Lent Week 5 Worship (Nikki Lerner)

For those of you who may have missed everything I posted this week here's the headlines.  Nikki Lerner is the Director of Worship for Bridgeway Community Church in Columbia MD where people from over 52 nations worship together on Sunday.

I've already bragged a lot about Nikki's productivity this week over on the Forefront blog so now that you've heard her talent and heart I'd love you to consider contributing to her Kickstarter for her record. 

JALALI YESU - EVAN ROGERS

We love this song at Forefront Brooklyn.  It was one of the very first songs we introduced with a language element.  "Jalali Yesu" is an Urdu phrase that loosely translates as "Glory to Jesus" and this song was written by a South African brother called Evan Rogers.  Evan and his wife Tracy visited us on the first Sunday of the year and I heard news yesterday that they're moving to Brooklyn to be part of a brand new church plant in Bay Ridge!

ALIVE - HILLSONG

This song was brand new to us as its a pretty recent release from Hillsong's "Young and Free" collaboration which is their youth music project.  Nikki and the Bridgeway team arranged their own unique version of this song and its available on Bridgeway's recent worship album.  I love the spirit of creativity that Bridgeway bring to arranging the worship and I hope that in our own way we emulate this idea of a unique, home grown sound that resonates within our local church community rather than mindlessly copying whatever version is on the latest worship album that the Christian music industry is trying to sell to us as "cool" or "cutting edge".  Nikki coined a term this weekend which her and I might write some more on called "farm to table" worship.

WITHHOLDING NOTHING - WILLIAM MCDOWELL

Nikki just used the chorus of this song as a tag, encouraging us to give all of our stuff to God in worship because, in her words, "He can take it".  I thought I'd highlight the full song because I love it.

HOLY SPIRIT - BRYAN & KATIE TORWALT

Jeremiah introduced us to this classic Bethel music number and Nikki beautifully retuned this into her signature sound.  The simple cry of this song is for us to become more aware of God's presence in our lives and to actively participate in inviting the Holy Spirit in to our lives to "change the atmosphere".  

Maybe you're having a rough Monday (isn't every Monday?) and you need to just take a few minutes to invite God into your workplace, your project, your sense of mundanity and ask the Spirit to bring new life and a fresh atmosphere into our stale worlds.

HOLY SPIRIT LEAD ON - NIKKI LERNER

In our time of communion Nikki sang over us an original of hers that opens and closes the new Bridgeway worship album.  I absolutely adore the verses of this song:

You lead us into all truth 
You lead us when we have lost our way 
You never leave us alone 
You are our Helper 

You pray for us when we're weak
With groanings faithfully intercede
You fill our souls with His love
You are our Comfort 

You show us how we should live 
Illuminating the will of Christ 
There's nothing that you won't give 
You're our Provider 

Your presence gives us new life
We need your every word to survive 
Reminding us of the Cross 
You are our Teacher