by 70x7 | January 24th, 2009
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/2009/01/18/sunday-setlists-26/
This weekend at Central Highlands church, we had the joy of welcoming a new pastor to our congregation. Rev. Bill Starr preached his first sermon in our church on Saturday night, and despite a little nervousness and getting used to working with powerpoint slides on a giant screen, he made a great first impression on those assembled. I am happy to report that inside of the first five minutes, Pastor Starr had already told his first joke to the flock. And, it was a good one, which bodes well for all of us who expect God to move mightily in our community in this new season of ministry.
The music for this first worship service under a new pastor was a mixture of old and new songs, because that’s the way we roll on Saturday night! As it turned out, Pastor Starr knew every single one of them. Finding this out after the fact gave me a warm fuzzy feeling that the Holy Spirit had His hand in the planning, especially since I had no idea what he was going to preach about, and somehow every song that we sang worked perfectly with the message that he delivered. Thank God for His affirmation of our music ministry. Here are the songs we played:
*Days of Elijah
*Let The Walls Fall Down
*Holy Is The Lord (Chris Tomlin)
*Make Your Presence Known
A Spirit-led prayer over piano/strings…
*The Lord’s Prayer song (written by our former pastor, Eric Park)
*As For Me And My House (the offering was received during this song)
*Children Of The Heavenly Father (my own Celtic-ish arrangement of a song in the Methodist hymnal)
*This Is His Body (communion song written by my friend Ron Baling - St. John’s Lutheran of Highland. It’s a beautiful thing that we celebrate communion at every Saturday night service…)
*One Bread, One Body (my own arrangement - very uptempo and energetic to send everyone home feeling the triumph of their eternal salvation…)
ON SUNDAY at Homestead Park UMC, Pastor Rich Phipps delivered the second installment of his series entitled “Radical Christianity.” This week’s sermon was a walk with Joshua and the secrets of radical trust in God. We had terrible snowy/icy weather, and so attendance was down a bit, but the people were fed.
One of the privileges I have each week at Homestead Park is writing a custom “call-to-worship” for our traditional 8:15 service. Here is Sunday’s call:
Leader: The Lord is my shepherd.
People: HE GUIDES ME ALONG SAFE PATHS.
Leader: The Lord is my fortress.
People: HE SHELTERS ME FROM THE STORM.
Leader: The Lord is my protector.
People: HE STRENGTHENS ME, AND HE SHIELDS ME.
Leader: The Lord is my helper.
People: HE HELPS ME, AND IN HIM I PUT MY TRUST.
Leader: The Lord guides me, and He has a plan for my life.
People: HE LOOKS UPON ME AS HIS CHILD, SO I SHALL BOW MY HEAD IN WORSHIP.
Leader: The Lord is our leader, and He deserves our praises.
People: LET US REJOICE IN THE LORD! LET US SING HIS PRAISES SO THAT THE WHOLE WORLD MAY KNOW HIM!
Our songs for the traditional service were:
Standing On The Promises
Surely The Presence Of The Lord
Trust and Obey
At our 9:30 and 11:00 services, the same sermon was delivered, and the traditional liturgical elements were absent, but instead of organ, the music had keyboard, guitar, bass and drums. Here’s what we played:
We Will Ride With You (a prelude - powerful song made popular at the Brownsville revival)
Majestic (Lincoln Brewster)
By Your Side (Hillsong)
Holy Is The Lord (Chris Tomlin)
Surely The Presence of the Lord (played traditionally)
Did You Feel The Mountains Tremble (Delirious?)