We are spending this past Sunday and this coming Sunday revisiting some of our roots musically.  Yep, we have dusted off some of those songs that we haven’t sung in a while, or that we used to sing years ago.  It’s been kind of fun to o back and revisit some of these.

• You’re Worthy of My Praise (Ruis)
• You Never Let Go (Redman)
• Enough (Tomlin/Giglio)
• Desert Song (Fraser)
• kids story
• Rain It Down (Whittaker/Ingram/LaRue)
• message – The Zarephath Express
• Great Is Thy Faithfulness

It was great to have Pastor Chris back from his vacation this week.  He had a great message to bring to us this week – if you would like to hear it, just click on the title above.

This coming week we are studying my favorite passage in the Old Testament – 1 Kings 18:16-40 – where Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal. I can’t wait to see what Pastor Chris brings out from that story!  It’s also Communion Sunday, so I’m expecting a great time of corporate worship!

We will be singing these songs:

• Come, Now is the Time to Worship (Doerksen)
• We Will Worship You (Whittaker/Ingram)
• O Worship the King (Haydn/Grant/Tomlin)
• Blessed Be Your Name (Redman/Redman)
• kids story
• Top of Our Lungs (Bradford/Neufeld/Neufeld)
• message
• Agnus Dei (Smith)
• communion

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It would be so easy each week to say something like “we came, we set up, we sang songs, we were taught, we tore down, we left”

After all, isn’t what we do week in and week out?  We show up, we do our thing, we leave… or is it something more than that?

Is church something that is more than just a place that we show up once a week to get our weekly feeding and feel good about ourselves because we “go to church”

Uh, yeah!

Church isn’t a place.  Church isn’t a weekly fill up.  It’s not just something we “do” week after week after week.

Church is who we are.

But some weeks, it feels like a place we go to do our thing.

For me, Sunday was one of “those” days… or at least it started out that way.

But God…

I so love those words!  But God.  What would my life be if not for all the times that life was going along, but God interveined?  Things were looking down, but God turned them around?

But God stepped in and answered the prayer of my heart on Sunday.  He reached down to this insignifigant child of His and touched a heart that was stony and softened it.  He reminded me that church isn’t a job.  It isn’t “what I do” – it’s who I am and who I minister to and who I am called to love – and be loved by.

So, with that in mind, here’s what we “showed up and did” – ha!

• Glory To God Forever
• Salvation Day
• Your Mercy
• Here is Love
• kids storytime
• Every Move I Make
• announcements
• message
• The Wonderful Cross
• communion

It’s pretty hard to keep a stony heart in your chest when you are singing about the glory and majesty and mercy and love and sacrifice of the wonderful, amazing God that we serve!

After all, where would any of us be if it were not for the “but God’s” in our lives?

It’s a beautifully cloudy day today in Western Washington -we even got rain overnight last night.  After the temps in the upper 90′s last weekend it is a most welcome change!

It’s been a couple of busy weeks for us around here – with the church campout 2 weeks ago and Jim filling in for Pastor Chris last weekend, but I am hopeful that as we wind down to the end of Summer that things can calm down a tad but… maybe.

Ah well, onto the list:

• Salvation Day [E] (Vicky Beeching, Jonny MacIntosh, and Sarah MacIntosh)
• Hosanna (Praise is Rising [F] (Paul Baloche, Brenton Brown)
• You Never Let Go [F] (Matt Redman, Beth Redman)
• Indescribable [Bm] (Laura Story)
• kids story about Abigail
• Everyday [Ab] (Joel Houston)

This was our second week leading Salvation Day, but the first week that Pastor Chris has played it.  It worked out pretty well, but we get to work on it again for next week.  Everything else fell under the heading of “extremely well known” and it was great to see people really entering in and not having to think about how the melody goes or what the words are.

I will be glad when Summer is over though – it’s been crazy with the swinging door we have had through the Summer months with people being gone of vacation.  Although I myself have missed a week or two as well, so I can’t get on anyone too hard!

How was your service this weekend?

Wow – I hadn’t realized how long it has been since I posted a setlist!  Life has been just a tad busy I guess.  Sorry about that!

This week’s topic was centered around worry in our home groups, and the passage we were focusing on was 1Samuel 13:1-14.  It highlights a time when Saul decided to take matters into his own hands instead of waiting on Samuel, or, rather, waiting on God.

Worry and impatience.  Anxiety.

There are so many times in the Bible where this comes up and causes problems for people!

With that in mind, our setlist focused on giving our anxieties to God and keeping a heavenly focus.

• Forever [F]
• Today is the Day [F]
• Rain It Down [A]
• We Will Worship You [D]
• kids storytime
• Beautiful One [E]
• announcements
• message – Staying Small in Your Own Eyes
• Trading My Sorrows [G]

It was a really great sermon, and hopefully we got a good recording of it.  I will post it this week if so.

I really liked leading Rain it Down and We Will Worship You back to back – the first focuses on crying out to God in the midst of the storms instead of trying to run away from them, and the second calls for is to cry out when we get too comfortable, to content.  These songs remind us that we need God in both the good times and the bad – not just the bad.  It is so easy to forget about God when everything is going well… but we can’t!  Our focus needs to be fixed on Him daily.  Our desire needs to be to have a relationship with Him daily.  We need to seek His face… daily.

And that is often so hard to do!

When things aren’t going our way, it is easy to cry out to God.  It is easy to admit that we don’t have it all together.  It is easy to admit that we need Him, because we (obviously) can’t do it on our own.  We need to translate that same need to when things are going our way too.  We still need Him, and we still can’t do it all on our own.  We just so often don’t recognize our need.

We need to continually focus on Him.

After the amazing amount of rain that we experienced yesterday, it was so refreshing to wake up to bright sunny skies – albiet with fog floating around.  Sun, just in time for those Memrial Day BBQ’s that everyone is planning.  Let’s hope the weather continues to improve here in Washington!  It’s still a bit nippy out there today, but at least it’s not raining.

This morning our church surprised me too – there were lots of people there!  I generally expect that on a long holiday weekend we will have a much smaller attendance, but it wasn’t drastically smaller, and we even had some new people there.  Yay!

I was joking with the band this week that maybe I need to shave my head & grow a beard, because half of our songs today were written by Carlos Whittaker… and if somehow you don’t know who that is, well, you need to.  Head on over to RagamuffinSoul and get acquainted.  Hey, the topic was grace, and they just fit!

Anywho, here’s the list:

• Marvelous Light [A] (Charlie Hall)
• Jesus Saves [G] (Carlos Whittaker/Mia Fieldes/Jason Ingram)
• We Will Worship You [D]  (Carlos Whittaker/Jason Ingram)
• Grace Like Rain [Am] (Todd Agnew/Chris Collins/Edwin O. Excell/ John Newton)
• kids story
• Rain It Down [A] (Jason Ingram/Carlos Whittaker/Phillip LaRue)
• announcements
• Message – “Under New Management”
• Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) [D] (Edwin Othello Excell/Louie Giglio/John Newton/John P. Rees/Chris Tomlin)

Yep, it was a message about grace… and how desperately we need it.  Hopefully the recording worked (we have been having some issues between the recorders & the sound board – hopefully that will b resolved soon!)  If it did, I’ll post the link to it later this week.  Or you can head over to FalconRidgeFellowship.com and take a look to see if it’s posted.

Some high’s & lows…

The high point for me was split between We Will Worship You (I love how it’s quiet, then gets really, really loud!) and watching the kids learning the new motions for Rain It Down.  Miss Jennifer did a great job working them out, and the kids were really getting into them.  Overall the whole set was a high for me – they are all songs that I love to sing and have a lot of energy to them.  That and we had almost a full band again this week after a month of missing people each week.

The low point?  Looking out and wondering if I’m doing a good enough job.  Most of the songs today were either fairly new or we haven’t done them in a loooooooong time, so there were quite a few people that weren’t singing much.  I never quite know how to interperet that… do they just not know them yet, or are they a style that isn’t their “preference” or is there some other reason.  I felt that quite a bit today.

That’s my take on our service today – how was your service?

This post is part of TheWorshipCommunity.com‘s Sunday Setlist blog carnival.  Find out what songs were led at churche all over the world this weekend!

Part of the Sunday Setlist blog carnival over at TheWorshipCommunity.com – check it out!

I know, I’m late getting this posted.  Life happens sometimes

Before I get into the gory details, here is the list…

• All Because of Jesus
• Glorious (Baloche/Brown)
• Revelation Song
• Indescribable
• kids story
• We Are One/By Our Love (Mark Swayze Band)
• announcements
• message
• The Wonderful Cross
• communion
• Amazing Grace

We were missing quite a few people again this week, but had others back.  The bigger issue that we were facing, however, was that it was the first Sunday we used the in-ear monitors.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!

Yeah, it was scary.  Somehow, though, it all worked out (at least that’s what people in the congregation were telling me.  Phew!)  The perspective from the stage was a bit less glowing though!

There were a few lessons learned… one main one was that I should never EVER attempt to lead a song that is just “that much” too low for me.  Especially for a kids song.  Yes, I thought I knew this, of course, but I did it anyway.  ugh.

As you can see, this week it is much more of a worship confessional… I confess, it sucked (from my perspective) and I take full responsibility for making it more challenging for everyone.

The upside was that we as a band (albiet missing a few members) have played long enough without any monitors and together as a team that it all worked somehow.  Good job team!

Lesson 2 – when you know you are missing something on Wednesday that you will need on Sunday… make sure that you have it on Sunday!  Some of the extenders for the headphones were mono instead of sterio… and I confess that I still haven’t picked them up.  Yeah, I need to do that.  Tomorrow.  Because I hadn’t picked those up yet the vocals didn’t use their in-ears – and neither our sound guy or myself were aware of that until, oh, about the time the service was starting… too late to set up a wedge.

Lesson 3 – check all batteries BEFORE the service starts.  Voice recorders and wireless microphones.  Yep.  Oh, and a sound check on that wireless mic would be a good plan too (if only the worship leader could get her rehearsal done in time to do it…)

So yeah, it was one of those weekends.

How was yours?

Are you interested in what songs have been sung at churches all over the world this weekend>  Take a look at Fred’s Sunday Setlist blog carnival over at FredMcKinnon.com!

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What a fabulous weekend we had!  5 of our team members headed down to CMS @Overlake this weekend, and it was soooo great!  Next year we need to bring along the rest of the crew…

We made it back last night though, with plenty of time to get a good night’s rest to be ready for this morning.

This morning, however…

well, we sang through these tunes…

• Happy Day [G]
• Your Grace Is Enough [F]
• Come Thou Fount [D]
• Here I Am, Send Me [G]
• kids storytime
• Everyday [Ab]
• announcements
• message – Oh, Scarlet!
• The Wonderful Cross [D]
• communion
• O, How I Love Jesus [acapella]

Happy Day… in practice we flew through it.  Yep, it went waaay too fast.  However in the service we went just a bit too slow.  OK, so we slogged our way through it. Oh well… it seemed to be the day where a great rehearsal produces a slightly more… well, a more fun service.

Yep, we had a few interesting moments.  However, it all flowed rather well in spite of everything. We were missing a few members this morning – keys, bass and a singer, but it all worked out.  Since Nancy wasn’t there, Chris ended up playing piano for The Wonderful Cross – which worked well for the song with Taya’s new guitar and Warren on the djembe.  We finished out with an acapella version of O How I Love Jesus.  It was a great service.

Oh, and I actually wore jeans to church.  I realize that this isn’t a big deal for most people, but it goes entirely against everything I was raised with.  Fortunately the building is still standing and I wasn’t struck by lightning, so I guess we’re all good    No offense meant to anyone who is on either side of that fence… it’s just been one of those “discussions” we’ve been having.  We’ll see what happens in the future, however I believe an agreement has been reached.

The high point?  Once again having the privilege of worshiping our amazing God in the company of great friends.

The low point?  My family was not there this morning   Because of the conference the girls were at Grandma’s house for the weekend and Eric had gone down there to pick them up.  Fortunately they went to the early service and were done in time to meet me for lunch!

How was your weekend?

Every Sunday we take part in Fred’s Sunday Setlist bloggy carnival - if you are interested in seeing what churches all over the world are singing each weekend, head over and check it out!

Wow – it’s another beautiful day today!  It got off to a bit of a shaky start for me – it was around 30F last night and my wonderful car wouldn’t start this morning.  I guess I need to invest in a new battery now that the cold weather is back.  That meant that rather than getting to the church about 15 minutes before everyone else I got there about 15 minutes after them.  Fortunately they had started rehearsal without me.  It all worked out though.

It was a light crowd this morning too – there were quite a few families helping out on an outreach this weekend, a few that were on vacation and a few that have been hit with the bug-o-the-day.  For example: we had a grand total of three kids today.  We usually run a little closer to 15-20…

Anywho, here is the list:

• Happy Day [G]
• Hosanna (Praise Is Rising) [F]
• O Worship The King [F]
• How He Loves [G]
• kids story
• Beautiful One
• announcements
• message
• Made To Worship [F]

Sam did a great job leading out on Happy Day and How He Loves today – even though she wasn’t feeling well.  It’s amazing how He comes through when we are feeling our worst!  We finally settled on G as the key for How He Loves as everyone else can start the verses out low in that key and I can come in at an octave up and it’s not too high that it sounds odd (but just high enough to make it fun!)  I’m curious what key others choose to do it in…

The whole set was my high point today – every one of the songs is an old friend and I don’t have to worry about where I’m supposed to go next or what the words are which is always a relief.  That and it just seemed to flow better today.  I think it was a God thing

The low point?  That came from the knowledge that I had the perfect song to fit the message to close us out with… but it wasn’t the song that I had chosen.  And I couldn’t sub it in at the last minute because a couple of the members of the band have never had a chance to hear it or run through it.  Oh well.  It would have fit so very well though!

So that was our day.  The message was great again (I’m really enjoying our walk through Exodus) and I’ll get it posted later this week – I have to wait for Jennifer to get back and get ahold of the recorder…

Next week I may miss you all – the 18th is a birthday in our house and we have an all church meeting to discuss our possible upcoming move.  It will be a very busy day!

How was your service this weekend?