Worship Reflections 04.13.08
Blended worship services:
The Solid Rock (arrangement from Shout Kids Hymns)
Blessed Be Your Name (Redman)
Great is Thy Faithfulness (hymn)
In Christ Alone (Getty/Townend)
(response to message) Take My Life (hymn)
Contemporary worship service
He Reigns (Newsboys)
Blessed Be Your Name (Redman)
To Know Your Name (Hillsong: Matt Crocker)
How Marvelous (Tomlin arr.)
Take My Life (Tomlin arr.)
By the way, I highly recommend the Shout Praises Kids CD’s. I started collecting them when I led worship for camps for 4th-6th graders; the songs are played, for the most part, by real instruments playing real arrangements, rather than keyboard-generated-everything. We have translated several of the song arrangements for use with our church worship teams.
I was blessed to see greater signs of spontaneous, postural responses in all our worship services this week. That’s a loaded statement… because ‘greater’ in the blended services is an entirely different thing than ‘greater’ in the contemporary service. It just always brings a whisper of tears and a lump in the (struggling to sing) throat when I see a person in my church make that huge leap of standing up while all others are sitting. It’s not a measure of anything other than the strength of that one person’s response… but it’s a privilege to see even that.
By that measure, this week’s high impact songs: ‘In Christ Alone’ for the blended crowds, ‘To Know Your Name’ in the contemporary service…. as evidenced by lots of our senior high students standing. Knocks me over every time.
I really like Chris Tomlin’s version of Take My Life. I can’t seem to wrap my head around it though, when I try to play.
Way to go.
bridget
SO TRUE!!!
“That’s a loaded statement… because ‘greater’ in the blended services is an entirely different thing than ‘greater’ in the contemporary service.”
“Shout Praises Kids” — that’s interesting I’ll have to check them out.
“In Christ Alone” always seems to be a high impact song for us.
Matt… so we were able to transcend the joy of having completed your final prom appearance? :) Thanks for your comment. I can’t tell you how funny it is that I of all people would have given anyone anything close to a blogging tip.
Beth & Paul… thanks. This is one of the huge blessings of the job we do, yes?
worship was awesome this week. great song choices. i thought it may have been the fact that i only got four hours of sleep the night before, but i had those whispers of tears too. i’ve had “to know your name” on repeat on the ‘pod so far this week. thanks for a great service, and for your blogging tips…
I agree, Kim – nothing like seeing the spirit move people in a physical way. It’s a great gift, to witness such a thing…
The power of God to move the human soul is always an amazing and breathtaking event! And we are often privileged to witness and cherish just such a moment. May it always bring a “whisper of tears and a lump in our throat!”