When I was in college I was part of a ministry leadership team for a student ministry group. Each week we had a memory verse that we had to memorize and recite at our weekly meeting. These scriptures, ingrained in my head, have been helpful in different situations to offer comfort and encouragement.

Here is one I recited often over the past two weeks through our move to a new house.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”

~ Philippians 4:6-7

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Yesterday I posted something on facebook that at the time was a huge mistake. I didn’t realize it of course, but as the day wore on, and comments started coming in I saw the error of my ways. What was it?

Big news for the Martin household. More details later.

I saw nothing wrong. We had big news happening with us. It made sense to me. What I failed to keep in mind is that out of my facebook friends and followers there are many women who were all of the sudden drawing their own conclusions and speculations as to what our big news was. You can guess what they were thinking. Sorry to disappointed but the letter “B” has nothing to do with this announcement.

The news is that we have found and begun the process to purchase a house. It’s a nice starting home here in Texarkana. I’ll post pictures once everything is final. This is a big step for us and a huge commitment. We would definitely appreciate and covet your prayers as we go forward.

I apologize again for being so open ended and allowing for so much speculation my status update. I will try not to do that again.

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The 8th installment of Instrumental Reflections brings a piece that is perfect to play behind a prayer time, prayer walk or even to help you relax and go to sleep. I called it “Lazy” and it sound just like that. The song is about 3 minutes long but I looped it once. You should be able to loop it and have it play continuously in your MP3 player, or on the computer.

I hope you enjoy

Click to listen. Right click and choose “Save as” or “save target as” to save to your computer.

Download “Lazy”

Did you enjoy this Instrumental Reflection? Check out the other instrumental reflections in the suggested sites below. To get them delivered to your inbox Subscribe to forkintheroad by Email

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This past week I spent leading worship for elementary age kids at Lakeview Church Camp, so the instrumental reflection for this week is a song I have put up here previously. This song is probably still my most requested piano piece I play, and the one I enjoy playing the most. It was written on an old piano at a church on the Mexico Texas border while I was on a mission trip there in college. It’s called Angelise. Please enjoy.

Click to listen. Right click and choose “Save as” or “save target as” to save to your computer.

Download Angelise

Did you enjoy this Instrumental Reflection? Check out the other instrumental reflections in the suggested sites below. To get them delivered to your inbox Subscribe to forkintheroad by Email

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This is the third in the new “Instrumental Reflections” series. If you like it check out the first and second songs.

Click to listen. Right click and choose “Save as” or “save target as” to save to your computer.

Download Prayer Walk 3

Did you enjoy this Instrumental Reflection? Check out the other instrumental reflections in the suggested sites below. To get them delivered to your inbox Subscribe to forkintheroad by Email

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Last week I began this series called Instrumental Reflections. Basically it’s just piano recordings of me playing that can be used for prayer time, instrumental background, or reflection time for personal or corporate worship. In last week’s post, Instrumental Reflections #1, I started it off with a recording of an original song that I created during our College UM ARMY prayer walk. This second recording is an arrangement of the hymn “Come Thou Fount”. Please enjoy.

Click to listen. Right click and choose “Save as” or “save target as” to save to your computer.

Download Prayer Walk 2

Did you enjoy this Instrumental Reflection? Check out the other instrumental reflections in the suggested sites below. To get them delivered to your inbox Subscribe to forkintheroad by Email

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One thing I have always loved to do is to sit at the piano and just play. Let whatever notes come and go wherever I am led and just play. Over the years this has sometimes resulted in some great songs like “Angelise” and “Yesterday Today and Forever” After I began leading worship for different camps people asked me to play before a service started or during the prayer time.
I started thinking that maybe you would benefit from some recordings of these musical ramblings as a background to your own corporate or personal prayer and reflection times. So here is what I plan to do. Every week I will upload an instrumental reflection. I may use one that I was able to record during a worship service, or go and sit down at the piano and record something new. I will put the songs up here and provide a download link. You are free to use the music for any worship service or other service you wish. All I ask is that you ask me before using it for other purposes, like on a video, compilation CD, or something like that.

Here is the first installment called Prayer Walk 1. It was recorded at our College UM ARMY camp in May of 2009 during the prayer walk. It is a live recording so you will hear some noise in the background of people going through the stations on the walk . Click to listen. Right click and choose “Save as” or “save target as” to save to your computer.

Download Prayer Walk 1

Did you enjoy this Instrumental Reflection? Check out the other instrumental reflections in the suggested sites below. To get them delivered to your inbox Subscribe to forkintheroad by Email

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So each week I answer the question, “How did Sunday go?” “What did you sing?” It’s a great chance to reflect on what happened good and bad. I want to say thanks to Fred McKinnon for setting this up on his blog. Be sure and check out what other worship leaders are doing for their Sunday Setlists.

This week’s order of worship

Xperience Order of Worship 1-4-09

Opening Song- I just Want to Celebrate (4) Our drummer came to us and said he wanted to sing this song. Yeah it’s the old Rare Earth Tune. I know there are varying points of view on using secular music. What do you think?

Welcome and Announcements

Worship Song -Salt and Light (1) 
Worship Song -Revive Us Again (3) Kerri found this on the song discovery 72. Great new rendetion of a great hymn.

Children’s Sermon

Time of Prayer

Offering- In the Light (2)

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It seems that whenever we are constantly being reminded to turn off our cell phones when we go to public places like movie theaters, schools, and church. This weekend at National Youth Workers Convention at one of our general sessions we were asked to do exactly the opposite. There were several times that we were specifically asked to turn our phones on.

The first time was one of the coolest prayer experiences I have ever been a part of. The speaker would say something like, “Maybe you feel like you need to be filled up this week” and then asked those that agreed with the statement to turn their phone display on. What happened is that in the darkness we were able to see that there were others with the same struggles, while it still gave some sense of ambiguity. Each time a statement was made, thousands of lights appeared across the stadium.

The second was during a general session where we had three speakers. Each one was given 15 minutes to talk, and then we took 5 minutes to discuss what they spoke about. During that 5 minutes we were encouraged to text message questions to a number on the screen. At the end of the 5 minutes they used those questions for a Q&A session.

The final use of the phone was ongoing through twitter. Through monitoring twitter comments and sending my own I was able to interact with people sitting in various areas of the worship service, get their thoughts and respond. I was even able to follow one of the services we did not attend, getting photos, comments, sermon notes and more. (follow me on twitter @rgmmusic)

These all worked great in a large conference setting. What I am wondering though is how they could work in a smaller church setting of 100-500 people. Or would I be asking for trouble by encouraging people to turn their phones on during worship.

What ways have you used cell phones during your worship service?

What would concern you most about encouraging your congregation to turn ON their phone?

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For the past year we have really tried to elevate and emphasize communion in our service. Every month we have tried something interactive or at least different. We have used the paper that dissolves in water and had the congregation write on the paper what they needed to let go of. The dropped the paper in, stirred and the paper disappeared. Our pastor has had the congregation repeat the Jesus Prayer. We have put up sheets of paper and asked them to write a thank you note to God, after taking communion. We have used a song of confession that I wrote for our congregation called “Awaken our Hearts“.

This week we went interactive again and set up two stations with rocks, basin and pitcher of water. We had the members come up and think about the things they cannot let go of, but need to. They held the rock over the basin of water and let it go, listening to their worries go with the rock.Then they go ahead and take communion.

We run a video during the first part of communion and have a song following so I was able to sit and watch people as they came to the rock station. Some of them walked up, grabbed a rock and tossed it in, seemingly with out any thought. However there were some for which you could tell this was a difficult, yet meaningful experience. I have been very excited to see the changes happening in our congregation and we have received many comments about how meaninful communion has been now.

So what do you use to make your services interactive?

Oh.. Since I am entering this on Fred McKinnon’s Sunday Setlist I should give you our list from Sunday.

We started the service with “Matchless”, the band really liked it I think. We followed with “Meet With Me.” After that we had our sermon and then used my song Alleluia for the offering. During communion two of our leaders sang “The Blood Will Never Lose It’s Power.” Our Song of Invitation was the Passion version of “Jesus Paid it All”

Over all it was a great Sunday..

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