There’s a huge difference in what a ‘church’ looked like in those days and what ‘churches’ look like now.  Regardless of the size or culture or tradition or denomination of a church, there’s some kind of plan in place when a group of people gather together weekly as a ‘church’.  In my church, I’m the one assembling that plan out of a variety of ingredients each week.

My question today has to do with the ‘ingredients’.

It doesn’t seem like it should be difficult to decide what goes into a weekly ‘worship service’.  It’s a gathering of people with the purpose of worshiping God…. giving God our attention… praying and singing to and about God… learning about how life is best lived in light of who God is.  But because it’s often the only gathering of a church family on a regular basis, and because it is a church family with family-type things to take care of, there are often other things included in this gathering.  Part of the mission of the church is to connect people with each other.  But how do we decide the best way to do that when everyone’s together?  We don’t live in a schedule-free culture; there is an expected time limit to our gatherings.  So, what gets the coveted ‘up front time’ and what doesn’t?

somebody had a baby
somebody is celebrating a milestone anniversary
somebody is having a birthday
somebody is graduating
somebody is going overseas for the summer
somebody just returned from serving at a ministry in Mexico for 2 weeks
somebody is inviting people to serve in a soup kitchen
somebody needs volunteers for an event
somebody has had a great experience volunteering 
somebody has a prayer request
somebody has a complaint
somebody has a great story about God working in their life

So you tell me….in the church you attend… which of these things do you think you should hear about during a worship service?  Which do you think should be communicated in another way? And which do you not care to hear about at all?

(let me emphasize that I understand that these are not the only ingredients to a worship service. I’ve chosen to focus in this post on the ‘church life’ stuff)

Speak it.

I’m looking for as many answers to this question as possible so speak up!

When you train up a child to appreciate coffee shops.

When you train up a child to appreciate Garage Band.

(more pics below)

Set lists.

Our friend Brian and his pink guitar.  And the pink mic that somehow materialized.

Hallie ‘studying’ during rehearsals.

Hallie wearing her shoes……   and Hallie wearing MY shoes.

Hallie makin’ her daddy proud by choosing to take this picture.

the room… full…

the band… full…

… in action…

the contrast that makes us laugh…

Kim’s potential wardrobe malfunction.  See the trouble? (yes, I spent a full EIGHTEEN DOLLARS on those Koss earbuds. Which is almost exactly like spending at least $100 on the really good ones. No amount of money would have prevented me from wrapping those bad boys around the hoops, however)

Hallie + point & shoot + digital zoom + low light =

fun at free time… down town boutique…..

And finally… every parent knows that you must capitalize on the teachable moments as they come. So this is me training up the child to be sure to avoid…..

….the poo pouring out of the building on day 3 of the event. Blech.

The end.

Theme:

Worship flow:
welcome & prayer
psalm 104 (video from worshiphousemedia)
Our God Saves (Brown/Baloche)
Your Name (Packiam/Baloche)
scripture: Duet 10:12-13
O God of Mine (Springer)
Message
Offering: My Love For You (Riddle)
Grace Like Rain (Agnew)

How did it go…really:
First of all, to anyone who attended the 9:45 service, the absence of lyrics on screen for the first song was … well, there’s a software glitch that I usually check over before we go live… and, well… yeah it turns out black words on black background don’t work so whippy. Sorry about that.

If you’ve ever listened to ‘Our God Saves’ and you went to college in the late 80′s/early 90′s, you can’t help but hear U2′s ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’ progression within it. So rather than using the video soundtrack, the band played an extended ‘Where the Streets…’ intro under the Psalm 104 video which led right into ‘Our God Saves’.  Worked beautifully.

This being one of several weeks where the message hit hard on a theme of obedience, we wanted to ‘build a case’ for God deserving our obedient response.  The music & scripture leading to the message leads through those ideas, including the Deut text, which takes the thought one step further into the obedience theme.  ’O God of Mine’ is a beautiful song that initially sounds like a response to God, but quickly turns into a litany of pure worship. 

All that said, the find of the week was Jeremy Riddle’s ‘My Love for You’.  We have walked through this series of ‘Heart Rules’ for five weeks now, all of which have called us to deeper resolve and obedience.  ’My Love for You’ is a simple song that speaks a reverent, obedient response. You really should check it out. It’s #12 on the player on this site.  Jeremy Riddle sings it beautifully.

‘My Love For You’
This is how I love You:  I obey Your commands
To love truth and love justice and my fellow man. 
To steady the weak, and the hungry to feed.
That Christ might be honored and with me be pleased.

For this is the love, the love You have shown
And to love I must echo the love I have known
So I will be faithful to love as required: a love shown by obedience.
Lord I’ll be obedient. 

This is how I love You:  giving as I’ve received
The blessings You’ve lavished to others in need.
To care for the poor, to free the oppress’d
To stand for the orphan and the widow to bless

And if I have not love
Then I truly have nothing at all.  Nothing at all. 

This post is a part of Sunday Setlists on Fred McKinnon’s blog. Check it out.

Sacrifice
Focus
Trust
Service
Tithing
Generosity
Relationships 

This sermon series is linked with a financial campaign which is linked with building a new worship center. The spin on the title aims at questions like what rules your heart?  what should rule your heart?  what ‘rules’ did Jesus give us for our heart?  Our pastor killed this week’s message on ‘service’, using the story of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet.  We were challenged to get over ourselves and ‘take up the towel’.  Very good.

A word about the sermon series logo.
We usually hire out logo design.  Because we arrived at this title at the last minute, hiring wasn’t possible. My talented and infinitely patient husband created it late one night using only an istockphoto account and a roll of duct tape because I was whining and eating it as I attempted to come up with something using the only tool I have, which is evil and should be destroyed.

Worship flow this week.
Welcome/announcements
Cry Out Your Name
I Am Free (Jon Egan)
Ministry Emphasis: video & spoken highlight of current ministries of the church (this was part of our ongoing building campaign)
Message: Heart Rules… ‘Service’
Take My Life (Tomin/Giglio arrangement)
I Am Free (reprise chorus) 

Song notes:
Cry Our Your Name: ok, it’s official.  I overuse this song.

I Am Free:  we used this song a few years ago, probably twice.  It never quite grabbed me.  Recently, one of the people working with the ministry emphasis piece for this week suggested it to me.  I found an arrangement I really like… by the writer himself, of all people.  It has a great piano lead goin’ on, and the chord progressions are a little different, a little less predictable, than our previous arrangement. So we learned it, and the band killed it.

Take My Life: Lyrically perfect to follow the message.  After the big extended chorus, instead of tagging the first line to end the song, our piano player went into the intro of ‘I Am Free’, and we ramped up to do 2 choruses. Musically, this worked beautifully. And lyrically… here’s my attempt to represent how these thoughts work together:

Take my life… take my moments… take my hands… take my feet.
Take my voice… take my lips… take my silver & my gold.. take my intellect.
Take my will… take my heart… take my love….
Take myself and I will be ever, only, all for Thee.
Here am I… all of me.
Take my life… it’s all for Thee.
I am free to run, I am free to dance.
I am free to live for You, I am free.

What sticks with you from your most recent experience in worship?

This post is a part of Sunday Setlists at Fred’s blog.  Check it out.  

I was asked recently to write a short article for a newsletter related to our church’s building campaign.  We are moving toward breaking ground on a new worship center in early ’09. Thought I’d post it here…. would love to know what you think about tying thoughts about worship to thoughts about a building.

Worship happens when we gather because of three things:  the interaction we each have with God in our everyday lives, God’s revelation to us about Himself, and the opportunity to gather as a family of His children. God reveals, and we respond by living in a way that brings Him glory, which includes worshiping Him corporately.

The music and worship ministry at FMBC exists to provide opportunities and environments for the gathered church to worship God.  This church chooses to gather at this location, where God has allowed us to grow.   We have enjoyed the flexibility of our current auditorium, using it to its fullest potential for our corporate worship experiences.  Will the new facility add to what we are able to do?  Yes.  The idea of more space and flexibility inspires our imaginations, because the environment in which we worship is important. We see great potential for more creativity and more varied expressions of worship as we move into this new phase of our congregational life together. 

Even as we begin to build,  know that the music and worship ministry will continue as best we can to create opportunities for all to gather and worship together. Also, know that God will continue to reveal truth about Himself.  Your experience—our experience—of the depth of worship will continue to be deepened through the interaction we each have with our Creator, every day, through all the many parts of our lives. 

The question for us is:  will we worship? 

Guest speaker: Greg Gibbs, from this church, brought a great message, “Jesus and My Hot Tub”…. what captivates your heart?  what have you given your heart to? 

Song set:
Sing to the King (Foote)
Awesome is the Lord Most High (Tomlin, Reeves, Pierce, Abel)
From the Inside Out (Houston) 
Give us Clean Hands (Hall)
Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone) (Tomlin, Giglio, Excell, Rees, Newton)

The band was really tight this week, which is always a nice thing.  I unintentionally created a bit of a transitional challenge by trying to move from Rah! Rah! How awesome is the Lord Most High! whoo-hooo!!  to what could be a dramatic ‘a thousand times I’ve failed, still your mercy remains…’ (opening line in From the Inside Out).  Musically it worked, as we began Inside Out with a little piano action under scripture being read, but thematically, and from the perspective of the congregation, we probably could have found a more effective way to make that leap.

Give us Clean Hands was perfect for the theme of the day.  I love that song.  I don’t care how old it is; it will always be in my toolbox.

Personally… it was great to play piano again with the band.  Haven’t done that in a while, not for any intentional reason; it just has worked out that way. 

Musings:
This was another week that brought questions to mind about the response we see, or not, within our congregation while we are worshiping together through music.  As the smaller group of people looking out at the larger group of people, the worship team can’t help but notice what happens in that larger group.  And it becomes a topic for us…. ‘that was amazing! so many people looked like they were responding!’ or ‘why aren’t they responding?’ and then the inevitable  ’what can we do to help them respond more?’  I’m quite sure you cannot accurately judge the state of a person’s heart by what you see them doing on the outside… can you?  should you? some people are just more demonstrative than others, right?  but then, why do we give excuses for those who show absolutely no response physically in worship, when it’s true that their body language speaks clearly in every other area of life?

I have no answers.  Just lots of questions.  I DO know that I-we-the worship leading group can’t fall into the trap of believing that it is our responsibility alone to bring responses out of our congregation. True, there are more effective and less effective means of worshiping together.  But the response… the connection between a person’s heart and God’s heart in congregational worship… has everything to do with that person’s connection to God before congregational worship, or that person’s openness to God’s activity in and around them. And it has everything to do with how God is actually working. 

Other worship leaders have written about this same idea.  Check out what Rich Kirkpatrick, Fred McKinnon, and Ed Schief have written for more extensive discussion.

So… how do YOU usually respond during corporate worship?  what is your reaction when people respond in ways you usually don’t?

This post is a part of Fred’s Sunday Setlist-a-ganza.

This week, I had the opportunity to work with a good friend, a gifted worship leader who will soon be moving into a paid staff position at another church in our community.  I asked him if he’d join me in leading worship for our contemporary service on Father’s Day.  So we met together to build a set list, worked together with our band in rehearsal, and he took the lead for most of the music.  

It was a great experience on many levels. Our congregation was able to enjoy a slightly different flavor of music, which was our intention for Father’s Day. Our band enjoyed a slightly different configuration of musicians, learned two new songs, and enjoyed a new sense of collaboration. For me personally, it was a great relief to share the load.  I always enjoy learning from how other worship leaders move through the process of creating/building/rehearsing/leading. Plus, one of my most favorite things to do is to sing harmony with a good male vocalist, and this was definitely a chance to do that. 

Set list:

Let God Arise (Tomlin, Reeves, Cash)
Filled With Your Glory (Neufeld, Neufeld)
You Never Let Go (Redman, Redman)
Fire Fall Down (Crocker)

After our set, the band met in our usual informal 5 minute debrief…. and a conversation began about how to evaluate a congregation’s response in worship.   Much was said in this conversation about how we bring new songs to the congregation,  about our church’s pattern of reluctancy to display visible, physical signs of responding in worship in general, (there are always a courageous few!),  the culture of the church, etc.  Then my friend, our leader for the week, broke into the conversation with this thought: “The thing is, we are hoping for people to be moved by God, not by a song.  Are they being moved by being in God’s presence?  Shouldn’t you be able to see that?”

His perspective has haunted me since that moment.  Not only because I’m grappling with the answers, but because I was struck by the fact that I have forgotten to ask the question.  Is our church growing in its sensitivity to God’s revelation in our lives individually and corporately, which would be evidenced in a growing capacity for response to God in worship?  Am I growing in this?

This morning, in journaling about Psalm 2, I ended up writing about this a bit, saying:

I’m thinking today of the reveal/response rhythm of worship that I’ve forgotten to think about for a while. I don’t think I’m putting myself in places where I can hear God’s revelation. I think I’ve become all about getting things done. Period. What has to be done this week? That’s what I do. No time taken to receive and hear. So while my responses (worship) are to what I know to be true of God, it is not a living, dynamic, organic process. And this while in the position of leading others in worship.

How am I missing this? What is the solution? I am weary of doing doing doing. I am weary of clutter, both internal and external. I am weary of the church rhythm. Lord, help me get in a position to hear you, to listen better. Remind me of what I am to be about. Forgive me. 

If you are reading this and you attend my church, please understand this to be not an indictment of our congregation, or a judgement of your own personal growth.  Please understand it to be my own questions related to what it means to worship as a church, what it means to ‘lead’ in that context, and what it means to respond to experiencing God personally.  I’d love to know what you think about this.

If you are reading this and you attend church elsewhere, I’d love to hear how your church grows and learns about worshiping together.  Again, the longer I do this, the less I seem to really grasp this huge thing we do when we gather as God’s children to worship Him.

(Read about the background to this decision here.)

Statistics:

• attendance at our contemporary service vs. our blended services has been split nearly 50/50
• style preferences of our congregation (as reported through a survey in 2007): 14% prefer traditional worship, 37% prefer ‘blended’ style, 41% prefer contemporary, and 8% don’t care.
• the 14% who prefer traditional are never offered worship opportunities in their comfort zone.  Talk about growth and ‘it’s not about you’ all you like, this still matters. 
• Because of our worship style split, 86% of our kids attend Sunday School at the same time. This amounts to nearly 250 kids.  The goals of kids’ Sunday School had been to adopt a ‘small group’ approach, which is impossible with that number of kids and the configuration of space available.

How is this a creative solution?

The day before our Holy Week Journey was completed, just days before Easter, I spoke that question out loud to my husband who, quite appropriately, told me I had to stop talking and thinking that way. He went on to say something about calling and ministry and opposition and taking thoughts captive…. all of which I barely could focus on in my attempt to try to keep myself from being wrong and ignore his ‘rightness’.

What never ceases to amaze me is that God uses what we offer. I came to Easter morning knowing we had a solid ‘plan’…. knowing the reality we were going to celebrate is the greatest news there has ever been… knowing God is on the throne… knowing I had shadows of doubts and disappointments and questions and resentments all around the edges of my spirit. I have learned that when I take a second to stop reveling in these negative thoughts that are oddly addictive, I remember with clarity that there IS opposition to our message, I AM asked to sacrifice, and I WILL still stand and worship despite those realities. So in prayer, I did just that.

I do, by the way, get it. I know the work is worth it. I know the sacrifice I make is very small. I know the worship celebration of the church is powerful. I know where I am weak. I hope that through it all, the truth of God shines.