Posts tagged ‘worship sets’

Sunday Worship Reflections Feb 27, 2011

Worship service flow…

band preservice play-in: Hosanna (no vocals)
welcome/news
Psalm 47 excerpts on screen during intro to..
Sing to the King (Foote)
Hosanna (Fraser)
I Exalt Thee (Sanchez)
prayer
Take My Life (Tomlin arr.) [offering]
message: James 4:1-10
May the Words of My Mouth (Hughes, Hill)

We had an unusual rehearsal schedule this week, which meant a very familiar set of songs was in order. A worship set led by 1211 from Gateway Church in Austin at the re:create conference a couple weeks ago reminded me that ’I Exalt Thee’ should occasionally get to take a spin out of the ‘retired’ file. So, we had a set of songs that hopefully was solid and easy for our church to engage with.

Tried linking the first 3 songs together with excerpts from Psalm 47, highlighting the praise of God our King, reprising the last half of the chorus of ‘Sing to the King’ at the end of ‘I Exalt Thee’. 

I’m grateful to my good friend and talented musician, Tara, who did a beautiful job leading ‘Hosanna’ and ‘May the Words’, and to our entire band who brought great heart and a solid foundation to today’s set of songs.

For more reflections from worship leaders all over the world, visit The Worship Community.

Sunday Worship Reflections Feb 20, 2011

Haven’t written about our Sunday worship services in a while… 

Today’s worship service flow:

You are Good (Lincoln Brewster arr.)
welcome
ministry highlight: hearing from a church member who spent 6 weeks helping to build an AIDS orphanage in Thailand.  
prayer & scripture (Psalm 24)
Be Thou My Vision (traditional arr.)
Your Love Never Fails (Quilala)
Grace Like Rain (Agnew)
message: James 3:13-18
Wisdom (Jill Phillips)

As always, I’m grateful for the group of people who come together every week to make our worship experiences possible.  

The find of the week: ‘Wisdom’ by Jill Phillips. I had been looking for a song specifically about wisdom, and had put in place a much older song which was going to require some significant updating!  Dustin, our electric guitar player this week, found this song and it was perfect.  I was recently re-introduced to the music of Jill Phillips, and love love love her writing and singing style.  It was fun to learn a slightly different style of song and share it with our church today.

Thanks, Dustin. :)

read more about today’s worship services from churches all over the world at The Worship Community

Worship Reflections 01.17.10

Worship reflections are my musings about the worship services at First MB Church.

This was the third installment of our ‘Amazing Race’ series, which is a blaze through the entire Bible in seven weeks.  This week, our pastor taught about the ‘wisdom & poetry’ books (Job, Psalm, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes,  and Song of Solomon), spending a little extra time on the story of Job.  We also took the Lord’s Supper together, which is an every-other-month thing for our church.

worship service
welcome/news
‘Blessed Be Your Name’ (Redman)
‘Mighty to Save’ (Laura Story arr.)
Lord’s Supper (songs: ‘You are My King’ and ‘Your Name’)
offering: ‘The Word is Alive’ (Mark Hall & Steven Curtis Chapman)
message

Songs emphasizing the sovereignty of God? the story of Job?  as potential vehicles for processing the many thoughts and emotions we’re all feeling during this week of the Haiti crisis?  Yeah. You can’t plan stuff like that. In thinking about this series, I searched for songs about the scripture as a whole, which is how I found ‘Word is Alive’, recorded by Casting Crowns.  I had not heard this song before, but it is powerful.  Vocalists Greg & Dani did a great job singing it, and the band did a great job bringing the power.  Projected the words over this video loop, which fit beautifully. (Listen to entire song.) I leave you with the lyrics (by Mark Hall & Steven Curtis Chapman)…

Looking out from His throne, the Father of light and of men, Chose to make himself known to show us the way back to Him. Speaking wisdom and truth into the hearts of peasants and kings, He began to unveil the Word that would change the course of all things. With eyes wide open all would see… (chorus) The Word is alive and it cuts like a sword through the darkness with a message of life to the hopeless and afraid, breathing life into all who believe. The Word is alive and the world and its glories will fade, but its truth it will not pass away it remains, yesterday and forever the same The Word is alive. Simple strokes on a page, eternity’s secrets revealed Carried on from age to age, it speaks truth to us even still. And as the rain falls from the heaven, feeds the earth before it returns, Lord, let your Word fall on us and bring forth the fruit You deserve With eyes wide open let us see…

This post is a part of Sunday Setlists at theworshipcommunity.com. Check it out!

Worship Reflections 01.17.10

Worship reflections are my musings about the worship services at First MB Church.

This was the third installment of our ‘Amazing Race’ series, which is a blaze through the entire Bible in seven weeks.  This week, our pastor taught about the ‘wisdom & poetry’ books (Job, Psalm, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes,  and Song of Solomon), spending a little extra time on the story of Job.  We also took the Lord’s Supper together, which is an every-other-month thing for our church.

worship service
welcome/news
‘Blessed Be Your Name’ (Redman)
‘Mighty to Save’ (Laura Story arr.)
Lord’s Supper (songs: ‘You are My King’ and ‘Your Name’)
offering: ‘The Word is Alive’ (Mark Hall & Steven Curtis Chapman)
message

Songs emphasizing the sovereignty of God? the story of Job?  as potential vehicles for processing the many thoughts and emotions we’re all feeling during this week of the Haiti crisis?  Yeah. You can’t plan stuff like that.

In thinking about this series, I searched for songs about the scripture as a whole, which is how I found ‘Word is Alive’, recorded by Casting Crowns.  I had not heard this song before, but it is powerful.  Vocalists Greg & Dani did a great job singing it, and the band did a great job bringing the power.  Projected the words over this video loop, which fit beautifully. (Listen to entire song.)

I leave you with the lyrics (by Mark Hall & Steven Curtis Chapman)…

Looking out from His throne, the Father of light and of men,
Chose to make himself known to show us the way back to Him.
Speaking wisdom and truth into the hearts of peasants and kings,
He began to unveil the Word that would change the course of all things.
With eyes wide open all would see…

(chorus)
The Word is alive
and it cuts like a sword through the darkness
with a message of life to the hopeless and afraid,
breathing life into all who believe.
The Word is alive
and the world and its glories will fade,
but its truth it will not pass away
it remains, yesterday and forever the same
The Word is alive.

Simple strokes on a page, eternity’s secrets revealed
Carried on from age to age, it speaks truth to us even still.
And as the rain falls from the heaven, feeds the earth before it returns,
Lord, let your Word fall on us and bring forth the fruit You deserve
With eyes wide open let us see…

This post is a part of Sunday Setlists at theworshipcommunity.com. Check it out!

Worship Reflections 01.10.10

Worship reflections are simply my musings about the worship services I lead at First MB Church.

This was week two in our new teaching series, ‘The Amazing Race’, in which our pastor is taking us through the entire Bible in seven weeks.  He is, quite simply, teaching our church to know the overall story of the Bible better. There are charts and hand-outs, which is unusual for us, but I think people are enjoying it. Which is good because we should have some level of understanding of what it is we say we believe and follow.

This week, we reviewed the larger story of the whole Old Testament, but focused on the books of history (Joshua – Esther), specifically, the Israelites’ cyclical relationship with God.

Good thing we’ve all moved beyond THAT kind of thing, right? whew.

See the overview of this series here.

worship service
welcome & news
ministry highlight: compassion international
Love the Lord (Lincoln Brewster)
Glorified (Jared Anderson)
prayer
O God of Mine (Rita Springer)
message
Naive (Chris Rice)

a few notes
Overall, our short set of music went very well and seemed… relaxed. By that I mean, it was an environment of music that people could participate in without anxiety.  But it also did it’s job of pointing us all to God, together. At least, if one were paying attention.

Our pastor asked me on Wednesday afternoon if we could include the song ‘Naive’ because it matched so well with this theme of God’s judgment and our need for Him to come.  I had only a vague memory of the song, which was released by Chris Rice in 1998. We would need to learn it completely at rehearsal Wed night, and it’s an unusual style for us. But I found the music (with a little help from my friends), transposed it for my vocal range (with the short turn-around, I didn’t feel comfortable asking someone else to learn it), and we gave it a whirl. Our musicians nailed it.  I am so SO grateful for people who are willing to give extra time to learning something new.

In the end, ‘Naive’ was the perfect close to this particular sermon.  Like our pastor mentioned to me, it’s a song that expresses almost a desperate anger at God, but it’s wrapped in sweet music so it doesn’t seem arrogant.

Check out the song, and for that matter… check out lots of music by Chris Rice. He’s a great songwriter.

This post is a very late addition to Sunday Setlists on Fred McKinnon’s blog.  Check it out!