Day 2 recap of the Sovereign Grace Music WorshipGod11 Conference held at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, MD.
Well, as my wife’s status said this morning — what a better way to spend a Thursday morning than praising God with 1,000+ of your good friends? Man, she ain’t kidding.
Sovereign Grace does so many things well, one of them is put on conferences and they sure do a great job with the WorshipGod conferences. It has all the elements of a perfect conference for me – great teaching, informative and relevant break-out sessions, hilarity from Mark Altrogge, total servant humility from Bob Kauflin, amazing musicians and worship, superior crowd flow control…and hey….a free lunch to boot. Not to mention the weather is like post-card perfect here in Gaithersburg today. Thank you God for your blessings!
We started out the morning session by catching the last few minutes of sound check. I’m always encouraged when I see the “pros” run rehearsals the same way we “lay folks” do — just running the songs down, working on where this comes in and how many times we’ll repeat that…we were lead in worship by Rich Gunderlock and the Bairds. I was familiar with the Bairds, but not Mr. Gunderlock…well he did a great job. Really focused our attention on Christ – and synched the worship up perfectly with where Bryan Chappell was teaching – I love how we sang 2 songs after the teaching as a response to the Word – not to mention they were “Before the Throne of God Above” and “All I Have is Christ” !
Here was their set:
Alive (Steve & Vikki Cook)
Isaiah 53 (Jonathan & Ryan Baird)
The Solid Rock (Traditional)
May Your Power Rest on Me (Joel Gerdis/Neil Robins)
Completely Done (Jonathan Baird/Ryan Baird/Rich Gunderlock)
Behold our God
Bryan Chappell, president of Covenant Theological Seminary, and author of great books like Christ Centered Worship, spoke to us this morning…I haven’t heard him speak before, though I have read his worhsip book and loved it.
[NOTE: Sovereign Grace posted the audio here]
Dr. Chappell walked us thru Isaiah 6. Here are some quick bullets from my notes.
- JS Bach example of let the message shape the music – God’s redemptive story in the gospel reflected in his use of major / minor key changes, etc.
- The message shapes the worship – the gospel
- God is leading Isaiah to understand the glory of God in Is 6
- The marks of the great glory
- Sovereign revelation of who God is – on the throne
- Our lives seem undone but God reigns
- High and lifted up: God is untouched by the taint of the world – holy
- So holy – even the angels can’t endure – they cover their eyes/feet
- Repeated 3x = words cannot contain his holiness
- Woe is me: I am lost – the effects of glory on a person
- “I can’t join that song – I’m not worthy of that” – Isaiah – ‘for I am a man of unclean lips’
- Worship that prioritizes the glory of God leads people to humility
- Deut 5:22 / 2 Chron 7:1-3
- Glory revealed led to humility by necessity
- Rom 11:33-12:3 / Rev 4:8
- If we do not see our sin for the horror that it is we don’t see God’s glory for the greatness of what it is
- Then the seraphim flew to him: the message of the entire bible – that the infinite would be come intimate – holiness has been transferred. He touched his mouth. With a coal from the altar – the fire from the altar goes out when Christ the Lamb is slain
- We can now sing – the coal has touched our lips and made us pure
- We can now serve (v8) –
- Conclusion: God’s glory leads us to his Grace leads us to Mission – You see his glory (Mt. Sinai), you have his grace, now go live it.
- You shall be careful therefore to do as the LORD your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.
(Deuteronomy 5:32 ESV) - …if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
(2 Chronicles 7:14 ESV) - Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
(Romans 12:2 ESV) - It is what a believing heart longs to do – glory in God!
I then attended 2 excellent seminars – one by Sheri Gould on taking your worship team vocals to the next level, and the other by Craig Cabiniss on Worshiping God When Your World is Shaking. Both excellent…I highly recommend getting the audio from Craig’s. Sheri’s will be posted on her site I believe.
Now to go get some dinner before tonight’s session!
M
Mike Ruel 