Jordan Rippy

This is the last post about our night of praise, I promise. I wanted to take several posts to show you all of the different elements we incorporated into the night. We incorporated various expressions of worship for three main reasons:

1. The church should be more creative and less limited in worship.
2. Involving everyone makes the night less of a worship concert and more of a community night of worship.
3. Using art, photography, and writing stations allows the church to capture what God is doing within the community of faith.

In addition to the artists, photographers, and musicians who participated in the night of praise, we also invited the congregation to write what they felt God speaking to them throughout the night. We had a large table set up with a long piece of craft paper and tons of markers. People were able to write as the Lord spoke to them. It was interesting to see a lot of common themes in what was written.

I believe that the church should be the most creative place in the world. With that in mind we incorporated artists into our night of praise. We had to two artists in our church up front painting and sketching during worship.

Crystal - Painting

Final

Sarah - Sketching

Final

Here are some pictures from our recent night of praise. Meet the band…

Me - Acoustic / Vocals

Kristin - Keys / Vocals

Lance - Electric

David - Bass

Chris - Drums

Photo credits: Chase Hagaman and Rob S.  

Tonight was all worship at church. I am so excited because we did some experimenting with having people paint during worship…It was phenomenal. It will definitely become a regular occurrence around Victory @ Sarasota. I’ll post some pics of the art and of the evening in general when I have them. Until then, here’s our set from tonight:

• Dancing Generation - D (Redman)
• Your Grace is Enough - A (Tomlin)
• Endlessly - E (Desperation)
• All I Need - E (Springer)
• Marvelous Light - B (Hall)
• How He Loves - C (McMillan)
• God of this City - C (Tomlin)
• Chasing - D (Desperation)
• Here in Your Presence - D (New Life)
• Always - D (United)
• Hosanna - D (United)
• Chasing After You - D (Stockstill)
• Everlasting God - D (Brown)

This set is brought to you by the key of D

Pastor Brian got me the self-titled, debut album from Deluge for my birthday. Deluge is the youth worship band from Bethany World Prayer Center. The band is lead by the church’s worship pastor, Jonathan Stockstill. I really like their music. My favorite tracks off the album are “Whisper His Name”, “I Believe”, and “Open up the Sky”. This CD doesn’t sound super youth-y and is a little more keys-driven than a lot of stuff out there.

We had a fantastic Easter weekend at church. We had a our regular service on Saturday night and then we had a Sunrise Service on the beach to celebrate Resurrection Sunday. We had about 200 people at the Sunrise service. There were a bunch of people from church bit we also had a lot of people who just wandered up from the beach. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune covered the event and ended up putting it on the font page of today’s paper. They also did a photo expose on their web site. Gotta love that free advertisement!

My friend Shaun recently posted about updating his guitar set-up. He even mentioned me in his post. He says that he, “Doesn’t break strings as much as some people [he] knows.” I’m pretty confident that I am the “some people he knows”. Anyway, his post reminded me that a few people asked about my gear at Beach Camp. Here’s everything I could possibly think of. Let me know if I’m missing anything.

Guitars
Gibson L-130 (Acoustic) - This is my primary guitar. I love the smaller specs and well-rounded tone.
Taylor 310ce (Acoustic) - I generally use this as a back-up. It has a brighter tone and more on-board EQ options.

Pre-Amp
L.R. Baggs Para Acoustic DI - I really like this DI, but I want to upgrade to an Avalon at some point.

Microphone (Vocal)
Shure Beta 87A - I wouldn’t use anything else. I love the response of this mic.

Tuner
Boss TU-2 Chromatic Stompbox - A must. Some people prefer strobe tuners, but I don’t know why. The TU-2 is way easier to operate in a live setting.

Cables
Planet Wave Custom Series Cables (Gold) - I really like the security of these cables. The compression springs make for a really solid connection. The lifetime guarentee is cool too.

Strings
Elixer Phospher Bronze Medium (Nanoweb) - I’ve tried everything else, and nothing compares to the life and tone of Elixer. I use mediums for the tone.

Picks
Snarling Dog’s Brain .73 (Red) - Most electric guys I know hate these pics becasue the grip is so rough, but I like them for that very reason. They’re made from a composite meterial that makes them a little more flexible than Dunlop picks.

Capo
Dunlop Trigger Capo - This capo seems to be a bit of a tighter fit than others I’ve tried. It also doesn’t affect the tuning as much as other quick-change capos.

Sunday was our second day at beach camp…It was great. Since we stayed out pretty late with Transformers on Saturday, we all slept in until about lunch. We decided to go out to eat at a local restaurant on the beach called Sharky’s. It was quite good, although our waiter was a bit peculiar and repeated everything he said numerous times and repeated everything he said numerous times. Then we caught the Sunday matinée of License to Wed. Not the funniest film I’ve ever seen…Actually, it just wasn’t funny. About ten minutes into the movie, Josh and Shaun decided to get up and go check out the first half of Transformers for the second time.

LR: Zach, Kristin, Me, Micah, Oswald

The last night is always special at youth camp. Worship went really well and the response was good. I love playing with these guys. This is the second year that we’ve played beach camp together, and I was so glad that everyone was able to make it back. I really hope the tradition will continue next year. We cut the set a little short to make sure we had plenty of time at the end.
Set list was:

• Marvelous Light
• The Time Has Come
• Hosanna
• Beautiful
• Altar - Ready Now anyone?

We had a great second night at beach camp. Everyone was a bit tired because of the sun not doubt. The end was particularly good. The altar response was good and the kids really worshiped.
Set list was:

• Intro in Bmaj
• The Time Has Come
• Endlessly
• From the Inside Out
• Everlasting God
• The More I Seek You
• Beautiful

After the service we caught a late night showing of Transformers. It was quite good. The guys really loved it. Kristin loved hated it. The girls were less than impressed.

Last night we had a great first night here at Laguna. The band from last year is back. Me (acoustic/vocals), Kristin (Keys/Vocals), Micah (Electric), Zach (Bass), Josh (Drums)…We arrived around 2:30 and helped set up Russell’s Bag End system. I broke two strings. “D” in practice and “G” in service. I’m going to try the DR Rares tonight. I’ve been having bad luck with my usual Elixer phosphor bronze lately. Set list last night was:

• Marvelous Light (Remix with loops)
• Endlessly
• Everlasting God
• From the Inside Out
• Hosanna
• Rescue