Gracepoint Berkeley Worship Blog

Ever wonder why the Gracepoint Fellowship Church praise band sometimes looks like secret service agents with those headphones sticking out of one ear? If you’ve never seen them then you haven’t been looking closely and that’s good because you should be focusing on praising God anyways! 🙂 Anyhow, the in ear monitors are basically as is described. Instead of the typical monitors, speakers that sit in front of the stage, we use wireless packs which our headphones plug into. The music is now plugged directly into our ears and this allows the singers and instrumentalists to hear ourselves while on stage. The coolest part about it is that we can choose to turn up or down whatever instrument or other singers in the band. It’s like creating my own personal mix on Sundays!

Here is Mike from the Gracepoint Fellowship Church Berkeley Worship Team teaching Where the Love Lasts Forever by Hillsong United.

The opening video from Hillsongs 2007 Conference. It’s creative and very moving, the build from bittersweet symphony to Amazing Grace w/ Chris Tomlin is pretty awesome…enjoy!

Here’s something I recently learned about Matt Redman’s song “Heart of Worship”. It’s a very moving and powerful song but the story behind it is even more amazing. You can read more about in an article here.

To summarize, the pastor of Matt Redman’s church decided the praise and worship time’s were losing their meaning and decided to remove the instruments and sounds system. They spent a period of time where the praise was purely voices, no band, no sound, just acapella. Though different and uncomfortable at first, it actually became a much more worshipful experience as the congregation no longer became distracted by the music, instruments, and sound but focused purely on the words.

This has been something I’ve always tried to do when I sing praise and one of the main things I preached to my band in Acts2fellowship Gold. What makes our worship times on Fridays and Sundays different from any other “rock” band out there are the words that we sing. Our words have meaning, they define who we are, who our God is and that should be our goal during times of praise. It’s not to sing nice rockin’ songs but the focus should be the words and letting that be tied to our desire to praise and worship God.

Dont’ get me wrong now, I’m not saying we lose our band because I love having praise! My prayer is that as a praise leader I’m able to help lead the congregation in a time of worship where the words we sing can connect with our hearts.

I’ll just end this post with some lyrics from the song…

When the music fades, all is stripped away, and I simply come

Longing just to bring something that’s of worth that will bless your heart…

I’m coming back to the heart of worship, and it’s all about You, Jesus

You can listen to the song here:

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Ander Chen – Acts2fellowship Gold Worship Leader

Want to learn how to play From the Inside Out by Hillsong United on the electric guitar? Well our electric guitarist here at Gracepoint Fellowship Church, Mike put together a short tutorial to show you how, enjoy!