New Song Preview
Hey, so for real we are going to keep this thing more updated than you can handle! So we start with a new song preview and you get to meet a few of our worship team folks! So here you go! Check it out!
StoneWater Band Auditions
If you’re interested in auditioning for the band here at StoneWater Church, you can get more info and sign up here:
See you there!
Changes in the Worship Ministry…
Lot’s of you may have been wondering about the new faces that you see in the Worship Ministry! Sooooo I wanted to give you a quick update on who everyone is and what their roles are and also how other roles have switched around!
First, we have hired Adam Richards on as a full-time staff member. He may be a familiar face to some of you as he plays Jesus at The Promise in Glen Rose, so yeah we have Jesus leading worship at our church now…His job is now one of the Granbury Campus Worship Leaders, Youth Worship Leader, and anything else that we find for him to do. He has been a GREAT addition to the team so far and we look forward to seeing how God will continue to use him.
Next is Ty Dunn! When Claybourne Ross (our first Glen Rose Campus Worship Leader) moved to South Texas, Ty was the first person I thought of that could fill his position there. Ty is a friend of mine college that used to play guitar at a bible study I attended and also lead worship for the youth at that same church. He has done a great job with the band and worship! The transition over there has been really smooth since bringing him on.
This summer as soon as school is out we will be using Trevor Powell (the guy who plays Lead Guitar stage right) as a Worship Intern! It is going to be awesome having him around the office and showing him the ropes on how we make all of this come together each week!
As for Ashley, she is sharing the role of Granbury Campus Worship Leader with Adam just as she has been since we started the church! She is also in charge of worship for events like Women’s Retreat, Women’s Night of Worship and other times like those!
So how does Eric fit in all this you may ask? Well, I am now the Worship Pastor for StoneWater. What this means is I am an overseer for EVERYTHING worship related. Once you come around the lobby wall and look up, down or sideways I am responsible for it. This goes for both campuses. So what this means is that sometimes I may lead worship, sometimes I may play drums, guitar, bass or keys, sometimes I may be in Glen Rose and sometimes I may be in the Tech booth. But regardless where I am, I am looking for ways to make people more engaged in worship, ways to allow people to feel closer to God, ways to train up the musicians and leaders in our church to reach their full potential, ways to minimize distraction and maximize the beauty of Jesus!
I am honored to be able to serve with a Team of people and not just have me sitting in an office coming up with everything. There is no way Worship would be what it is today at StoneWater without the Work of all these people on my team!
There are 3 more people who are also on the team with me that are not musicians but that make a huge impact in how things run each week! They are Jason Barbaree (Technology Guy), Ryan Stafford (Granbury Producer), and Paul Hayes (Glen Rose Producer)! This guys not only work hard at making it right, but they work hard at multiplying themselves!
Please let these guys know how much they are appreciated if you get the chance to! They could each be doing something different with their life but they are choosing to serve the Lord at YOUR church!
Love you Church! The best is yet to come!
Eric
Meet Marc Gonzales
I am honored and blessed to say Marc is coming on board as a bass player for our Worship Team at StoneWater! I have known Marc for about 2 years now, and I have to say that I have been trying to get him to join us since the first day I met him. A little fact, Marc is the Bass Player on hour current worship CD “Yours is the Victory“ Marc is married to his beautiful wife Lisa! I hope you guys get to know him like I know him! He is a great man of God and will be an amazing addition to our team! He starts Sunday March 13th, so you guys welcome him with open arms!
-Eric
Is it hard to Worship on stage?
This is a question that we got this past week, and after thinking about it, my answer is yes and no…This is where rehearsal really comes in to play. I find it that the more prepared I am and the rest of the band is, the easier it is for me to worship. A mentor of mine once told me that I would never know the weight that is on the lead pastors shoulders each week. I totally agree with that! But to piggy back on that, (not to demean the position of any other musician on stage) it is hard for a guitar player or keys player to feel the weight that is on a Worship Leaders shoulders.
Worship Leaders have a HUGE responsibility when they are leading. They are responsible for leading people to the throne of Jesus and giving them time to open up to be able to hear a message that could potentially change their lives. It is something that can not be taken lightly. So let me take you down the path of how we have changed things to be more prepared…
When we first started the church we used music stands with chord charts EVERY week…Well I began to realize that the only places I see music stands are at orchestras and Church’s. Since I felt like music stands were kind of cheesy with the style of music we were playing, we knixed them but I still let everyone put their Chord charts on the ground. One day I recorded the service with video so that I could see what we looked like (it’s always good to evaluate right?) and noticed that 4 of the 6 or 7 people were staring the ground, so in my mind there is NO WAY that we could truly be worshiping if we were reading a paper the whole time…So I made the HUGE transition to NO Charts at all, everything was to be memorized! This was tough because we do different songs ALL the time, so it requires “homework” each week. But the folks on the worship team responded AWESOMELY and nailed it, so since we have done that it has made worship for the band AMAZING!
Before, we relied SO much on those charts that we were not prepared because we had our “crutch” sitting right in front of us. So since all that is has become much easier to worship on stage. At times I am pretty hard on the band, because we have the responsibility to Lead people in worship to the Creator of the Universe. And WAY to many times I have seen “the church” lacking in hard working skilled musicians. Psalm 33:3 says Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy. So I really take that to heart and if myself or anyone in the band is unprepared or not playing with the skill that the Lord has given each of us, then I see that as being unbiblical, and it really does make it some what of a distraction which in essence makes it difficult to put my full focus on Christ!
So to answer the question “is it hard to worship on stage?” The answer is, it depends on everyone’s heart during the week. If we all have the heart to work hard as if working directly for the Lord (colossians 3:23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men) then yeah our focus is fully on who and what it needs to be! My heart wants to be able to say I personally can just brush it off and go with the flow, but as long as God’s word asks for “skillful” musicians (which is always) it’s just hard to blow that off….This kind of turned into a bunch of rambling, so I hope it all makes since!
BTW- We are truly blessed! 98% of the time EVERYONE is prepared and ready to serve the church in Worship! It really is amazing!
We love you church! That’s why we do this! We love Jesus, and we love you! And we want the best experience with Jesus that you can get! So we will continue to do our part in bringing you our best, but you have to meet us half way give God your best during worship! I leave you with a video of a church that in my mind is able to give it ALL to God! Be inspired!
Eric
SET LIST 10.24.10
This week worship was led by Claybourne Ross who is going to be our Glen Rose Campus Worship Leader, and Trevor Powell our resident youngin who loves the heck out of Jesus! It was an awesome time of worship and to see these two guys up there together was awesome! Here are two pics of them from yesterday…
You Deserve – Hillsong United (also on our album)
No One Like - Tadd Tatum/NewSpring Church
Glory to God - Steve Fee
Our God is Love - Hillsong Live
5 Year Anniversary Service
I just could not stop smiling during Worship. The place was awesome! The worship was awesome! The people were awesome! God is AWESOME! Church, you are growing in your worship and it is so cool to see. God wants his children to worship him, unashamed! He has done a great work in our church over the past 5 years and I can’t wait to see what the future holds! Here are a few pics from the weekend!
A different kind of Sunday
Well, This past Sunday we did an acoustic type set and had a lot of fun with it…At StoneWater we like to keep things fresh so changing up the instruments we use is one of the best ways to do that! After watching playback on video, I noticed that most of you probably couldn’t even see what was being played, so I figured I would explain here….First, Steve our Drummer was playing something called a Cajone…It is basically a box that you sit on and hit with your hands.
Here is a picture of what one looks like…
Joel, one of our bass players was playing an Electric Stand up Bass, which had such a cool sound to it. We are lucky to have someone around that knows how to play one of those well…Here is a pic
And the rest were “normal instruments.” We had Claybourne and I on Acoustics, Trevor playing a hollowbody Gretsch guitar, Hayden on Piano, Amanda on Keys, and Ashley and I singing…
It was a lot of fun to do, and we will do it again this semester at some point. Hope you guys enjoyed it as much as we did! Here is the Set List:
The Time Has Come - Hillsong United
Your Love Never Fails - Jesus Culture
Desert Song - Hillsong United
Our God - Chris Tomlin
-Eric
Meet Our Keys Players
Hayden and Amanda are a part of our AMAZING team of Keys players that we have. We can’t thank them enough for all of the time that they put in to give us the sound that we are so blessed to have! They are both High School students here in Granbury, and both plan to have music as a part of their lives for a long time!
Hayden also plays guitar, bass, and Saxophone, and is one of the drum majors in the Granbury High School Band. I met Hayden by giving him voice and guitar lessons a few years ago. Since then he has had an exploding passion for worshiping Jesus, and if you want to see what I mean by that just watch him on a Sunday morning, he absolutely loves him some Jesus!
I also met Amanda by giving her guitar lessons. When I met her she was as shy as they come, but since then she has broke out and become the keys player that we use every week in the Elevate Student ministries band, and often on Sundays as well! Amanda is a great student, and leader and is doing and is going to continue to do GREAT things for the kingdom!
Hayden and Amanda, thank you guys so much for all you do, we love yall!
Random Fact: One sound that I absolutely love is the sound of an organ in a rock band! If you have ever wondered what the mini keyboard on top of the big keyboard that these two play is, well here it is….It is a “midi” keyboard that plugs into a computer and using some software gives it an organ sound, which if you listen closely is used in a majority of Rock and Texas Country bands
A glimpse into StoneWater Worship
First, I just want to say thanks for checking out our new site! We want to be totally real with who we are as a group of musicians leading you in Worship each week. It is my hope that you will see us as real people that go through the same ups, downs, joys, pains and life that you guys do! I hate that sometimes standing on a 3 foot stage makes people seem like they are unapproachable, but I assure you that we are all VERY approachable, and again I hope that you will see that through this blog! Well enjoy the first video!
Eric
