Worship Reflections 02.01.09
Flow of service:
Welcome
Baptisms (7 at 9:45, 1 at 11:00)
Sing to the King (Foote)
scripture: Phil 2:9-11
Your Name (Packiam, Baloche) (11:00 service only)
You Gave Your Life Away (Baloche, Scott)
prayer [offering]
To Know Your Name (Crocker)
Message: Letter to the Philippians (Phil 2:1-11)
Reflections: It has been quite a while since we’ve had baptisms incorporated into our worship services. For several years, we’ve held baptism celebrations lakeside during the summer, which is always a great time. A new approach to moving people toward greater engagement with ministry and the church led to a group of people being ready for baptism this winter, so today was the day. Our baptistry is positioned in the upper front corner of our multi-purpose auditorium… meaning, the people in the baptistry are about 17 feet off the ground. So a live video feed is necessary for everyone to see. The theological heritage of our church encourages baptism to be reserved until a person is at least in high school. During our 9:45 service, six high school guys who are in a small group together were baptized. I love that. I love for my kids to see that. Philippians 2:1-11 is a tremendously powerful scripture focus. While I wish we had had more time to ruminate on the themes during our worship time, it was great to pair this with baptism celebrations.
Thoughts on the songs:
- Sing to the King is a powerful favorite for our church, and was a great proclamation to follow the baptisms.
- Your Name is also a favorite, and flowed with the theme well.
- We introduced You Gave Your Life Away two weeks ago during communion. It definitely added a reflective depth to the overall flow. We probably could have left it in the 9:45 service, but we are tied to a 60 minute worship service, and we weren’t sure how long the baptisms would take.
- It’s been a while since we’ve used To Know Your Name. I love this song, but it’s been hard for us to consistently pull off well. Today things were quite loose the first time around. With our musicians, it can be assumed that this kind of looseness has to do with what they’re hearing or not hearing. So my first question to them when we left the platform during the 9:45 had to do with monitors; turns out the guitarists weren’t hearing the drums. Problem solved.
















