Easter Sunday March 23, 2008

"He's Alive"
We'll begin our worship Easter Sunday with a new arrangement of the song "He's Alive". This song was written by Don Francisco.
He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the son of a Christian seminary professor Clyde Francisco. Francisco's early career centred on the secular folk-rock music common during the mid 1960s, but after an experience Francisco believed was supernatural, he rededicated his life to God and changed his personal, musical direction. Francisco is married and lives in Colorado with his wife, Wendy, also a recording artist as well as a graphic artist.
This song is told from the view point of Peter after the crucifixion. The beginning of the song he is fearful and ashamed of his betrayal of Jesus. He has no hope for Jesus is dead. Then the end when Jesus appears to him, he sees the love in Jesus' eyes and his fear and shame vanish, and he shouts "HE'S ALIVE! HE'S ALIVE! HE'S ALIVE and I'm forgiven! Heaven's Gates are open wide." And as we see through the New Testament after that encounter with Christ and in history, Peter's actions continued to shout "HE'S ALIVE! HE'S ALIVE! HE'S ALIVE and I'm forgiven! Heaven's Gates are open wide." as he lived for Christ.

Click here to learn more about Dons' ministry:
http://www.rockymountainministries.org/

Click here to listen to Dons' arrangement:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4jJNb7qHlo

Click here for another arrangement by Don:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbSnk1R31vg

Click here for an arrangement by Dolly Parton:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNlykSNHzC4

"My Savior Lives"
This is a new song by Jon Egan & Glenn Packiam of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Co. When asked about writing songs for the church in an interview Jon shared the following.Those songs were written out of innocence just to equip our own church. I think that probably is the reason for the success. The heart of these songs, the heart of us as worshippers or worship leaders, has always been to help our people in our spheres of influence. The fact that it's equipped the Church beyond our church is overwhelming, wonderful, and humbling. Jared: We weren't really following anyone into it; we were just excited about what God was doing. We started to try our own songs at times other than Sunday morning. We just put it out there to see if it would live. It began that way, and it crept into the culture of Sunday morning.

Click here to listen to the song:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=139038586

Click here to worship with the New Life church:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_SB-SpNm00&feature=related


"Lord, You're Holy"
This song is by Karen Wheaton. Born Karen Harris, she grew up in a Pentecostal family, the younger of two daughters, in Hamilton, Alabama where she was active in church music from an early age. In the late 1970s Karen toured with Thurlow Spurr's Festival of Praise, a pioneering Christian touring choir and band. In the early 1980s Karen traveled with her own band, which included her first husband and former Nashville keyboard player, DeWayne Wheaton. Karen and DeWayne later joined Jimmy Swaggart Ministries with Karen as one of the ministry's featured soloists and DeWayne sharing in keyboard responsibilities. Several of Karen's early gospel albums identify her as either "Karen Harris" or "Karen Harris Wheaton".
Wheaton, though involved in ministry in a variety of ways including her youth group, Chosen, is probably most noted outside of the Pentecostal Church for efforts to record and promote a vanishing form of gospel music, namely the Mississippi Delta sound that is fused with blues, urban contemporary gospel, and bluegrass gospel influences. She is also known for including the type of dramatic, gospel songs of the genre made popular by Sandy Rios, Kathy Sullivan, the Rev. Sharon Daughtery, and others prior to the advent of Contemporary Christian music in the late 1970s.Wheaton's album Remembering (1993) was an effort to bring together negelected Pentecostal songs such as ''I'm Feelin' Mighty Fine with new songs in the same spirit. Her 1998 album, My Alabaster Box'' also features a number of old standards alongside dramatic new songs such as the title cut. Wheaton has never written music of her own though she often arranges the vocals of her songs and is very involved in the engineering and production of her recordings. Wheaton's voice is a strong, dramatic alto.

Wheaton is considered an interesting and important fixture on the contemporary theological scene in the American south as she represents the long-standing Pentecostal tradition of women having strong roles within the clergy and also as she continues the convention of "singing preachers" who incorporate aspects of sermonizing into actual songs. In many ways, Wheaton a rare breed to continue traditions of conventional southern revival-style preaching in her music. Wheaton's live version of "For Every Mountain", from her album Church is a prime example of this genre.Wheaton currently lives in Hamilton, Alabama with her daughters and aside from touring and recording her music, runs The Ramp and its associated youth outreach programs.

Click here to listen an arrangement of the song:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR5n6vggADw

Go here to listen to the choir arrangement, scroll down to new worship songs:
http://www.firsthurst.com/HURST_worship_resources.php

“Christ the Lord is Risen today”
The first Wesleyan Chapel in London, England, was a deserted iron foundry. It became known as the Foundry Meeting House. This hymn was written by Charles Wesley for the first service in this chapel in 1739, just one year after Charles's dramatic Aldersgate conversion experience. The hymn was first published in the Foundry's Collection-which contained "hymns set to music as they are commonly sung at the Foundry." The book had approximately fifty humns with an additional Psalm Supplement. This hymn was originally entitled "Hymn for Easter Day" and consisted of eleven four-line stanzas.
The popularity of this hymn is due in part to the fine tune with which it has been wedded for many years. The composer of the music has never been identified. The tune first appeared anonymously in the Lyra Davidica humnal, published in London in 1708. The joyous "alleluia" at the end of each line was not written by Wesley but was added by some editor to make the text fit the tune. "Hallelujah" or "alleluia" is from the ancient Hebrew worship service and was a common expression of praise in the early Christian Church. Jerome, an important leader of the early church who translated the Bible into the Latin language and died c. 420 A. D., wrote that in his day the very ceilings of houses of worship were often shaken with the reverberating "Hallelujahs" when believers sang their praises to God.
Charles Wesley is also the author of "Jesus, Lover of My Soul", "O for a Thousand Tongues", "A Charge to Keep I Have", "Depth of Mercy", and "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing".

Click here to sing along on the hymn:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_ND-wlh-cU

Click here to worship along with Steve Green:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFIaqn0EG3E

Click here to hear an acoustic guitar arrangement:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFFhBHpVucY

"He Knows My Name"

This worship song was written by Tommy Walker. Tommy shared in a recent interview his conversion and call experience.
When I was 11 years old – that was a very big year in my life. That's when I gave my heart to the Lord, and I started playing guitar. This group Love Song, which was one of the first Christian rock bands of all time, was touring through town. That night they were in my living room, and Chuck Girard – the piano player – was playing my mom's baby grand piano, and we were singing a few songs together. It was one of those moments. I said, "That's it. That's who I want to be when I grow up." It was actually a very profound moment. It's through worship music that God really touched me and spoke to me. It's only natural I'd pursue that.

The following is how Tommy wrote the song:

The story of how “He Knows My Name” was written is not very exciting, nor is it inspirational. Basically it’s a story of just trying to be faithful to do my job. In that way, it is a story of self-discipline. Let’s just say, routine discipline stories are far from riveting. However, the fruit of the smallest act of discipline and obedience can be quite another story altogether. When my pastor, Mark Pickerall, wrote a sermon with the title “He knows my Name,” he asked me if I could write a song to go with it. I felt utterly uninspired that day; but out of the discipline of song writing, which is part of my job description, I dug in and gave it a shot. I remember thinking as the words and music began to come to me, “wow, this is the simplest song I’ve ever written. Maybe it will work in kids’ church”. Well I went ahead and finished it – something all songwriters struggle to do when something isn’t coming out just right. And like a good, obedient, somewhat disciplined worship leader, I taught it to my church and basically, nothing happened.
A few months later, the women of my church sang it at their women’s retreat and suddenly God moved. They told me that a sense of the love of God entered the room in such a powerful way that many of them were weeping and experiencing all kinds of inner healing. When I heard this, I thought maybe I should give this song one more try. The following weekend, we sang it at church and sure enough it happened: People began to weep. But the funny part is that I also began to weep. God was speaking so intimately to me reminding me that he knew my name and was concerned about the things that concerned me. *(pg 3 He Knows my Name – Tommy Walker integrity press)

Click here to read more about Tommy Walker:
http://www.tommywalker.net/

Click here to listen to Tommy’s music on his myspace site:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=97429791

Click here to hear Tommy sing “He knows my name”
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgaB38tUBEc

Click here to worship along with the Promise Keepers worship team:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXsiWoyjw60


"HOW GREAT IS OUR GOD"
HOW MONO LAUNCHED AN INCREDIBLE CAREER

This worship song was written by Chris Tomlin. Chris said he almost apologized to the Lord for writing such a simple song, but felt that the English language could only go so far in describing the greatness of our God. After writing the song he felt in his spirit that he had written a song that would be embraced by the church around the world.
Chris received his first guitar from his father, Connie, at the age of eleven after contracting a case of mono. Then, Tomlin wrote his first worship song at age fourteen. He entered college planning to study medicine, but he stated that he felt God's calling to something else and did not pursue that career.In the mid-1990's Tomlin spent time leading worship at the Dawson McAllister Youth Conferences, as well as at various camps around the state of Texas.Following college, at Texas A&M University Tomlin continued to play and write songs, and in 1997, Louie Giglio asked if he would be interested in working with the Passion Conferences. Tomlin agreed, and he has played a key role ever since. His first nationally released solo project, entitled The Noise We Make, was released in 2001, which saw the emergence of songs "Forever" (his most famous song other than "How Great Is Our God"), "Be Glorified", and "Kindness", all of which made the top 200 in the CCLI 2005 top 500 worship songs.
According to Christian Copyright Licensing International's list of the top 25 worship songs in the United States as of August 2007, Tomlin held 5 spots with songs he has either written or co-written with other songwriters: "How Great Is Our God" (#1), "Forever" (#5), "Holy Is the Lord" (#7), "We Fall Down" (#12),and "Indescribable" (#22).


Click here to listen to the story behind the song:
www.theheartofworship.org/stories/Story-302-HowGreatisOurGod-Tomlin.mp3

Click here to listen to Chris share about how the song came about on newsong café:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpfKli_4LQ0&mode=related&search=

Click here to worship along with Chris:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjxPG_mRHDs&feature=related

Click here to learn more about Chris’ ministry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Tomlin#Biography

Click here to visit Chris’ website:
http://www.christomlin.com/

Click here to visit Chris’ myspace:
www.myspace.com/christomlin


Offertory Sunday will be "Beneath the Cross of Jesus" by the Joyful noise Handbell team:

This meaningful hymn was written by a frail Scottish, Presbyterian woman of the past century, who, despite her physical frailties, was known throughout her community for her helpful, cheery nature. Elizabeth Cecilia Douglas Clephane, one of the few women hymn writers of Scotland, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, but grew up in Melrose, Scotland, in the lovely area of Abbotsford, near the old bridge described by the well-known Scottish writer, Sir Walter Scott, in his book, The Abbot and the Monastery. Her father was a county sheriff, her mother a descendant of the famous Douglas family. Elizabeth was one of three sisters, but she was known as the delicate, retiring member of the family. Yet within the limits of her strength she served the poor and sick of her community, and she and her sisters gave to charity all they did not actually require for their daily needs. Throughout the Melrose area Elizabeth was affectionately known to the townspeople as "the sunbeam." Elizabeth enjoyed writing poems and had several published in a Scottish Presbyterian Magazine entitled The Family Treasury. However, the majority of her writings appeared anonymously in this magazine in 1872, three years after her early death at the age of thirty-nine.
"Beneath the Cross of Jesus" was written by Miss Clephane in 1868, one year before her death. It was not published, however, until 1872, when it appeared anonymously in The Family Treasury with several of her other poems. The original poem consisted of five stanzas, but today only three are used in most hymnals. It is obvious that Elizabeth, like most Scottish Presbyterians of her day, was an ardent Bible student for her hymn is replete with Biblical symbolism and imagery. For example, in stanza one:
The reference to "the mighty Rock" is taken from Isaiah 32:2.
The reference to "the weary land" is taken from Psalm 63:1.
The reference to "home within the wilderness" is taken from Jeremiah 9:2.
The reference to "rest upon the way" is taken from Isaiah 28:12.
The reference to "noontide heat" is taken from Isaiah 4:6
The reference to "burden of the day" is taken from Matthew 11:30. Elizabeth Celphane is also the author of "The Ninety and Nine".

Click here to listen to the hymn:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKNLsEKErqU

Click here to listen to the hymn:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwcLwBGav-M

Meditate on these powerful lyrics:
Beneath the cross of Jesus I fain would take my stand,
the shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land;
a home within the wilderness, a rest upon the way,
from the burning of the noontide heat, and the burden of the day.

Upon that cross of Jesus mine eye at times can see
the very dying form of One who suffered there for me;
and from my stricken heart with tears two wonders I confess:
the wonders of redeeming love and my unworthiness.

I take, O cross, thy shadow for my abiding place;
I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine of his face;
content to let the world go by, to know no gain nor loss,
my sinful self my only shame, my glory all the cross.