Worship Reflections: Easter 04.12.09

Easter morning worship services all over the world were, I hope, great opportunities to reflect on and celebrate what Jesus’ resurrection means for us… for all of us.  Our service was such a celebration, especially focusing on the fact that Jesus’ resurrection means there can be change and transformation. 

For largely logistical reasons, we decided that our three worship services would be identical this Easter. We’ve taken this approach before, but this is the first Easter we’ve had since moving to our current service configuration, so our journey to this decision was new. I do think it was the right decision.

Setlist & flow (songs in bold are linked to iTunes store) 

Crown Him with Many Crowns: traditional hymn. full orchestra & choir.
welcome, set stage for the morning
Rejoice the Lord is King: traditional hymn. full orchestra & choir.
Happy Day (Tim Hughes): came directly out of ‘Rejoice’.  worship band, orchestra, soloist, 20 voice ensemble.
scripture:  Rom 6 (Message) and Gal 6:14 (NIV) (link between resurrection & our own lives)
The Power of the Cross (Keith Getty, Stuart Townend): orchestra & choir.
I Stand Amazed (How Marvelous): came directly out of “The Power”. 4 vocalists & worship band.
Message: ‘Changed’: the story of Paul.  Ended with an invitation to write down where we land in our level of being ‘changed’ by God, whether it be ‘wish it would happen faster’ or ‘I don’t believe at all’.  
Jesus Paid it All (Grape, Nifong, Hall. Hal Leonard arr.): 4 vocalists, piano, strings.
You are My King (Billy Foote): came directly out of “Jesus Paid”. 4 vocalists, worship band, strings. 
verbal transition to offering
Do it, Lord (Tommy Walker): worship band, orchestra, soloist and 20 voice ensemble.
Closing… Rejoice the Lord is King (1 verse): Led by full orchestra and vocal ensemble.

Behind the scenes

I have the distinct joy of working closely with a very talented, creative, and open-minded choir/orchestra director. (She is also my neighbor and the mommy of 2 of my kids’ very best friends. Suffice it to say, our lives are intertwined.) She usually plans and leads our 8:30 classic service.  She works with the choir (about 35-40 people) for that service, works with a smaller contemporary vocal ensemble (about 20 people), and works with the orchestra.  There is nobody better at sifting through mounds of choir & orchestra music to find really beautiful, powerful arrangements of well-written music.  Plus she values contemporary music as well as more classic styles.

Like I said, it is a joy to work with her.  

For a service plan like this one, we bring our two worlds of music together and collaborate in ways that we usually don’t. Using a full orchestra in worship is…well…amazing!  The power and the beauty of the music is incredible when used well.  But it presents a very different dynamic for our worship band, who are used to working off of chord charts and call-it-as-we-go transitions and repeats.  Most orchestral music that includes a band come with musical score for those players… but that score involves things like notes and staffs and measures and doesn’t include the lyrics. So we created chord charts that match the score exactly to cut down on confusion in rehearsal. The orchestra and band rehearsed separately, then came together a week ahead for a rehearsal without vocalists. On Wednesday night we put everyone together and it seemed to go very smoothly.

Musically, it can be tricky to move between songs that are such different styles.  We chose songs based on their themes, of course, but then considered arrangement & keys. For example, ‘Rejoice the Lord is King’ and ‘Happy Day’ were in the same key.  ’Rejoice’ ended with a big, full orchestral build… ‘lift up your voice rejoice again I say… re… JOICE!’ but on that syllable ‘joice’, the band kicked in with the intro of ‘Happy Day’, and the orchestra soon followed.  Choosing the right songs is important, but it takes great musicians to literally make it ‘sing’.  We are blessed to have such musicians.

What I won’t soon forget

Three full worship services.  Full.
Serving all morning with such a great group of musicians. Seriously. 
The beauty of some of the music… ‘The Power of the Cross”, the strings on “You are My King”, “Do It, Lord”
Singing my heart out with the choir.  I don’t usually get to do that.
Watching my friend conduct.  She is amazing.
The vocal harmonies that happened on ‘I Stand Amazed’.
Faces.  People.
My friend who stood up alone in the back of the room during “Do it Lord”.  Made me cry.
Speaking of “Do it, Lord”, what an amazing song!!!! 
A message that asked great questions. 

One little pic…
Took this before third service started, from the stage.  Wish I could have pulled off an effective shot while the orchestra was playing, but… yeah, not really possible as one of the singers. Shows the room filling up, the orchestra seats, etc.

One final point of interest:  because of some complications in our current building process, the ceiling over the back half of the auditorium, including the storage balcony & rear screen visible in this pic, will be torn up for about 3 weeks beginning today.  This also includes our A/V area which is to the right of what you see in the pic.  We managed to stay  ’all dressed up’ for Easter, but starting next Sunday, things are going to look quite different.

This post is a part of Sunday Setlists at Fred McKinnon’s blog.  
Check it out for Easter worship recaps from everywhere!