Sunday Setlist 2-22 Part 2

Well, tonight had me a bit nervous while we were practicing… but as they say, a lousy rehearsal usually brings a great end result.

I will take the blame for the lousy rehearsal though – after all, I did introduce a totally new song this afternoon (yes, I know, bad me).  But the team stepped up and pulled it off famously!

So, the list:

• Mighty To Save
• Here Is Love – with 1 John 4:9 and John 15:12-14 read in it somewhere…
• Invitation to partake of communion
• How Deep The Father’s Love For Us (Jennifer led)
• Lead Me To The Cross
• Ephesians 1:7-10
• My Jesus I Love Thee [Brading - way cool rocked out version]
• The Wonderful Cross (Art Led)
• reading from The Book Of Worship (see below)
• Guided Prayer time
• Take My Life [Tomlin]
• Indescribable

References for those that want them…

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
~1 John 4:9-10

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command.
~John 15:12-14

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.
~Ephesians 1:7-10

You are the anointed Son of God.  you revealed God’s nature to us all.

You revealed God, vulnerable and without pretense, in a manger.  You showed us God teaching in the temple, amazing rabbis.  Because of You, we saw God eagerly asking people, “What can I do for you?” We were surprised to see how delighted He is to respond with a healing touch.  You showed us God, welcoming and embracing: :Come to me – I will give you rest.”  It was God You revealed there, using stories to feed empty souls and filling a multitude of bellies with just a few fish and loaves.  We sat on the edge of our seats as we saw You command sea storms and resurrect the dead with a word!  You left nothing to description and everything to demonstration.

This is when we see You revealing God’s nature in completion, leaving nothing to our imaginations.  You show us God’s love:rugged, whole, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us feel.  We are confused when He walks away from all our sensible plans to take a path to certain destruction, His eyes unflinchingly set on Jerusalem.

You show us that God is more than compassionate toward us.  You prove God is obsessed with us.  You show us He refuses to rest until all things are made new.  We watch in horror as You demonstrate that nothing on earth can separate us from His love: not betrayal, denials, mocking, and hateful scourging, not dishonor, not even torturous murder.  We delivered up our worst.  You show us God, responding with Your best.  We are at once joyously amazed and embarrassed.

This changes everything.  We can’t deceive ourselves any longer with a religion of words, compulsion, ceremony, or acts of piety.  We are drawn to worship in genuine adoration and devoted love.  I cannot embrace a system of belief or code of behavior.  Only a Person who loves us with an outrageous passion can be the object of worship.  We worship you!

~The Book of Worship, John Randall Dennis

It was a small group, but they were really entering in – cool, esp. since there was quite a bit of new stuff presented tonight.

The version of My Jesus I Love Thee by Brading is amazing… it starts with just keyboard, adds a voice, adds an acoustic & light drums, adds the bass and electric and by the 3rd verse starting is just a wall of amazing sound going out.  Then it drops back to piano and a voice.  It is such a great arrangement!  Look it up.  Seriously.

How Deep The Father’s Love For Us is the perfect song for female voices – the harmonies are easy, and the melody really fits our range well (sorry guys!).  Jennifer did a great job leading it (and I got to sing harmony – yay!) and Nancy nailed the accompaniment.

It managed to work itself out that everyone got to step down and take communion too, which I had not been able to really build in.  It just worked, which was a huge blessing to me.  I hate to have the team there for a communion service, and none of us get to partake – something about that just doesn’t seem right.

I added in Take My Life this afternoon, and they all picked up on it fast – there were a couple of spots that were off, but that was mainly because by that point my voice was starting to give out.  I tried to sing the chorus and a cough came out instead.  Nice.  So Chris vamped and I came in when I could catch my breath.  That is another great updated hymn – it’s the version by Chris Tomlin and Louie Giglio that Christy Nockles sings on.  Her voice is amazing, and it adds so much!  Unfortunately we didn’t get to do that part tonight, since I was the only one who really “knew” it before about 5:30 (the service was at 6!)  Next time though… it will be added in!

We ended up dropping Reign In Us (Starfield) due to time issues, but I’m looking forward to adding it into the rotation in March.  That’s another great one, great message, great melody, great harmonies.

One of the fun things from the team’s standpoint was that every song was in either D or Bm – no capo’s, no key changes, just flowing from one to the next.

The unfortunate thing was that it took me a while to relax enough to just worship.  I somehow manage to heap a few elephants on my shoulders for these services, and then try to do tricks while juggling and balancing on a ball – still carrying the elephants.  I know – I need to just let God do what He is wanting to do, and I keep telling myself that, but it still takes me a bit to truly relax.

So that was our service tonight.  I had some great feedback afterwards, which always helps – it’s nice to know that what we do each week is getting through and touching people’s hearts.  After all, isn’t that the point?  To create an environment were people can worship and God can change lives?  That’s what I seek to do each time I stand up there, and my prayer is that I will always stay out of His way.

Have a great week!

This is once again part of Fred McKinnon’s Sunday Set List Carnival... Check it out!