This day had some of the most conflicting emotions I’ve had leading musical praise, during our gathering (which was a combination of our 8:30 and 11:00 gatherings) our preaching minister announced his resignation. All is good with the leaders, nothing bad causing this change, but rather God is leading this family to help a church family that classifies themselves as a mile wide and an inch deep spiritually. God is awesome in how he as prepared us for this transition as our recently hired evangelism minister is also a preaching minister. So this transition should be somewhat seamless.

Our morning was purposely themed toward our future with Christ, rooted in Philippians chapter 1; using the idea that “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus”.  

Musically, we blended some old with some new, our team nailed it. It was great to part of this effort to praise God. J 

Majesty ~ Jack Hayford

Prayer

1^st set

In My Heart There Rings A Melody ~ Elton Roth

            This was a fun song to do. We used piano and bass on the verses and then at the chorus did a severe ritard with “In my heart there”… at this point we added drums and guitars. The remainder of the chorus our drummer played triplets which really added a fun feel to the song. J  

Now That You’re Near ~ Hillsong

            This is a staple for us; we ended with the pre-chorus to emphasize the future minded theme of the morning.

Scripture – Psalm 46

            I used this scripture in light of the coming announcement of the resignation.

It is Well ~ Horatio Spafford/Philip Bliss

            We added a little of our own creativity to this song after the 3rd verse/chorus. Playing it in the key of B primarily led by piano until this point. After the 3^rd v/ch we add guitars and play an interlude using 1 measure of F# and 1 meausre of E & B, two beats each. This comes into play at the end of the song also where we’ve added a tag: “Oh praise the Lamb of God, He died to make me whole”. Ala Kristen Stanfills; Jesus Paid it All.

Communion

Here I am to Worship ~ Tim Hughes

            Started in D, after 1^st chorus changed to E. Went well, had a cool guitar solo mixed in.

Saviour King – Hillsong

            Great song, our people love and really got into it, making the ending huge with loud voices. J

Opportunities of services in Worship

            Night Light Festival sign-up: we made a big push today to get people involved in our Halloween outreach event. We add tables set up in the auditorium for people to go to and sign up for booths to operate and other ways to help.

Message and the announcement

Closing song of encouragement

Promise ~ Steve Sprecker

     This is a song I wrote awhile ago and it really helped out today. The lyrics remind us that God is with us (strength/hope/love) until the day he takes us home.

This is part of the carnival hosted by Fred McKinnon.

Sunday set list for SHCC, this is posted as part of the carnival hosted by Fred McKinnon.

We mixed our format up a bit to accommodate having communion and offering as part of the message. The overall theme was bearing each others burdens, from Galatians 6. Musically most of the songs we sang had ‘us’ and ‘we’ language to help set the tone of community that is needed as we bear burdens for each other.

1^st set

Beautiful One – Tim Hughes

Holy is the Lord – Chris Tomlin

Hear Our Praises – Hillsong

Sharing of worship opportunities

Video from a recent community event (used to encourage participation in our next event)

2^nd set

You Stand – Steve Sprecker

We are the Body of Christ – David Hampton, Scott Wesley Brown

            In the middle of this song, I asked folks to take a few moments and welcome each other. We kept playing the song and then sang one more loop of it after about 2 minutes of greeting.

Message: Helping Others On The Journey Galatians 6:1-6

Communion serving

Offering collection

Closing Song – We are the Body of Christ

Baptism

Song of Hope – Roby Seay Band

Everlasting God – Brenton Brown

Psalm 34: 3, 7, 8

Blessed – Hillsong

In Christ Alone – Don Koch

You are My Strength – Hillsong

Communion – Ephesians 1

Everything – Tim Hughes

Preaching

Give Us Clean Hands – Charlie Hall

Baptism

Shout to the Lord – Hillsong

God showed/helped me this past week to worship Him thru adversity. It wasn’t until Saturday morning that I felt I could even be in front of people leading them in praise. But thru the difficulties of the week by the Spirit and the Word of God I was able to find my strength in Him and remember my hope is not based on the things of any man but my hope comes from the Christ!

Here is my paraphrase of Ephesians 1: 13-14, this text was an anchor for my soul this week.

I was included in Christ when I heard the word of truth, the gospel of my salvation. Having believed, I was marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing my inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s – possession – to the praise of his glory!

This is part of the Sunday Setlist Carnival

Howdy everyone, hope y’all had a great Sunday. Thanks to Fred McKinnon for keeping us going with the Carnival.

The week leading up to our morning gathering was a little rough in preparation as my full time job (not this ministry) took more of my time than usual. But, thank you Lord for how your Spirit works in our weakness. Our Evangelistic minister preached this week from Galatians 3 about the power of the cross and the power of the Spirit. Musically we kept the focus on Jesus and the cross. I took a cue from Billy Chia and used a bit of Loud and Quiet this week.

Walk in – Let it Rise ~ Holland Davis

Welcome – I did a little coaching here to let people know it’s OK to raise hands, clap, shout with praise and sing with abandoned hearts, this started our loud portion.

The Happy Song – Martin Smith

For Who You Are – Marty Sampson ~ I really love this song, the dynamics that can be employed are tremendous, it works well in our church.

Amazing Grace – Chris Tomlin’s version – This started our quiet portion, nothing said just using music as a tone setter.

Reading of Isaiah 53 using The Message translation. After this reading I instructed/asked people to be still and consider what it means to them to have Christ take on their ugliness.

Sweetly Broken – Jeremy Riddle – Our lead guitar player ripped a great solo on this that fit perfectly with the tone of quiet.

Communion – continuing our quiet

The Stand – Joel Houston – This song was awesome, it was the first time we did this on a Sunday morning, it’s a staple for our youth. What a great way to conclude our quiet, we kept it low through the verses and 1st chorus and the people were ready to belt out their praise by the 2nd chorus. It just kept going and going. Praise God!!

Baptism – way cool segway from the last phrase that we sang from The Stand into this time of being clothed with Jesus Christ. “But what can I say, what can I do? But offer this heart O God, completely to You”

Greeting/worship opportunities

The Wonderful Cross – Chris Tomlin

Preaching – Tom Moyers

Amazing Love (You are my King) ~ Our people can sing this blindfolded, a great closer to an awesome challenge from the text.

Mighty to Save – Ben Fielding and Reuben Morgan – This just topped off the morning with a great send off “Shine your light and let the whole world know…”

We had a fillin drummer this week, someone we’ve used before and is becoming accustomed to the way we do songs. It’s great to have a back-up, I am so grateful.

The carnival continues from Fred Mckinnon…check out other setlists on www.theworshipcommunity.com/forums

Sunday was a bit different as there wasn’t any preaching. We did a Walk Thru Bible seminar thingy. Our summer preaching series was parts of the OT, this seminar taught us to memorize the OT timeline using vocal and body movements cues. And this was what we call a “Family Sunday” we combine our ‘traditional’ and ‘contemporary’ gatherings and the kids stay for the whole service. We do this 2 or 3 times a quarter.

Setlist:

Song of Hope – Robbey Seay Band

How Firm a Foundation – Traditional American melody (sang this one a cappela)

My LIfe is in You – Daniel Gardner

Your Grace is Enough – Chris Tomlin version

Communion

Jesus Paid it All – Kristian Stanfill

Welcome/worship opportunities/greeting/offering – We had a Kazzo quartet as “special music”

Great and Mighty is He – Todd Pettygrove

Walk thru the Bible preview – the complete seminar followed this gathering

Holy is the Lord – Chris Tomlin

This post is part of the Sunday Setlist Carnival.

Ok here we go…

This was a kick off Sunday for our Study thru Galatians so an effort was made to keep all the music tied to a theme of Christ as the focus in our lives instead of some social ideal. As most of us should know there was a bit pressure being put on the people of the region to adhere to the law instead of just the grace of Jesus.

Walk in – We Shine ~ Steve Fee (this is a song our youth love and is a bit out of our usual Sunday morning “style”. But everyone once in a while it’s fun to rock it out a bit.) This song helped lead into the welcome segment very well.

welcome – this was me acting like a pep rally leader. I encouraged everyone to shout the name of Jesus a few times and give a shout of praise to go with it. It worked prettty well, lots of smiles and clapping.

All About You ~ Israel Houghton

You are Worthy of My Praise ~ David Ruis

Now That You’re Near ~ Marty Sampson

I took a moment here to add a thought about realizing that with Christ near we don’t want to miss a thing about him and encourage everyone to pray together the lyrics of the next song.

Open the Eyes of My Heart ~ Paul Baloche

Communion

To the Only God ~ Chris Tomlin

Worship opportunities (aka announcements) We were having a difficult time getting folks to sign up for a seminar next week so as everyone came in the doors this morning they were handed a registration card and then at this moment instructions were given to decide they were attending the seminar and fill out the card.

Forever ~ Chris Tomlin

Sermon (listen here)

Here I am to Worship ~ Tim Hughes

Famous One ~ Chris Tomlin

This post is part of the Sunday Setlist Carnival.

This was a great Sunday, but one that required a bit of scrambling. Last minute can’t make its by our bass and keyboard player. Oh well, God was still praised and our people had fun!! 

Our drummer started us with a driving kick drum feel as we all read scripture then into our singing. Here’s the layout:

• Revelation 4:11
• One and Only – Steve Sprecker
• Take it All – Hillsong
• Revelation 5:12
• MIghty to Save
• Revelation 5:9-10
• communion
• Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus – Helen Lemmel (just used the chorus, our drummer slid over the keys and gave us a lite vamping on the chord while we sang this)
• Revelation 4:8b
• We Fall Down – Tomlin
• Saviour King – Hillsong
• Message (Respecting God – Daniel 5)
• Let the Praises Ring – Brewster

We were going to sing God He Riegns after the message but after hearing all the points of the pastor, Let the praises was a better fit. What was cool about changing the song is we didn’t have the music. I just passed a note to the band and we were able to pull it off. The is one of our ‘pocket songs’.

Yesterday will be one to remember for 2 very different reasons; the arrival of the Holy Spirit and the arrival of the Fire Dept. and ambulance. Oh yeah, things got pretty exciting at the end of our gathering.

First the Holy Spirit moments. Taking a  break from our usual distortion, drums, and ‘dancing’ (I needed another D word) we had 2 acoustic guitars and an acoustic bass with 4  voices. No percussion this week. This group had a great blend at rehearsal and that’s when I began to expect great things from the Spirit as we tried to do our best in exalting the greatness of God in contrast to our weakness.

Here’s the setlist/layout of the morning:

·     Holy is the Lord – Chris Tomlin

·     Reading of scripture (everyone says it together) – Daniel 4:3

·     For Who You Are – Marty Sampson

·     Everlasting God – Brenton Brown

·     Reading of scripture – Daniel 4:34b-35

·     Be unto Your Name – Lynn DeShazo and Gary Sadler

·     How Great is Our God – Chris Tomlin

·     Reading of Scripture – Daniel 4:3

·     Lord’s Supper

·     Worship opportunities (a.k.a. – announcements) and greeting

·     Message

·     Be the Centre – Michael Frye

·     Father, Let me Dedicate – LAWRENCE TUTTIET and GEORGE McFARREN

·     Everything – Tim Hughes

We had a great first set of praise. The interlacing of corporate reading of scripture is an incredible experience for our people and coupling that with spontaneous prayer makes for a wonderful time of praise.

So, we get to the arrival of the paramedics. About 25 min. into the message one of our dear elderly folks passes out. Our preacher stops, a few folks go to her to help and within 5 minutes the paramedics arrive and the ambulance takes her to the hospital. As of today all test returned negative and she was released from the hospital, most likely cause was a reaction to an over-the-counter medication.

Because of this we did not finish the message or sing the last set, but that’s OK. We prayed for the dear sister and everyone was dismissed. Makes me wonder how other Sunday morning places would handle this kind of unplanned change.

A little about how we made the two guitars work together. I’ve found that when using two acoustics it’s important to change their voicing to help achieve a blended yet distinct sound from each of them.

Holy is the Lord – key of A. 1^st guitar capo 2 G chord shapes, 2^nd guitar capo 5, open E shapes (the Paul Baloche way)

For Who You Are – key of G 1^st guitar no capo, 2^nd guitar capo 3 open E shapes

Everlasting God – key of Bb 1^st guitar capo 3, 2^nd guitar capo 3, we just meshed on this song

Be Unto Your Name – key of B both guitars capo 4, 1^st guitar strum, 2^nd guitar picking

How great is Our God – key of A both guitars capo 2, 1^st guitar strum chorus/bridge only, 2^nd guitar picking

This post is part of Setlist Sundays.

This song was written to go along with a study through the Gospel of John. Words and music by Steve Sprecker.

Set list of SHCC March 23

 Videos

• Easter Quotes – Floodgate Productions
• The Color Song – Highwayvideo.com

Music

• How Great Thou Art (chorus only) – Stewart Hine
• My Redeemer Lives – Reuben Morgan

Welcome and instruction – we’re having people stand throughout the singing and the Lord’s Supper in honor of our Risen Saviour.

More music

• One and Only – Steve Sprecker
• Let the Praises Ring – Lincoln Brewster
• For Who You Are – Marty Sampson
• There’s Just Something About That Name – Gaithers
• Because He Lives – Gaithers
  • Communion emblems served during these two songs
• Mighty to Save – Ben Fielding and Reuben Morgan

Ministry update/offering collection/hugs and handshakes

And more music

• You Stand – Steve Sprecker and Derek Voorhees

Testimony

Preaching

Video

• That’s My King – Igniter Media Group

Last of the music

• You Stand – reprise
• Only a God Like You – Tommy Walker
• One Way – Joel Houston and Jonathan Douglass