Gateway Worship [connect]

He Is Faithful - Bryan and Katie Torwalt

The Way I Am - Kevin Gardner

Death In His Grave - John Mark McMillan

As we celebrated our faith on Sunday with our church God worked in a unique way. Lead Pastor, Thayer Stamper, brought the heat about faith and what that word REALLY looks like in your life. I must say that the Word pierced each of our hearts in one way or another. Would we really come to church and have faith if we had nothing but Jesus alone to live for. I mean really? Would we still do what we do if it wasn’t for lights and rock n roll? Tough word to swallow, right? The Lord humbled me to think about my own motives in every cranny of my heart’s agendas. Faith is why we live for what we live for. It’s our cause for belief. It contains the ability to move all mountains. 

After our first service worship session our drummer shared with the band backstage about what God was showing him in the session. Matt shared that when we worship and lift our hands it’s more than surrender. It’s more than just worship and adoration. When a child lifts their arms up to their daddy it’s normally for a few reasons… 1. They’re tired. 2. They need the father’s embrace. 3. They want get up from being “low” and see things around them to have clarity of their surroundings. 4. They want to be face to face with their daddy.  

In the same way… when we lift our hands we simply say “Abba” or Papa, I need you. I want to be with you. I want to be close to you. I’m tired and I need you to hold me. So when you worship know that it’s you and the Heavenly Father - your Father. He’s here for you, ready to pick you up and show you your surroundings. He’s there to give rest and peace. In our worship we can lift more than our hands… we can lift our lives. This causes the one thing YOU WERE MADE FOR - INTIMACY. Your Father want’s you to be closer to Him. The closer you are the clearer His voice is.

Love you guys,

Kevin and Matt

This morning we focused on the church crying out to God for more revelation and empowerment to fulfill where He’s calling us and what He’s doing in us. We had such a deep experience and fellowship with the heart of the Father.

When you come to church you may think of it as the only time you come somewhere dragging your faith with you. You may see it as a the only time you grow, learn, or mature. However, just as we focused throughout the service, your relationship with God is an everyday faith-in-action lifestyle. When you come to church, come to celebrate collectively. It’s a time for you join and bless the heart of the Lord with your church family. So come to church ready to celebrate your everyday relationship!

We Cry Out - Kim Walker Smith

Your Love Never Fails - Jesus Culture arrangement

Let It Rain - Andy Park (Jesus Culture arrangement)

So this isn’t exactly new worship however we’ve been incorporating a lot of material from this worship record over the past year. Go buy this, sow it into your family, and grow deeper in intimacy with the Lord through worship!

Be Lifted High includes 13 songs recorded live over a series of Bethel Church worship services and features the passionate, genuine and spontaneous worship of the church. The songs capture the heart of a growing movement as the bonus DVD features interviews on worship with Bill Johnson, Bethel Church Sr. pastor; Kris Vallotton, Bethel Church Sr. associate pastor; Brian and Jenn Johnson, Jeremy Riddle and other Bethel Music artists. The DVD also includes personal stories from the artists of how worship has changed their lives, including Brian Johnson sharing in detail for the first time the story of how the power of praise freed him from years of spiritual torment.

PURCHASE HERE:

http://bethelmusic.com/product/be-lifted-high-2011

We led alongside husband and wife team Matt and Dia Worling. It’s always great to step back and let others lead and see how God uses their personalities in the leadership of worship. 

Your Name High - Hillsong

Arms Open Wide - Hillsong

I Will Exalt - Amanda Faulk (Bethel Worship - Redding, CA)

Man this has rocked my world… You need to invest in this.

Go get it for yourself!

http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Calling-Seeking-Presence-ebook/dp/tags-on-product/B003IYI7I2

I hope everyone has enjoyed the new year settling in. With it came our current series Forward. Forward has been a challenging series - in a good way! We’ve challenged you to get rid of or accept things into your life that will help you move towards all that God has in store for you, and through that people have been seeing God work mightily! Our focus this past week was letting go of the things that hold you back from moving forward. Of course when you let go of those things you find what’s exposed is all the hurt, damage, pain, etc from various things. With that pain comes a need for restoration. We really emphasized this in our times of worship and word. Restoration can truly take place once we release the things that hold us down and hold us back. Many times this can be in the form of baggage, weights, or barriers. We stepped on to stage with full faith that the Lord would remove these things and heal the lives of those open to restoration. We believe that in this series that God is working in new ways. He is ever inspiring us in new ways. He’s leading us in new directions. We constantly want to be moving forward. To me, the biggest point  was about provisions. Many times we look at what God did instead of what God is going to do or what He’s promised. Believe in the promised future He has set apart for you - believe it! Don’t be okay  with yesterday’s supplication. Instead, ask for more and seek for newness in your walk with Him.

Yahweh - Kevin Gardner

Let The Sound Of Heaven - Brian & Katie Torwalt

Restoration - David Brymer

We had an amazing time gathering to worship on Christmas Eve. This was really a unique time for us to connect with the community.

Born Is The King - Hillsong

O Come O Come Emmanuel - Gateway

Angels We Have Heard On High - Gateway

O Come Let Us Adore Him - Gateway

Joy To The World - Tomlin

After an amazing Christmas we joined together for one service on New Years Day. The Lord continued to speak into my spirit about His joy and how all things can be fresh and new. In that we needed to celebrate, and so celebrate we did. Our New Years Day service started us out on the right foot, stepping out of one year into the greater things ahead in this year. 

Happy Day - Tim Hugues

One Thing Remains - Brian Johnson

From The Inside Out - Gateway Arrangement (originally by Hillsong)

There was evidence of His work among us. The Lord was working in us, making things new and restoring us. As a team we worshippers couldn’t help but express joy at what God was doing. Gateway, there’s greater and deeper experiences ahead of us. We can’t wait to lead you into them!

-Kevin

Hey Everyone,

Over the weekend as we focused on adoration and connected via the blog on what adore looks like in our lives I sat down and just began to worship using a group of lyrics I’ve been holding on to and what was on my heart from what the Lord had been revealing in my life. I began writing what is now a new song on the block called “Cup Of Love”. When I think of a cup I think of something that can be filled and poured into. I’ve lived my whole life knowing the 23rd Psalm but when this song came out of my worship I discovered a more personal meaning than all the other times I read it. This psalm may have been used in the temple, but it wasn’t addressed for a worshipper to use for the people like other psalms. This was a psalm of David for David between he and the Lord. It was intimate and personal. As God is leading and guiding David like a sheep, David describes the beautiful image of God preparing a table before Him. His cup was overflowing. It is then we see David say “Surely, Your goodness and love will forever follow me”. Something was being shown in the symbolism of a cup running over. The love of God was being poured onto David’s life so much that it was doing so in an overflowing manner. When I read this after writing the new song I grasped the whole cup idea. Your life is a cup. No matter who you are or where you are in this life God’s love will never be less than overflowing for you in that cup. It humbles me to think no matter who I have been or what is going His love is constant - flowing over me. His banner of love remains for me. So the chorus simply says, “You’ve filled my cup with love”. When you look at it from this perspective it changes everything about the way you worship to a song with lyrics about a cup. He breathed His life into us, gave us a name and purpose all because of love. He made YOU the favorite jewel of His creation because of love. The song doesn’t stop there. He pours His affection out on us but the same action takes place from us. We’ve received the love and now it’s time to give it back. This picture is exactly what God wants from us - it’s the way relationship works. We pour our affection back on Him. In Mark 14 Jesus has a woman come to him and pour the perfume onto Him. She takes something that amounts to all the worth she has and pours it on him…yes…she pours her life onto Jesus. That’s the image to grasp. He filled it up, we pour it back out on Him. When you worship give everything you have to show Him your love and appreciation. Pour out your life on the Lord. It’s the only way He wants you. Everything we know about God tells us He wants all of us. He doesn’t want luke warm faith. He doesn’t want half of your worship. So many times we sing worship songs about God pouring something out on us, raining down on us, etc etc… This new direction and revelation is about us pouring out on the One who first filled our Cup. 

Make Him your passion. Make Him your focus. Pour It Out.

-Kevin

What a great time this weekend with our people. Even in the midst of a holiday we can look past decor to remember the One who made all things new - Jesus. Our set this past weekend:

Our King Has Come - Elevation Worship

Let The Sound - Bryan and Katie Torwalt

O Come All Ye Faithful / O Come Let Us Adore Him - Gateway arrangement

As we sang in holiday cheer we wanted, more than cheer, to worship Jesus for his sacrifice. In this we ended on a note of pure adoration singing “O Come Let Us Adore Him”. When we left the stage one of our worship leaders brought up between we worshippers backstage the definition of adore or to adore.

Here’s what she shared:

adore |əˈdôr|

• love and respect (someone) deeply : he adored his mother. 
• worship; venerate : he adored the Sacred Host.
• to honor as a deity or as divine
• to regard with loving admiration and devotion <adored his wife>
• to be very fond of 

When we worship “Christ the Lord” singing “We adore You , You’re worthy, We give you glory”, it’s a pouring out of affection and devotion to the Lord. To adore is to be in love with, to be focused on, to be passionate about. He’s all we live for, all we desire to please, all we want. He is highly spoken of, honored, and respected. With deep affection comes the need to praise and show it to Him. We say this often… when you know Him you want nothing more than to live for Him. That’s where the adoration comes in. In relationship with the Lord we grasp His unreasonable love. Our God reached past reason and logic, judgement and sin… to reach us, love, and rescue us. So when you worship do it because you adore Him. Worship Him because you see Jesus as King of Angels and Christ the Lord. Keep your focus on who He really is and why you worship - because you adore Him so deeply.

We thought we would share what God was doing behind the scenes and pouring into the worshippers.

- Kevin