Weekend Service Review #7 - March 22, 2009

Yesterday was a powerful time of worshipping the Lord at ACC. It was also one where we made a last-minute change to the set list, which doesn't happen too often.

As my wife and I were looking over Dave's sermon notes on Saturday, we realized that he quoted all three verses of the hymn "What A Friend We Have In Jesus" to emphasize a point he was making about prayer. So our thought was "Helloooooo ... why aren't we doing this song tomorrow?!?!"

We ended up swapping out another song to do What A Friend, and I couldn't have been happier about the switch. So here's what we did:

-Prelude: Your Grace Is Enough (G) by Chris Tomlin
-Welcome / call to worship (Philippians 4:4)
-Hosanna / Praise Is Rising (G) by Brenton Brown & Paul Baloche
Transition to new song - comment about glory
-Glory To God Forever (A) by Steve Fee & Vicky Beeching
Prayer
Message Part 1 - Dave
-What A Friend We Have In Jesus (E) hymn by Joseph Scriven
-Adoration (G) by Brenton Brown
-Jesus Messiah (A) by Chris Tomlin
Message Part 2 - Dave
Offering & announcements - Chris
Benediction - Romans 15:13 - Chris
(Upward highlight video as people dismissed)

You'll notice that we also tried something new this week at the end. Instead of a closing song during the offering, we had Chris give announcements and share a recap of the Upward season, and then dismiss people while the Upward video played. This worked out particularly well this weekend because all of the announcements had an immediate action step associated with them right after the service (ie. buy your Seder tickets in the lobby, attend the Welcome Lunch starting in 10 minutes, etc.)

By the way, I am loving the new Steve Fee song we did this weekend. Thanks, Steve, for posting the how-to video and chord charts on your web site!

Meet Jenn Weber

I always get excited when I hear or find out about fresh new artists in the modern worship (or sometimes CCM) genres. At some point this past November, I heard about Jenn Weber, found her Myspace Page, listened to several songs, and I was hooked instantly. I received Jenn's CD "World of Wonder" for Christmas, and have been listening to it frequently ever since.

In my opinion, the lyrics are creative and worshipful, and I would classify the style as acoustic pop / folk, comparable to Christy Nockels, Sarah McLaughlin, or Brooke Fraser. The one song I can't stop listening to is "Your Love Is Changing Me". Here's a sampling of the lyrics:

"Don't know who I was
Don't know what I'll be
All I know is that You found me
From a far off land
Cross a lonely sea
You pursued and You've captured me

Oh, how You make me sing
Yeah Your love is changing me
You're awakening a marvelous dream
Yeah, Your love is changing me"

It is true that God has pursued and captured us, and His love is powerful enough to change us. I have seen God graciously bring about incredible change in my life recently - from the way I work to the way I love my wife to the way I worship.

How has God's love been changing you recently?

Weekend Service Review #6 - March 15, 2009

It was a good day on Sunday. We originally planned on doing just one song up front and three in the middle package, but as I was thinking about the order over the weekend I realized that it can be hard to focus on worshiping the Lord if you only have one song to do it in at a time. Let me explain: when we gather as the church for worship, there are often a thousand other thoughts going through our heads and hearts, and often it takes a few songs before we can really start to focus on worshiping the Lord and soaking up the songs we're singing. I noticed this in myself when I visited a church a few weeks back, and I found myself thinking about the tempo, instrumentation, environment I was in, the weather outside, etc. etc. etc. It wasn't until about the third song that I started to consciously bring my thoughts and emotions together and truly engage with the lyrics we were singing.

So that is a bit of the reasoning why we moved "Jesus Paid It All" up to the opening package this past Sunday. Here's what the service looked like after the change:

Instrumental Prelude: Sing to the King (E) by Billy Foote
Welcome & announcements
-Happy Day (B) by Tim Hughes
-Jesus Paid It All (B) - hymn w/ chorus by Alex Nifong
Holy Week Preview - Dave
Part 1 Message - Dave
-From the Inside Out (C) by Joel Houston
(Comment about giving God control of our lives - transition into Center)
-Center (E) by Charlie Hall
Part 2 Message - Dave
-In Christ Alone (E) by Keith Getty & Stuart Townend
Benediction - Philippians 4:1

Oh ... and in case you were wondering, here's what our service order looks like on paper (click on the image to blow it up):

A Good Reminder

"Worship leading requires certain skills, a good grasp of how to accomplish the transitions from one phase to another, an ability to make the right connecting comments between songs, a strong bond with the congregation, and a heart in tune with the Spirit." -Robert Webber, in Worship Old & New, p.160

Lectures on Worship

Justin Taylor recently posted a compilation of lectures on worship over on his blog.

There is a bunch of good stuff there that I want to listen to - now I just need to find (I mean make) the time for it. I already downloaded and listened to one lecture from John Frame titled "Christian Worship Music: Is It Postmodern?" and learned a lot from it. I think this will prove to be an invaluable resource not only for the project I am doing for Cultural Engagement class, but also for my role as a worship leader.

By the way, I also just added Justin's blog "Between Two Worlds" to my blogroll and will be checking it regularly from now on. I don't know how the guy writes so much - sometimes a many as 10 posts a day! But it's all good stuff.

Weekend Service Review #5 - March 8, 2009

I guess I'm a little late reviewing this past Sunday's service, but here goes anyway:

Instrumental Prelude: Famous One (E) by Chris Tomlin
Welcome & announcements
-Come, Christians, Join To Sing (G) by Christian Bateman -updated arrangement in 6/8
-Adoration (G) by Brenton Brown
Congregational Reading: 1 Peter 2:9-10
-Marvelous Light (A) by Charlie Hall
Video: "Spiritual Influencers"
-Glory In the Highest (C) by Chris Tomlin
Message - Philippians 3:1-11 - Dave
Knowing You (C) by Graham Kendrick
Benediction - Hebrews 13:20-21

We don't regularly do songs as "old" as Knowing You (written in 1993), but the lyrics fit in perfectly as a follow-up and response to the message, since they come right out of the Philippians passage we were in. I should clarify that I have nothing against old songs - in fact, I love many of the hymns that the church has been singing for centuries. Generally, when we do older songs we stick with the classic hymns that have been around for 50+ years (usually in a modern arrangement, of course). Most of the modern worship songs we sing are those written this side of 2000. I've found that many (not all!) of the songs written in the 80s and 90s are a bit outdated and overdone. And as in any generation of the church, there will probably only be a handful of songs from our generation that survive in the church for years to come anyway! I do think, though, that each new generation is called to "sing a new song to the Lord" (Psalm 96:1), and it is important that we be singing songs that bring fresh expressions to our faith and our worship.

Weekend Service Review #4 - March 1, 2009

Today Dave preached a great message from Philippians 2:12-18 on living out our salvation and shining the light of Christ in a dark world. One of the primary application points I took away was to stop complaining and start counting the blessings the Lord has given to me. This was definitely a message I needed to hear.

I've had a request from a few people to include the name of the artist or songwriter of each song listed on these reviews, so here it is:

-Happy Day (B) by Tim Hughes - instrumental prelude
Welcome - Chris
-All Because of Jesus (A) by Steve Fee
-One Way (B) by Joel Houston / Hillsong
(Message intro with skit by Mike Malek)
Message Part 1 - Dave
-Jesus Messiah (A) by Chris Tomlin
Scripture Reading: Psalm 148:1-13
-All Creatures of Our God and King (D) - David Crowder arrangement
Message Part 2 - Dave
-Special: Shine (G) by Matt Redman
Benediction - Ephesians 3:20-21

I was happy with how the special reaffirmed the main points of the passage and really hit home for a lot of people. Below is a video of Matt Redman singing the song at the close of Passion '07 in Atlanta, with lyrics included. Those of you that were there will remember how they raised up those huge banners with the names of cities around the world, along with the names of hundreds of colleges and universities, to symbolize sending out and setting our hearts toward the Passion World Tour that was to follow.