Can't Stop Talkin' - Trax

Here are trax for the opening song this month. We've done it before, so you know it; but this will help you refresh you memory. It's also written in the exact form as our chart, which may be helpful to you.

Can't Stop - Soprano
Can't Stop - Alto
Can't Stop - Tenor
Can't Stop - Bass
Can't Stop - 4 Parts

Another note: On We Have Overcome, I believe we're going to lower the key a step. We'll work on it this week to see how it works before making the final call.

Have a great weekend!

Verse Of The Day

“For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men—the testimony given in its proper time.”

- 1 Timothy 2:5-6
Today's passage is from the New International Version of the Bible. Provided by BibleGateway.

So true. There is only one God. One alone, and he sacrificed his only Living Son for us out of Love, so that we may not end in sorrow, and sin, but find peace, and Life Eternal.

I'm reading Max Lucado's 3:16 again, for the fourth time. What an amazing book. Totally dissects John 3:16 (say it out loud, you all know the words... here, I'll start... For God So Loved The World....) and delivers it to us word by word in a meaning that will change life. And it should. I love the first chapter of this book, where Lucado theoretically describes the conversation between Christ and Nicodemus, as Jesus delivers the testimony of the Father to one man, so that he may go out and witness this to others.

If you would like to borrow my copy of the book, please let me know. I will be more than happy to share this with you!

God Bless my Christ Family.

No Childcare Tonight

The church programs are scaled back this week due to Spring Break. SO ... there will be no childcare tonight. I'm sorry.

Rehearsal Tonight

Tonight we'll break into sectionals and work on We Have Overcome. Trax are posted below. We'll also work on I Am Free and Enough in our full choir rehearsal. In our sight reading session, we'll work on Lesson 10 in our book.

I'm looking forward to seeing you!

We Have Overcome - Practice Trax

Here are practice trax for We Have Overcome.

Overcome - Soprano
Overcome - Alto
Overcome - Tenor
Overcome - Bass
Overcome - 4 Parts

If you can't download or burn these, bring a blank CD-R to rehearsal and I'll burn them for you after rehearsal.

Please RSVP

Karen Hammons has asked me to post this announcement on the blog, in case you did not receive her email. Please, note that Joey wants you to reply this week ...

Dear Worship Ministry,

We are so very excited to have Steve Smith become part of the Worship Ministry here at Brookwood. So, we will be having a Welcome Party for Steve Smith and his family on April 6th from 5pm to 8pm. This event will graciously be at the home of Daniel Greene. This event will be catered.

Click the link below for directions to 109 Tupelo Dr, Greer, 29651.

Spouses and children are welcome. So, please contact Karen Hammons at Karen.Hammons@brookwoodchurch.org or call her at 864-688-8290 to let her know if you plan on attending and how many people from your family will be able to come. Please RSVP by March 28th. We will be sending a reminder in the mail, so watch out for it!

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=109+Tupelo+Dr,+Greer,+SC+29651,+USA&sa=X&oi=map&ct=title

Joey Bradley
Worship Leader
Brookwood Church

The LORD Speaks... Through Mark Hall

There are truly defining moments, when you get hit in the head with the presence of God. I had the privilege to be invited to the Casting Crowns concert last night. It was awesome, of course. After all, its the Casting Crowns. Youth Pastors from Atlanta who happen to be very talented musicians. Their story and testimony can be read here.

But. This is where it gets cool.

If you have ever been to a Crowns concert, its really like church. There is tons of praise in music, there are many prayers that are spoken within breaks of the songs, and there is a message. This time it was delivered by Mark Hall, the lead vocalist. It was all about what happens to a person between the Altar and the Door. What happens between that moment that a person is in church, soaking up God and the Spirit... and then what happens at 930, 11 or 1230 when that person walks out of the church and goes home. Like he said last night, you can't take your entire church home with you... because that would be just a little strange.

Now. Here's the real GOD part. Mark was talking about reading the Bible and said... "Do you ever read the Bible and find a scripture, one that maybe you even have highlighted in three different colors, and notes all around it, etc., and all of the sudden, that verse jumps off the page and just really rings true and relevant?"

And he testified about Psalm 1. And he read Psalm 1:

1 Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.

2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.

And when he got to verse 3 and began to read the Word, I started to cry. That was the very Verse of the Day from Jeremiah that I had posted only hours earlier on this Blog. It was what they call a God Moment. And it hit me like an arrow in the heart.

I ramble a bit, but when there is testimony to share, I feel compelled to share it. God Speaks through his word, through his Son, through the Spirit... and sometimes, he uses a talented Contemporary Christian band to say: "I AM Here."

Bless You All This Easter Weekend. It was a true Good Friday. He has Risen. And He is preparing a place for us all.

Amen.

Verse Of The Day

From Gospel.com

“But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”
- Jeremiah 17:7-8


Today's passage is from the New International Version of the Bible


Ever so often, I get a Verse of the Day that just strikes a chord. I know its God talking to me, and like a disobedient child, sometimes I fail to listen, or as my son likes to say... "I have selective hearing."

Today I got this and it hit home. Thanks to Joe for giving me the chance to share these things with you all.

"Enough" chart is ready for download

Here is a link to the .pdf of Enough. Some of you did not get the last page in your packet Wednesday night. I'm sending the entire file so that you may print the entire chart or only the last page.

Thanks to Tammy Tester for getting the .pdf together for us! Tammy is the administrative assistant that every business person wishes they could have. She can do anything that needs to be done, get it done perfectly, and get it done before it needs to be done ... sometimes before you ask. We are blessed to have her managing our choir music library.

Enough chart

Enough

I just found out that Enough was included on your CD last night and When I Think About the Lord was not. The master CD that I created was modified before it was duplicated. Let me sort things out and I'll get back to you on what to expect. I'm sorry for the confusion!!!

Rehearsal Notes

Great rehearsal last night! We really had the "work ethic" thing going on. This week I'd like you to do two things in preparation for our next rehearsal ...

1. Listen to your CD and become very familiar with the songs - get a very good feel for the rhythmic figures and the melodies of the songs.
2. Study the song forms so that you KNOW them. Next week I'd like to be able to read all the way through any of the songs and have nobody wondering where we are in the song.

Have a great rest of the week!

Gene Chaves

Let's all keep Gene Chaves in our prayers next week. He's going to Mexico on a missions trip with the team that was introduced on Sunday. This is one of two missions trips that Gene is planning this year.

Gene, when we're together in rehearsal next week, we'll take some time as a group to pray for you.

Tonight (March 19)

Our sight singing this evening will cover Lesson 9 (pp. 34-35) in our book.

Steve Smith will be with us to greet us and share a bit of his vision for the worship ministry at Brookwood. I'll turn it over to him at 6:30; so you'll want to be on time.

Tonight I'll introduce the new songs for April. We'll have CDs available with the audio tracks. Practice trax will be posted on the blog this weekend.

Steve has asked us to do a Chris Tomlin song called Enough this month. When Steve made his request, the CDs were already being copied. So I'll just post a download of enough here. If you have trouble burning CDs at home, bring a blank CD-R to rehearsal and you can burn one off my laptop after rehearsal.

Download Enough by clicking here.

See you tonight!

We're now on the Brookwood website

You may be interested to know that there is now a link to this blog from the Brookwood website. The link is on the Praise Choir page. You can get there from the Brookwood home page by clicking on Ministries - A to Z Ministries - Worship - Praise Choir. Or if you don't want to go through all of that, you can click here.

The benefit is that people who are browsing the website can also find our blog page and learn more about our passion for worship and how we function.

God is Amazing

I worried a lot on Friday and Saturday. This morning I woke up filled with anxiety. I went out for a run before heading over to the church, hoping the calm down a bit. I really felt like I'd blown it, picking Hosanna at the last minute. We had to learn it quickly, and the band was stretched well beyond anything we'd ever asked of them. I was afraid we were going to witness a train wreck this morning. I was upset that I'd put us in this position. A bunch of times I told God that this was beyond anything that we could fix by the time the service started. If it was going to turn out all right, it was going to be up to him.

When we ran through Hosanna in rehearsal, I realized that it was going to be okay! Everyone had worked real hard on their parts. Then God stepped in and took it the rest of the way. By the time we got to the end of the third service, I wanted to just keep going and going! It was great ... just singing in the power of the Spirit!

The cool thing is that all of us, musicians and singers, worked hard to fulfill the responsibility that God had given us. Then he took it and made it amazing. You did, by the way, sound amazing! God is amazing.

I think I made a mistake picking that song. I'm sorry. It sure is cool, though, to see how God can take our mess ups and turn them into something amazing and teach us that we can trust him.

Now ... I need to remember that on Monday morning!

True Confession

I have a confession to make. On more than one occasion now, I’ve had the distinct impression that our wonderful leader, Joe Wood, was starting to lose his mind. The first time this idea occurred to me was when I saw a list of the song titles that we were going to sing for Rolling Green. For one brief, frightening moment I thought that the song called Hallelujah was Handel’s 'Hallelujah Chorus'. My mistake. : )

Well, this time when Joe made his 11^th hour announcement that we were going to learn and sing 'Hosanna', I thought to myself… this is it… he has finally cracked. Well, I’m happy to say… my mistake again. The God we serve is a great God. What a wonderful morning of worship. And Joe, you're a man of great faith... thank you for believing in us. Who knows… maybe someday we will tackle Handel.

I love you guys,

Sharyn

Just Think.

What the Praise Choir accomplished in two weeks. We learned three songs. Then we learned a new song. Then we learned another new song that we only rehearsed one time.

From where I stood, in the back row, with my tape constantly being moved (Dave), the harmony and melody was that of the voice of God, not us.

I cant remember, even back to my high school choir days, where two new songs were learned, with parts, in such a short amount of time, and delivered to an audience so thirsty for God's word, that you could literally see it.

Im amazed, and so very proud to call you all my brothers and sisters in Christ. We are a true ministry. I hope you all realize that.

GodSpeed in the upcoming week.



PS: I'll leave the good stuff for Joe, since he was down there, where he could truly hear and feel what was coming from the risers.

Sunday Schedule

Here's a quick look at our schedule tomorrow.

6:45 AM - Warm Ups (optional)
7:15 AM - On the blacktop, in postion, ready to rehearse
8:15 AM - Meet for prayer
8:30 AM - First Service
9:45 AM - Meet for prayer
10:00 AM - Second Service
11:15 AM - Meet for prayer
11:30 AM - Third Service

See you in the morning!!

And You Thought He Was Just Entertainment Tonight...

John Tesh. Like him or not, this video will make you stand up, praise God and dance like no one's watching.

Rehearsal Trax

Here is a link to the blog page that had previous practice traxs for this month

Click on any link and a download window should open. Let me know if you have any trouble.

Trax Page

Here are trax for Hosanna.

Hosanna 4 Parts
Hosanna Soprano
Hosanna Soprano 2
Hosanna Alto
Hosanna Tenor
Hosanna Bass

Thanks for your work last night. I was proud of you!

Note from Joey regarding Steve Smith

Dear Worship Ministry,

We are so very excited to have Steve Smith become part of the Worship Ministry here at Brookwood. So, we will be having a Welcome Party for Steve Smith and his family on April 6th from 5pm to 8pm. This event will graciously be at the home of Daniel Greene. This event will be catered. Click the link below for directions to 109 Tupelo Dr, Greer, 29651. Spouses and children are welcome. So, please contact Karen Hammons at Karen.Hammons@brookwoodchurch.org or call her at 864-688-8290 to let her know if you plan on attending and how many people from your family will be able to come. Please RSVP by March 28th. We will be sending a reminder in the mail, so watch out for it!

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=109+Tupelo+Dr,+Greer,+SC+29651,+USA&sa=X&oi=map&ct=title

Joey Bradley
Worship Leader
Brookwood ChurchChurch

Let the Poignant Begin....

A friend sent this to me a couple of days ago. As I currently struggle in some of my earthly relationships, I read this piece and pondered... should this not apply to everything... especially the relationship with our God. I love the very last entry where the difference between United and Untied is where you put the "I". Amen.

Enjoy.

A Soulful Relationship By Reverend Ronald McFadden

If you're not married yet, share this with a friend. If you are married, share it with your spouse or other married couples and reflect on it. An African proverb states, "Before you get married, keep both eyes open, and after you marry, close one eye."

Once you decide to commit to someone, over time their flaws, vulnerabilities, pet peeves, and differences will become more obvious. If you love your mate and want the relationship to grow and evolve, you've got to learn to close one eye and not let every little thing bother you. You and your mate have many different expectations, emotional needs, values, dreams, weaknesses, and strengths. You are two unique individuals who have decided to share a life together.

Neither of you are perfect, but are you perfect for each other? Do you bring out the best of each other? Do you compliment and compromise with each other, or do you compete, compare, and control?

What do you bring to the relationship? Do you bring past relationships, past hurt, past mistrust, past pain?

You can't take someone to the altar to alter him or her. You can't make someone love you or make someone stay. If you develop self-esteem, spiritual discernment, and "a life", you won't find yourself making someone else responsible for your happiness or responsible for your pain. Manipulation, control, jealousy, deceitfulness, neediness, and selfishness are not the ingredients of a thriving, healthy, loving and lasting relationship.

Seeking status, sex, wealth, and security are the wrong reasons to be in a relationship.

Q. What keeps a relationship strong?

Answer: Communication, intimacy (not sex), trust, a sense of humor, sharing household tasks, some getaway time without business or children and daily exchanges (a meal, a shared activity, a hug, a call, a touch, a note), sharing common goals and interests. Leave a nice message on their voice mail or send a nice email.

Growth is important. Grow together, not away from each other, giving each other space to grow without feeling insecure. Allow your mate to have outside interest. You can't always be together. Give each other a sense of belonging and assurances of commitment. Don't try to control one another.

Learn each others family situation. Respect his or her parents regardless.

Don't put pressure on each other for material goods. Remember for richer or for poorer. If these qualities are missing, the relationship will erode as resentment, withdrawal, abuse, neglect, dishonesty, and pain will replace the passion.

"Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think." The grass withers, the flowers fades, but the word of God stands forever. Isaiah 40:8. Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight?

Always try to be a little kinder than is necessary. The difference between 'United' and 'Untied' is where you put the 'I'.

What to wear

This time, let's go with black pants and medium to dark blue (solid) tops.

One Thing and Then Another

As you know, this spring has simply not gone according to my plan. What is God trying to teach me? I know that I am disorganized, and I know that my disorganization can be frustrating to you and make your life in choir more difficult. So I try to plan as carefully as I can. I want you to know what to expect and be prepared for it. There have been so many changes

Well ... here we go again. On Sunday we will NOT be singing Hallelujah to My King. We will sing instead At the Cross. When I started moving things around, I wanted to do Hallelujah simply because it was better prepared. However, we had some communication breakdowns and the song that got on the schedule is At the Cross. Fenton is prepared to speak about the cross right after we sing it, and the video team has put together a whole package of imagery to go along with the song. I believe strongly in working for continuity throughout the service, and believe that the music and the message should be speaking the same message. It is important, therefore that we, at this point, go with At the Cross. So ... come to rehearsal prepared. Thanks.

By they way ... be in prayer for this service. It's an important Sunday. We can expect some resistance from the enemy.

Sharyn, Rob, & Dave

I'm excited to have Sharyn, Rob, and Dave posting to the blog. They are insightful people who have something signficant to say anytime that I talk with them. I'm glad they'll be sharing their perspectives with us!

The Big 10K

That's what runners (Joe being one) refer to as a race. I look at those kinds of activities... you know, the ones that make you sweaty, tired, out of breath... as forms of self torture. But I digress... the title of this entry is referring to the little counter over there on the right hand side. I remember when Joe started this thing, and made a big deal out of hitting 100... then it was 1000. We are rapidly approaching 10,000 views, which means one of two things... We have 10,000 views, or a lot of window refreshing going on.

All that being said, I think that speaks volumes... not only to those who came into choir a bit more computer savvy than others, but especially to those members who said: "you know what? Im going to learn how to use this thing."

I personally want to thank you all for learning or be willing to learn and utilize this effective communication tool. If nothing else, its truly paperless, thereby saving trees, reducing gas emissions, and slowing down our part in Global Warming.

God is pleased, as the Vatican just this week released their top ten sins, and Environment Damage was at the top. Im thrilled to know that our Brookwood Church Choir is doing its part in saving the planet.

I want to do something special for the 10,000th customer.... just not sure what yet.

One last thing. Joe sent me an invite to post on this when I have something to write. You all know me. I ALWAYS have something to write (or at least say). My goal, for the sake of not ignoring my own personal Christ Journey Blog, is to post something relevant, sometimes poignant, and more often humorous on the Praise Choir Blog, once per week. Unless I'm Spirtually Compelled to do it more often. And Hey, it's been known to happen.

God Bless You All.
See You Thursday Night!

Welcome to what I like to call... Rob's Little Slice of the Internet.

Having a Heart in Harmony with God

I pray that all of you will have the opportunity to experience the presence of God that we were blessed to have this past weekend at the Women's Retreat. That beautiful Blue Ridge Mountain range where The Cove is nestled is enough in itself to inspire greater humility and love for God; but in addition to that, we also enjoyed moving testimonies, great times of worship, sweet prayer times and phenomenal teaching. (I think that's a run on sentence -- apologies to my English teachers, but it takes a lot of words to express things that can't be expressed.) In short... it was wonderful.

The theme was "Tuning In: Having a heart in harmony with God" and a key verse was:
"My heart is steadfast, O God; I will sing and make music with all my soul." Psalm 108:1

Pretty cool, huh? It's exactly what Joe is so good at reminding us about... that as we work to find that harmonic line to blend in with each other, we should also constantly focus on having a heart that's in harmony with God.

I love you guys,
Sharyn

P.S. I also met Rob's mother on this retreat. She's a real sweetheart. See me for stories about what Rob was like as a child. : )

Celebration

This is a first for me. Even though I spend every day in the technology surrounded by computers, servers and computer code. I have never written in a blog! I cannot think of a better place to begin :)

My wife was away at the Brookwood woman’s retreat this weekend. What a blessing it was for her to share this time with the woman of our church and most of all some quality time with God.

Like every morning after our daughter has gone to school we have a few minutes to catch up with each other. I told her about the funeral of a co-workers mother that I attended. The point is that I was there to celebrate the life of this woman and the many blessings she left behind. While the majority were consumed in sorrow and that she had died so young (60). My wife shared with me part of what the woman’s retreat speaker said "celebrate death like you do a wedding" (paraphrased, I don't listen very well). But as the day has progressed I have thought of those words! What a great way to look at death for those that know Jesus Christ " A new begging just like a wedding"


Through Him, David

This week

Rehearsal this week will be on Thursday night. I'll be in Pod I at 6PM to work with anyone who wants some extra rehearsal time. At 6:30, our regular rehearsal will begin. We will be on the blacktop with the band from 7PM until 8PM.

See you then.

Hosanna

We had a GREAT rehearsal last night. Thanks for your intense work! In case you need them, here are links to the print music and the audio for Hosanna.

Hosanna - Audio
Hosanna - Print

Thanks to Tammy Tester for getting the print version ready to be posted here.

Please sing through this song at least a couple of times a day between now and March 16.

You are a wonderful choir. I love being a part of us ...

A Complete Restoration

A Complete Restoration

Eph 1:19 …and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might…

God loves to decorate. God has to decorate. Let Him live long enough in a heart and that heart will begin to change. Portraits of hurt will be replaced by landscapes of grace. Walls of anger will be demolished and shaky foundations restored. God can no more leave a life unchanged than a mother can leave her child’s tear untouched.

This might explain some of the discomfort in your life. Remodeling of the heart is not always pleasant. We don’t object when the carpenter adds a few shelves, but He’s been known to gut the entire west wing. He has such high aspirations. God envisions a complete restoration. He won’t stop until He’s finished…He wants you to be just like Jesus.

Just Like Jesus
Max Lucado

Thanks to Rob Wharton for sending this to me ...

Music Department Volunteers Needed

Here is a note from Karen Hammons:

Hello!

Well, I am sure you guys know that things have become very busy in the Music world here at Brookwood. Joey and I see it only getting busier after Steve comes on. So I am in need of a couple really good volunteers to help with some of the administrative work for the Music department.

We would like to have two volunteers – one to work two hours on Tuesdays and one to work two hours on Thursday doing things like getting the music charts in notebooks for all the vocalists and instrumentalists. We would love to have a volunteer start helping next week with all the Easter things we are working on.

Thank you!

Karen Hammons
Assistant for Students & Music
Brookwood Church
580 Brookwood Point Place
Simpsonville, SC 29681

Final Answer - New Service Opener

Everything has fallen into place. We WILL replace the service opener for our March 16 praise date. Here is the new set list ...

Hosanna
Everyone (Praises)
Hallelujah to My King

Almost all of our rehearsal on Wednesday will be dedicated to learning Hosanna. If you can take the time to listen to and become familiar with the song in advance of our rehearsal, we'll be able to learn it more quickly.

Here's the link so that you can listen to the song: Service Opener

Here is why I've chosen this song ...
1. Theological: When Jesus entered Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday, the Sunday before his crucifiction, he was met by crowds of adoring worshippers shouting "Hosanna" and waving palm fronds. The word Hosanna and Palm Sunday are forever linked.
2. Practical: I feel that with only three songs before the message, we need a song that grabs the attention of the congregation and gets them involved immediately. I think this song does it.

See you Wednesday night!

Keep your eye on the blog ....

I am seriously considering changing the opening song in our set for March 16. I liked the set as I originally put it together, but now that we are down to three songs for Palm Sunday, it doesn't feel right. Who knows, it may have needed a different opener all the time; but I know that now, I'm not satisfied with it.

SO ... I'm probably going to introduce a new song on Wednesday night. If I go the way I'm leaning, it will be a Kirk Franklin thing. So HANG ON!!! Here's the kicker - we'll have only a week and a half to learn it. I've studied the chart and feel that we can do it. I'm waiting on one more thing before I make up my mind. But I want you to know that a change is likely.

Keep an eye on the blog tomorrow. If I pull the trigger, I'll have an MP3 on the blog that you can download and listen to in order to be prepared.

I am sorry that there have been so many changes this spring!! I don't like to throw changes at you, but I sure have done it this year. Thanks for rolling with the punches.

Just for Fun

This has nothing to do with choir ... but it's fun!