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Showing posts from August, 2013

Beauty in the Broken

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Earlier today my sister said the word 'octogenarian' which reminded me about a fantastic choir I came across in a TV documentary series that was aired here in the UK a few years ago. The choir is called the 'Young@Heart Chorus' ( check them out here ). It is a group of elderly people who have formed a choir and travel around the USA singing their versions of modern pop songs. I think they are amazing! When I first watched the documentary this clip (watch YouTube video below) of Fred Knittle singing Coldplay's 'Fix You' brought me to tears. I recall from the documentary that one of Fred's good friends had died only a couple of days before this performance. The thing that strikes me even to this day is the beauty of this performance - beauty in the broken! The song is not perfectly sung. The singer is not perfect in bodily health or looks (you can hear his oxygen canister in the background). The timing goes wrong about half way through. BUT it is

Is your Outreach Diluting the Gospel?

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Image from girlguiding.org.uk The Girl Guide movement have recently changed their promise to one that deletes God. The new promise which comes in to effect on 1st September replaces the words 'to love my God' with 'to be true to myself and develop my beliefs' and also replaces 'To serve the Queen and my country' with 'To serve the Queen and my community'. Their website states that this was done after a long consultation process and the reason for the change is to make the organisation more 'open' to all girls and that it:      " continues to emphasise the spiritual development we offer". For me, it is a sad day when a Christian organisation (or at least an organisation that started out as Christian) feels they need to dilute their message and to delete God from the core of their identity in order to be more 'acceptable' in today's society and culture. Since the days when Jesus walked the earth His message has alwa

Wait Upon You - Song Story

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    The other week I preached a sermon in church about The Prayer of David ( read the blog and get link to the audio here ). Since then I have been reminded about a song that was featured on my debut worship album FLY called 'Wait Upon You'.      When I wrote the song, James Blunt was big in the charts with his song 'Beautiful'. I wanted to try to capture s bit of his style in this song, hence the guitar work. It is about a preparation of the heart, calling ourselves to be still, to worship, to know that He is God! The section where the verse and pre-chorus are sung together happened quite naturally. I stumbled across it while singing the song again and again. One section fitted on top of the other really well and it is also different to the 'normal' or 'standard' worship song sound so it pushed the boundaries a little. Listen to song here ! Download and print free chord chart and lead sheet here! Buy the song from iTunes here!

Sunday Setlist - 18th August 2013

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It has been a while since I posted my setlist - so thought I would remedy that now! The sung element of our worship service yesterday (Sunday) went well - despite the keyboard being accidentally unplugged during the first song and a guy from the tech team rushing about trying to fix the problem (these things do happen)!   The Song Selection Process It was difficult to choose songs to fit with the theme of the sermon 'Jesus is a Better High Priest' taken from the book of Hebrews. So instead I chose songs that were on my heart, after praying about it. It worked out well, as when people began to share about what God was doing in their lives a common theme emerged: 'Jesus is my strength, my help in times of trouble. We can face tomorrow with confidence because we know Jesus'. I did have to 'skip' a song in the list as it did not fit with what the Holy Spirit was doing and jump to a song that did. As a result I will only be mentioning the songs we actually

How To Introduce New Worship Songs

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Photo by Melvin Gaal (flickr.com) - Used under the Creative Commons License Over the years I have tried a variety of different methods of introducing a new worship song to a band and to various congregations. Every church and congregation is different, so do feel free to use those ideas that will work in your context and ignore those that won't. This blog is kind of an 'up-date' of where I am and where my church is at the moment in so far as introducing new songs goes. I am pretty sure we will give these ideas a try, but in a year or two's time will be looking for further ways of trying to refine and improve this process. Anyway, this is how we are about to try to introduce new worship songs within our context at present: One of the most radical changes to the way we have done things in the past is introducing a 'New Songs Listening Evening'. The key focus being on listening ! Problems in the Past In the past I used to send a YouTube link and chord cha

Listen to my sermon about prayer

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A few weeks ago I was given the opportunity to preach in my local church. I had not preached for several years, so was quite nervous but was sure I had received a Word from God for the church. Continuing the sermon series 'The Life of David' using the books 1 and 2 Samuel, I focused on a specific section which was a prayer that David prayed (2 Samuel 7:18-29). As well as putting the passage into context and explaining what David was saying based upon his context, I also tried to explain how this prayer can be applied to our lives today. Using illustrations such as social networking and internet dating to help me explain the importance of deeper prayer, I hope you enjoy listening to it. Title of my Sermon: The Prayer of David Listen here:  http://dynamic.church123.com/podcast/367828c2-cdd1-454f-9e83-02fdd65b0986 Comments most welcome in comment section below.

Matt McChlery plays KingsStock Music Festival 2013

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Having a laugh on stage at KingsStock 2013 Music Festival The band and I had a fantastic time playing on the main 'Impact Stage' on Saturday afternoon supporting other Christian bands and musicians such as Chip Kendall, Empire Nation and Daughters of Davis. We were on at 4pm and had a great time playing original songs such as 'Sunshine', 'Won My Heart', 'Wonderful Counsellor' and 'You Alone'. The new site for the festival is amazing. It comes complete with great camping facilities with electrical hookups as well as some real toilets! Tallula's Tea Tent has some great cakes and hot drinks and there were other food vendors on site including an ice-cream van which went down very well over the hot weekend.  If you have been before, you know how great KingsStock is! If you haven't, you should make a plan to book your tickets and come along next year. I only went of the Saturday this year but am hoping to go for the whole weekend nex

Trekkers holiday club

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Singing songs at kids holiday club 'Trekkers' It is the school summer holidays! Hundreds of churches around the UK undertake the running of a holiday club during the holidays. It is a great time of fun and biblical teaching and thousands of primary school aged children get to hear about the good news of Jesus. Denver church in Norfolk invited me to head-up their holiday club this year. I had a great time: singing songs, playing games, telling (bad) jokes but more importantly having some important discussions about Jesus. I can tell you, running a successful holiday club is a lot of hard work and preparation. But the fabulous team of volunteers from Denver's St Mary's church pulled together and everything worked well. The children had a fantastic 3 days and all the objectives of the event were met. Thanks for having me on board! It was great!

Recording in Dudley

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Dave Hill recording the drum tracks for my next CD On the way to my bachelor party two-and-a-bit years ago I was chatting to my friend, Ryan Baker-Barnes about recording another CD. He offered to help with recording and production and I jumped at the chance. It has taken us two years to get to this point, but we have finally made a start! Last weekend I had travelled to Dudley where I teamed up with Ryan's drummer, Dave Hill and we recorded some awesome drum tracks for my up-and-coming CD. Ryan is now going to work on further instrumentation and I will be joining him again in a few months time to continue recording and working on the project. Keep checking my website and this blog for future updates with the recording project!