What a beautiful day it is!  Fall in the Pac NW is near perfection – cool crisp mornings, sunny mid-day and mild temps.  It really doesn’t get much better.

This morning was our first service that was bumped back to a 10 am starting time after being at 10:30 since the beginning of July – and amazingly enough most people were there by 10 after.  Yay!  The list today was one that was mostly filled with well-known favorites with a new one tosed in towards the end… but I’ll get to that.  It was really nice to be able to just flow through the songs without worrying about what was supposed to come next!  Well, mostly anyway *blush*

Der Liszt:

• Sing, Sing, Sing [A]
• Everlasting God [Ab]
• Glorious [G]
• In Christ Alone [G]
• kids story time
• Everyday [Ab]
• announcements
• prayer for Manny & the Bushareds
• message – Elementary, My Dear
• Communion
• How He Loves [G]
• prayer
• It Is Well With My Soul [acapella]

The high point – finally getting to lead How He loves was a high point for the past week leading up to todays service.  Working on it and getting to spend a lot more time with it this week was so good for a reminder of the truths that are proclaimed in the lyrics.  Oh and before you ask – no we did not sing “sloppy wet kiss” (I just don’t think that our congregation would have understood it.  No we didn’t sing “unforseen” either.  We sang “unrestrained” as I felt that it gave the correct emotion without the “what did she just say?” element.)

The high point today, however, was the message.  Pastor Chris laid it all out there today.  Today’s message was part 2 of the 10 commandments – you know the last 6 that were about us rather than the first 4 about God.  The law is summed up on 2 things – Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind & strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.

I’ll post it once it’s up on the site – it was a really, really good one.

The low point – I felt like poo today.  I’m not sure if it’s a cold that won’t go away or allergies, but I woke up with gobs of drainage clogging up my throat.  Ugh.  And when I get sick guess what portion of my voice goes away – yep, the low end.  Guess where all of our songs are pitched.  Right down there where I can’t sing when I’m sick.

Thus, my mind was (unfortunately) a bit distracted with trying to emit some kind of sound when there was very little to work with.  I botched up the 1st 3 songs in one way or another even though they are songs that I know inside & out.  But kudos to our team – they all followed along beautifully!  Well, except when I tried to come in early.  oy.

So, now that I’ve shared my worship confessional… how did it go in your worship service this weekend?

Want to read about other worship services around the globe?  Check them out over at Fred’s Sunday Setlist bloggy carnival!

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After a day of rain yesterday (which we desperately needed!) today is lovely.  The air looks scrubbed clean with the bright blue broken up occasionally by fluffy white clouds, and there is a hint of coolness in the air.  Autumn has arrived!  (and yes, this makes me very, very happy!)

Our service this morning was great!  We are going though Exodus and following the Israelite’s journey from Egypt to the Promised Land… and many weeks it feels like an episode of some reality show called “What Not To Do”.  No, really.

If I remember I will post the link to the sermon once it’s uploaded… tomorrow or Tuesday.  It was a good one!

As for the setlist, well, here it is!

• Blessed Be your Name
• The Solid Rock
• You Never Let Go
• Revelation Song
• kids message
• Beautiful One
• announcements
• message
• Communion
• White As Snow

Personally, this list was a home run.  They are all songs that I love to worship through, and it seemed that many of our congregation felt the same way.  There were times during the quieter moments that I could hear them singing out to God, and it was glorious.

What did your church sing this weekend?

As always, this is part of Fred’s Sunday Setlist bloggy carnival – now over 1 year and going strong!  Take a look at what other churches around the world are singing each week!

Wow, what a great time of worship we had yesterday!  Well, at least I had a great time… I can only hope everyone else did too!

The list…

• We Lift You Up
• Happy Day (Kim Walker version)
• Reign In Us (Starfield)
• Revelation Song (Kari Jobe version)
• kids message
• Love The Lord
• message – “Going Down?”
• Great Is Thy Faithfulness

The songs just seemed to flow one to the next lyrically yesterday, and it was amazing.  It was our 2nd week singing “Happy Day” and there was much more participation.  That was pretty cool to see.  We tightened up the vocals a bit this week too, and I think that helped a lot too.  We dropped down to 1 or 2 voices to start each song and added in voices on the choruses, and that in itself helped the dynamics a ton.  Now we just need to get the bass & electric guitars turned up a tad more so I can actually hear them…

High point?  Happy Day ROCKED yesterday.  Sam nailed the verses this week and it just felt… better.  Having the congregation get more “into” it really helped too.

Low point? Love The Lord.  It started really s.l.o.w. no, I mean at like 1/4 the correct tempo.  Take a song that seems to go on and on an on forever and then slow it down?  I was very close to stopping after the 1st verse and saying “Now that we remember the song, let’s speed it up!”  but I didn’t want to call it out  like that.  I kept trying to speed it up, but it just wasn’t happening.  Oh well.

I’m still thoroughly enjoying having the space and the centralized sound that Peace Lutheran offers, however I think we may have figured out why they have their later service in the little white church… that sanctuary is HOT by 9:30 am!  We had a few fans going this week, and they had opened up all of the doors and windows for their early service so it was a little better, but we were still all dripping by the time the service started.  Wow.  Of course, it is substantially warmer than normal for western Washington these days.  It’s supposed to hit 98 today… and we often have Summers that don’t break 80!  Yep, I’m looking for any excuse to find a place with a/c.

Want to read about other worship services around the globe (and possibly win some free stuff?)  Head over to Fred’s blog!  It’s the official 1 year anniversary of the Sunday Setlist Bloggy Carnival this week, and Fred has over $600 worth of goodies to pass on to lucky folks like you and me, so head over and check it out!

Ever have one of those days where you are just tired?  You are tired and you can’t tell if that’s the reason that others seem less”with it” or if they are tired too?

sʎɐp ǝsoɥʇ ɟo ǝuo sɐʍ ʎɐpoʇ

We intro-ed Happy Day today for the first time and while I thoroughly enjoyed singing it (and really, who can’t?) I felt like it just kinda “was”

Some people seemed to really like it (yay!) and others… well… it just “was”  and I’m not sure if it was just me being tired, or if they just didn’t really dig the song.

oh well.  We’ll give it another try next week, right?

So, the list for this morning was as follows:

• Happy Day [G] (Kim Walker version)
• Trading My Sorrows [G]
• The Solid Rock [D] (David Crowder version)
• Majesty (Here I Am) [Am] (Martin Anderson)
• kids message – Jesus did a yucky job to model being a servant
• Everyday [G]
• announcements
• message – Love ACTually
• Happy Day [G] (slightly shorter version)

We kept the other songs more well known since we were teaching a new one, but I’m just not sure how it went over.  Some people said that they really, really enjoyed it, some were singing along right away, and others were just standing there.  Just. Standing. There.

How?

How can you just stand there during that song?  It has more energy than any other song I know!  I mean I was feeling exhausted and I could barely keep from dancing.

High point:
- I actually worshiped this morning.  No thoughts about how everything sounded, no worries about blending, etc.  I was able to move far past that (other than feeling like the 1st song flopped).

Low point:
- feeling like Happy Day flopped.

I have to say though, that the look of pure joy that was on our pastors wife’s face during worship was WONDERFUL to see.  I love it when she sits where I can see her.

So, how was YOUR Sunday?

**part of Fred’s Sunday Setlist bloggy carnival.  Go check out what churches all over the world are doing each Sunday!**

Yeah, I may try to get in a nap, or just go to bed early.  Who knows.

Wow!  Today was our last day in the Little White Church for the Summer, and we were running with a skeleton crew for the worship team.  Lots of people were out of town or home sick so it was nearly a skeleton crew in the pews too, but we still had the privilege of gathering together to worship God.

Summer scheduling is often difficult, and the past 2 weeks have been ne exception!  We had a piano, acoustic & drums last weekend, and acoustic & drums this weekend… and no male singers at all for either.  Very girlie lately (which ain’t all bad… but is different).

Anywho, here is the list:

• Lord, Light The Fire Again [E]
• Desert Song [D]
• You Gave Your Life Away [E]
• Take My Life [D] (Tomlin/Nockles version)
• kids message on Trust
• Everything To God [D]
• announcements
• Lest I Forget [B] (Rebecca St. James)
• Communion
• Message
• Blessed Be Your Name [G]

Yep, it was a bit more subdued than normal, but that is to be expected when it’s acoustic led (and not rhythmic acoustic).  Taya had a bit of feedback off and on, but it seemed to work itself out by the 2nd song.  She was using a different amp than normal, since we cleaned out as much as possible last week so we’d have room to pack up everything this week.

High Point:
~ Lest I Forget was cool – we haven’t done it in months (unfortunately) and it was nice to do it with just the acoustic & djembe.  They gave it a very different feel.  Finishing up Jim’s sermon with Blessed Be Your Name was pretty amazing too though.  He shared some of the things that God has brought he & his wife through – especially in the last 14 months of looking for a new job.  It’s always amazing to see someone peacefully and joyfully going through something that would make most of us panic!

Low Point:
~ Everything To God.  Wow, it was sssssssllllllllloooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwww today.  Still a great song, still went well with the message, but needed to be sped up at least double!  Oh well.  That tempo gave the kids time to get all of the motions in!

So, how was YOUR weekend?

*this is part of Fred’s Sunday Setlist bloggy carnival – head over to check out what worship leaders and congregants all over the world did at church this week!*

Part of Fred’s Sunday Setlist Blog Carnival – see what is happening at churches all over!

Wow, that was a great service!  It was so nice to just worship our heavenly Father and not have to worry about keeping to a time constraint or melding with a message.  There were a couple of new faces and a lot of usual faces missing, but I hope that those that made it were blessed – I know I was.

This was our last evening communion service until the end of Sept (we will still take communion every other week on Sunday mornings) and I for one will miss them.  But with the crazy Summer schedules we decided to take a break.

The list…

• Cry Out To Jesus [C]
• How Marvelous (I Stand Amazed) [C] Tomlin
• Communion devotional
• Take Me In [Em] similar to Kutless
• Jesus Blood [G] Martin Smith
• Majesty (Here I Am) [Em] Martin Smith
• How Deep The Father’s Love [E]
• Guided Prayer
• Grace Flows Down [C]
• Revelation Song [C] Jennie Lee Riddle

Cry Out To Jesus was a request that has been waiting for the perfect time, and Art nailed it.  It was wonderful!  It is a song that just needs to be led buy a guy, and I happily stepped back and let him take it away.  The ladies & I added our voices in on the chorus but let him solo the verses, which worked out really well.  It was very well received too (which is always a good thing!)

We did Take Me In, Jesus Blood and Majesty as a medley with Phil. 4:4-7 read between Jesus Blood & Majesty.  It went off without a hitch (which was great!)  I like to put More Love, More Power in between Take Me In & Jesus Blood too, but we didn’t do that tonight.

At rehearsal I realized that I had Revelation Song & Grace Flows Down backwards… I just couldn’t sing Grace Flows Down after Rev. Song!  So we swapped them in the moments before we started the service, and I am SO glad we did!  This was our first time leading Revelation Song, and I got sooooooo many comments afterwords.  Almost everyone there expressed interest in doing it again… as soon as Sunday if possible!  Thank you to David and the others that introduced it to me!  This Sunday Setlist carnival has helped me find quite a few wonderful songs that I hadn’t ever heard of before.  Thank you Fred for hosting all of us.

Personally, this service was just what I needed.  A chance to just worship.  To sing songs of praise and worship and adoration and acknowledgment of His sacrifice and pray for an hour was… well, words can’t describe it.  As a worship leader I often feel the pressure to make sure everyone else gets to enter into worship, that everything goes off without a hitch (right, like THAT ever happens!) and to be engaging.  I’m still figuring out the engaging part and the worshiping while being engaging part.  Tonight I decided that I’d forgo the engaging portion and just worship – no one was looking at me anyway, which was really nice!  The few people that were there were fully entering in and we were just there to worship with them.

Thank you team for putting in the time to practice and giving up your Sunday evening – I really, really appreciate it!  I hope that everyone else there was at least half as blessed as I was.  I’m sure that God was.

Um… yeah.

So it’s Memorial Day weekend, and a bright and sunny one at that.  We were a little lower on attendance, but not a huge amount.  Pastor Chris showed a great video (from To End All Wars, I believe) that reminded us the cost of our freedom (wow, it was powerful!) and then tied it in very nicely with his sermon on Grace.  We are still studying King David, so the passage for this week was from 2 Samuel 9 – the story of David & Mephibosheth.

Over all it was a great service!  A little convicting from time to time, but I’ll get to that.

The set:

• Sing Sing Sing [G]
• Desert Song [D]
• God of Wonders [F]
• How Great Is Our God [F]
• kids message
• Every Move I Make [G]
• announcements
• video & prayer
• message
• How Great Is Our God recap

It’s a great set… when your worship leader doesn’t decide to dump a bottle of water on the keyboard and pianist.  Yep.  It was a lesson in self control and learning to not be so sarcastic (and such a smart you-know-what).  Oy.  Fortunately, the keyboard still mostly worked – a few keys didn’t want to play at all, and a few played extra loud.  I may be taking my keyboard down for a few weeks until I can afford to replace it.  Ugh.

It personally tied in with the message quite well though.  Nancy was so gracious about being fully baptized 25 minutes before the service started.  Everyone else was gracious about not getting on me for causing issues with having to clean everything up (and possibly ruining the keyboard) and I got a little lesson on learning to curb myself a bit.

That being said, I was a little off today.  I was feeling bad about Nancy being soaked (through the whole service!) and about the clunky sound coming through the speakers.  I was distracted, but tried to simply worship in the midst of it all.  It always amazes me how He meets us wherever we are, in the midst of what ever circumstances we find ourselves in.  It’s amazing.

I pray that this is a close to watered-down as our worship (or our faith) ever gets!  Oh, and that I stop threatening to throw things at people who smart off at (with) me.

So, have you ever had technical difficulties that you were solely responsible for?  How did you handle it?

As always, this is part of Fred’s Sunday Setlist carnival.

Wow, I can’t believe it’s May already!  It was a busy weekend for us before we ever got to church, so yesterday was spent resting.  Sorry for the delay!

Das liszt…

• Everlasting God
• Desert Song
• AG (My Chains Are Gone)
• Indescribable
• kids message
• Everything To God
• announcements
• message – He Said What?
• I Will Rise
• Communion
• Amazing Grace – verse 1, acapella

Most of the songs on the list are very well known… to make up for the newer ones, of course!  Desert Song kept coming up on these lists a couple of months ago, so I had to check it out.  Yesterday was the first Sunday we led it, and it seemed to be pretty well received.  We don’t quite have the members to pull it off like the recording, so instead we added & subtracted people from time to time to add dynamics.  It was a very fun song to plan out, oh, and to sing too!

We did Everything To God again this week, to give the kids (and adults) another chance to learn it.  Once again we slowed it down a tad to make catching those breaths a little bit easier.  The kids did a better job of keeping up with the motions this week too (perhaps because they had seen them before?)

Art led I Will Rise for communion and it sounded great.  It was just the 2 of us singing this week, so I managed to squeeze in a few harmonies here and there and let him lead most everything.   We sang I WIll Rise for Easter with the choir, so it’s still a pretty new song (for those not in choir) but people seem to like it, and were singing along.

Sorry… I’m still beat from the lack of sleep last week, so I’m not terribly talkative today.  Not even the knowledge that I have tickets in my little hand for Wicked is adding to the excitement today.  I just hope I’m not getting sick…

How was your weekend?

as always, if you want to check out the rest of these, head over to Fred’s blog!

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