(what’s a worship confessional?)
From Sunday August 26
Blended service:
- God of Wonders (Byrd/Hindalong)
- Praise to the Lord, the Almighty (the hymn…straight up)
- prayer, greeting, announcements
- Missions highlights:
- intro and sending prayer for men going to Latvia
- stories from Mexico (former intern/interim youth director who spent 6 months there)
- Open the Eyes of My Heart (Baloche)
- Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus
- scripture (Rev.5, Phil.2)
- In Christ Alone (Getty/Townend)
- prayer
- offering (violin duet)
- message (intro to ten commandments series)
Contemporary Service
- Holy is the Lord (Tomlin)
- God of Wonder (Byrd/Hindalong)
- prayer, greeting, announcements
- same highlights as above
- prayer
- (during offering )Lord We Pray (Foote)
- scripture (Rev.5)
- Revelation Song (Riddle)
- In Christ Alone (Getty/Townend)
- Reprise, Lord we Pray chorus
- message (intro to ten commandments)
Just to reflect on last Sunday…. we were very rushed in these services, as the missions highlights went a bit longer than expected. When that happens, I usually find that I’m fairly distracted by time and the implications for the rest of the morning, so I don’t get emotionally wrapped into the worship experience. We have not used In Christ Alone very often yet in the blended services, so I expected people to be in ‘learning’ mode more than ‘worship’ mode. They surprised me. I was blown away by their responses…. and I was weepy. I had been a bit discouraged about our church’s worship journey and my role in it during the week before, and somehow in all three of our services last week, God squeezed my heart with the assurance that He is at work, and people are responding, and I’d do better to pray and do the work than to whine and look for black clouds.

You did In Christ Alone! That’s one of my favorite worship songs right now. I’d love to hear your version. Is that possible?
Yikes. I’ll have to listen to our recording of it from last week’s services. Since I was, um, verklempt, the vocals might be really really horrible. :) I’ll let you know.
Yea! Your thoughts and experiences and worship planning-ness (!) will create great dialogue, I’m sure. Horrible vocals? Whatever.
OK, I’m really not trying to be self-deprecating. It’s about the near SOBBING in the middle of the song. Anyone have any advice for how to deal with that?
Geez. Wish I knew. Cold water or mints actually work for me — but only in a scenario where I can feel it coming on and have time to grab them. Mid-song? Forget it.