70×7 Captain’s Log

This report will be shared with those worship leaders who enjoy reading the “Sunday Setlists” blog carnival hosted by Fred McKinnon. If you’d like to see what worship teams all over the country are doing on Sunday, follow this link:
http://www.fredmckinnon.com/myblog/2009/03/01/sunday-setlists-32/

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While gearing up for the first week of the Lenten season, I came to a realization.  In all of the years I have been leading worship, I’ve never had to opportunity to lead an Ash Wednesday service.

Sure, I’ve received the symbol of ashes on my forehead many, many times - after all - I was raised in the Roman Catholic tradition as were the majority of people in the Pittsburgh area.  Although it is not considered to be a holy day of obligation in the Catholic tradition, many people would not think of letting the day go by without making a trip to the church to be marked with an ashen cross on their foreheads.  In fact, many Catholic believers look upon Ash Wednesday as, “hey, look at me, I’m a Catholic” day.  Despite my Catholic school education, it wasn’t until recently that I became aware that the use of sackcloth and ashes was a well-known practice among the Israelites used as a sign of repentance.  References to the practice can be found in the books of Jerehmiah, Isaiah, Daniel, and Jonah.  Indeed, both Luke and Matthew also made references to the practice in their gospels.  The first liturgical use of ashes in the Christian church happened around the year 960 AD.  At first, clerics and men had ashes sprinkled on their heads, while women had the sign of the cross made with ash on their foreheads.  Eventually, everybody started receiving the sign of the cross.

I can remember that as the priests made the sign of the cross on our foreheads, they would say, “remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return.”  We were encouraged to leave the ashes upon our foreheads for the remainder of the day as an outward sign of inner repentance, and as a reminder to all that we are sinners whose transgressions are forgiven through faith in Jesus.  Ash Wednesday, like Lent, is never mentioned in scripture, and is not commanded by God.  It’s pretty obvious that the imposition of ashes, like similar external practices, are meaningless and even hypocritical unless there is a corresponding internal repentance and change of behavior.  That’s why our Pastor chose to use the parable of the Prodigal Son to illustrate the message of what the beginning of Lent should mean to us.

In fact, at Homestead Park UMC, Pastor Rich used the same parable in his sermons on Ash Wednesday and the following Sunday.  On Wednesday, he approached it from the perspective of the father.  On Sunday, he approached it from the perspective of the returning son.  It made for a powerful theme for this first week of Lent, and it was a challenge for me to prepare music that would support that theme.  I wasn’t sure what to expect in my first United Methodist Ash Wednesday, but I was assured that it was an “old-school” night and should be approached using the traditional hymnody of the church.

We opened the singing with a country waltz version of “The Old Rugged Cross” that I had spent an entire evening developing.  It was well worth the effort.  The people responded with loud voices, and I am so pleased to have added this great old song to my repertoire.  Hard to believe I’d never played it before, but this was a week of firsts.  The only other hymn for congregational singing that night was “When I Survey The Wondrous Cross.”  Since we had a full house for this service, and since we were having communion as well as the imposition of ashes at the end, I spent a lot of time playing and singing by myself.  (There were no other musicians - just keyboard.)  As a prelude, I played an original adaptation of Psalm 102 called “Hear My Prayer.”  The original recording in available on 70×7’s Soundclick page.  During the communion time, I started with my Celtic-inspired version of “Children of the Heavenly Father” and followed it with “At The Cross.”  During the imposition of ashes, I started with “El Shaddai, and followed it with ”Draw Me Close” and “Isn’t He?”  At the conclusion of this section, which took place after the formal conclusion of the service, I just played piano for a few minutes.  I really have no idea what I played, I was just meditating on what was taking place and played in the Spirit.  As I was among the last to receive ashes that night, I reflected on how much my relationship with God had changed since my days at Saints Simon & Jude school, and the words said to me by Pastor Rich were nothing like those of the priests.  In fact, they were very personal and touched me in a meaningful way.  I can’t remember them exactly, but the words that left such a big impression were something like, “you are a child of God, the King of Kings, and that makes you a prince.”  Beautiful words.

Sunday morning was bright and sunny.  Bo and I ate an entire hunk of “monkey bread” by ourselves and washed it down with a pot of coffee before making our way to Homestead Park United Methodist Church to worship with Pastor Rich, our team, and our congregation at three services.  At the 8:15 traditional service, we opened with the call to worship that I had written for the week:

Leader: If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us.
People: LORD, YOU ARE FAITHFUL, AND WE WORSHIP YOU.
Leader: If we confess our sins, God will cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
People: LORD, YOU ARE RIGHTEOUS, AND WE GIVE YOU OUR PRAISE.
Leader: If we confess our sins, God will free us from guilt and condemnation.
People: LORD, YOU HAVE SET YOUR PEOPLE FREE, AND WE LIFT UP YOUR NAME.
Leader: If we put our faith in Jesus, we may receive God’s gift of forgiveness.
People: LORD, YOU HAVE GIVEN US LIFE, AND WE OFFER OUR LIVES TO YOU.
Leader: If we put our hope in Jesus, God will be merciful and remember our sins no more.
People: LORD, YOUR MERCY ENDURES FOREVER, AND WE GIVE YOU THANKS.
Leader: If we put our trust in Jesus, we may stand accepted in the presence of Holy God.
People: LORD, WE STAND BEFORE YOU, AND WE WILL SING OF YOUR LOVE FOREVER!

The reading I selected for this service was Psalm 51. With Karen on organ, and Tom, Kate and Sandy by my side, we opened our singing with “Freely, Freely.” Our second hymn was “The Old Rugged Cross.” I had originally planned for our closing hymn to be “Nothing But The Blood Of Jesus,” but at Pastor Rich’s request we changed it to “Softly And Tenderly Jesus Is Calling.” Since I had never sung this one before, I had to sneak off to the choir room to learn it! Being the first Sunday of the month, we celebrated communion together.

In the 9:30 and 11:00 services, we were trying extra hard to get things started on time. The early service has been getting started late for quite a few weeks, and as a result, it was concluding right when the 9:30 service was supposed to start. On this day, the 8:15 didn’t end until 9:25, but we still managed to get the band’s prelude music started by 9:35. Even though the 9:30 service didn’t let out until 10:57, we still managed to get the prelude for the late service started by 11:05. The problem is that it doesn’t give people much time to say hello to the folks who are exiting the earlier service, get their bulletins, and find a seat. There’s also the problem with the parking lots being congested as cars are arriving and departing at roughly the same time. Some folks have started arriving fifteen minutes late for their chosen service because they have gotten used to it starting late. Indeed, at both of our later services this morning, folks were arriving after the prelude had concluded and while the announcements were being made, or even later than that.

In both the 9:30 and 11:00 services, the team got the congregation warmed up with “I Believe In Jesus.” At 9:30, Peg and Natalee sang with Bo and I, and we had Chuck on guitar and Sam on drums. At the 11:00 service, Greg took over on guitar. The first song of our worship set was “Grace Like Rain,” which included some great guitar work by both Chuck and Greg. We don’t start this song off quietly like the Todd Agnew version. Instead, we bust right into a rock beat from the very beginning. Our next song was “Friend Of God,” and our vocalists did an excellent job crafting some 3-part harmonies on the chorus. Both of these first two songs got a great response and the people applauded cheerfully at the end of each. Our song of preparation leading into the prayer time was “Grace Flows Down.” We always cut a song from our worship set on communion Sundays to help manage the time difference. During the communion time, we want the music to be quiet and reflective, and so I usually am singing something solo with the keyboard. This time, I chose to play a special arrangement of “Create In Me A Clean Heart” that was written by my friend Dean Baktay. The song is from Dean’s “Worship Together” CD, where it appears in both English and Mandarin Chinese versions. Following Pastor Rich’s sermon, we concluded the services with one of my favorite echo songs, “Let Your Spirit Come.” It was the first time the song had been sung at Homestead Park, but because it’s an echo song, I felt confident introducing it this way, and the song was very well received. We will definitely do it again sometime soon!

It seemed like a very full week of worship, starting with the Ash Wednesday service and the two rehearsals on Thursday night. Many of our rehearsals end up feeling like worship to me. On Saturday afternoon at Central Highlands Community United Methodist Church, we got our rehearsal started around 3:30 in preparation for the 6:00 evening service. The team this week was “the boys and me.” Our guitarist, Christian, age 13. Our drummer, Zac, age 16. Our bass player and backing vocalist, Bo, age 17. Add them up and it equals 46. I am 47!

Pastor Starr was beginning a mini-series on the Psalms of Ascension, and this was a very tricky one for me to plan for. I have to be very careful when selecting songs for our youngest musicians so that they are not overwhelmed and can still experience the joy of worship as they perform on their instruments. I decided to throw a couple of new ones at the boys, and also had them play some songs that they had practiced before together.

Our opening song was “Hallelujah! Your Love Is Amazing,” followed by Big Daddy Weave’s “Fields Of Grace.” We kept the tempo up and followed those with the Jeremy Camp version of “Beautiful One.” The last song of our opening worship set was Michael W. Smith’s “The Wonderful Cross.” Bo does a great job playing the melody line on the bass guitar during the instrumental portions of this song. After singing my original adaptation of the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father,” we left the worship platform. Following the sermon, we returned to play “The Heart Of Worship.” Later, during the communion time, we played our Celtic-inspired arrangement of the hymn, “Children Of The Heavenly Father.” Our closing song was Aaron Shust’s “My Savior, My God,” which got a great response from those assembled, and sent them out the door singing.

The boys did a fantastic job on Saturday, and we were pleased to announce to the congregation that the group playing for worship that evening, along with 16-year-old Emily and 19-year-old Chris, would be performing at a couple of youth events in March and April using the name “NEVERLOST.” The name was Bo’s idea, and he wants to develop a picture of a compass with a cross as the needle, pointing North, (up) of course…  We’re so proud that our kids have developed their talents to the point where they are ready to leave the walls of our church and participate in some ministry in other places. I’ll be with them, but the youth events in Waynesburg and McKeesport are all about KIDS, and so the kids are going to be doing most of the leading. I can hardly wait!