you listen to that you don’t want people to know about?
The Life Church of Memphis?!! Hahaha – JK! I Really don’t have any. I listen to everything for musical and writing ideas and I am ok with people knowing that.

10. What worship leader or artist has influenced you the most in worship leading and songwriting?
Wow – that is hard to say. I’d say Jared Anderson has been rocking my world lately. His song “Great I Am” has really impacted me personally and our church. Jared’s songs are written from a place of realness and rawness. I feel that he writes from a place of overflow spiritually, not out of a place of just writing a song.

11. How does your team come up with creative ideas for your conferences and weekend services?
We have creative meetings around all of our services and conferences to come up with stuff. Dougie is really good at the creative side of things and he will run point on it. We will also bring some team members in for certain creative input. Depending on what we are doing will obviously determine who we pull in to help.

12. How do you stay fresh and spiritually strong during the high demand/big push seasons of church life?
I personally have to unplug from the “office” for a few hours during a high demand season to be able to just put on some worship music, read my bible and pray. This is in addition to my quiet time in the mornings. When we have big events, I will do this and get prayed up and in the right mind frame before the night begins. If we as the leaders are not spiritually prepared it will show big time to our teams. When we are prepared, filled up and right with God, it will flow out of us to our team and it is always a much better service. For more info about Celebration Worship check out www.worship.celebration.org

Here’s a video Celebration Worship did of their song called, “The Glory Of You.”

Suit Up

admin — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:49:34 +0000

Our goal is to always come up with creative and fun elements in our services. This year for our Make Room Conference we had an “opener” that we kicked off the conference with. Using the dub-step introduction track from our latest CD We Will, we gave the opener a tron like feel with a video and dancers. During the opener the dancers were in light up suits we made in house. In this blog I’m going to explain what it took to make these future suits, and I hope it helps spark some creativity!

Items you need:

Black shirts and black jeans for each person wearing one
EL Wire -Great company to order from is thatscoolwire.com
Fishing Line
Needle
Patience

I first started with ordering wire from thatscoolwire.com. These guys were very helpful and I highly recommend them. They will walk you thru step by step in what you need to order and how to make your suit possible. Once the wire is in you need to sow the lighting onto the suits with fishing line. This will take some time but it is well worth it. Here are a couple pictures of the progress…

Here’s a student’s camera view of the opener.

Hope this helps you on your future suits. Beam me up Scotty!!!

Worship Leader-Jesse

The Art Of Contrast: Thoughts on Songwriting

admin — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 21:38:14 +0000

In my opinion, the best ribs on the planet are found at a restaurant called J. Alexanders. The $27 to get this meal is so worth it. They are called Barbecue Danish Baby Back Ribs. I just ate dinner, but thinking about these ribs is making me hungry again. I’m no chef, but what I think makes these ribs so good is the contrasting flavors and textures. They are cooked to fall off the bone perfection. The outside is seared with a sweet crunchiness and the good ’ole taste of pork just makes me not care at all how fattening it will be a couple days later. Then, the sauce. Oh…the sauce. Plum creek BBQ sauce is what it’s called. I don’t know what’s in the sauce other than plum creek stuff, but wow is it good. Somehow, it compliments, yet contrasts the very well known taste of pork. It’s the contrasting flavors that make these ribs so good.

And to my point…when it comes to songwriting, I think contrast is a major player. In the kitchen of songwriting, melody and lyrics are the top chefs. They could be called the taste and substance of the song. Individually they both must be fresh and hold depth and meaning. But together, they form the building blocks of songwriting. I think they compliment each other best with contrast. First of all, the definition of contrast is: to set in opposition in order to show or emphasize difference. To me, one thing that makes a good song is when each part of the song can stand alone on it’s own merit. Meaning the verses, pre-chorus, chorus, or bridge is very catchy and singable/inspirational by itself. Although the parts may be different, when placed together properly, they compliment each other to form a good song.

One way to use contrast is with the melody. It’s a challenge to write a song where every section is melodically intriguing, but I think it should always be the goal. Even if the verse melody is good, for example, if the next section of the song sounds the same as the verse, the song can get boring to the ear and people might tune out. But when the melody of each section builds off the other and lifts the song in forward momentum, the listener can’t help but be drawn in. Most hit radio songs do this well. From what I’m learning, the question is how hard are you willing to work and how patient will you be until you’ve found a melody for each part of your song that maintains the right amount melodic intrigue and contrast.

Another way to think about contrast is with the lyrics. If the verse lyrics have a slower cadence/rhythm to them (less syllables), try to contrast with a faster cadence on the chorus or pre-chorus (more syllables). Or just the opposite, if the verse lyrics have a faster movement, think of trying a longer or more drawn out feel for the chorus.

By maintaining contrast between the sections of your song, as long as they transition well in and out, the song will keep getting stronger as it progresses. However, just like a chef can go too far in trying to use a lot of different flavors, too much contrast can make the song feel forced. But, the right amount of contrast will give each section distinction, which will make it more memorable and singable…and more memorable and singable will make the song more tasty and delicious – like Barbeque Baby Back Danish Ribs!!

I hope some of these thoughts are helpful to songwriters out there, or that at least it might spark a new idea for you. Now to attempt to put these ideas into practice myself! Easier said than done!

Worship Pastor-Jared Welch

Fresh Start Video

Life Church Worship — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 04:56:22 +0000

Fresh Start Music Video from The Life Church on Vimeo.

Each week we do a testimonial video about how God has changed people’s lives in our church. We decided to incorporate them into a music video of our song called, Fresh Start. Check it out!