WEEKEND REVIEW #20 - AUGUST 15, 2010

Yesterday in church we used a video concept that I have wanted to utilize / create for some time: a scripture video with the text creatively displayed over background images and narrated aloud. I initially got this idea from the opening video of WorshipGod 08, and thought it was a great way to use scripture and video together.

The scripture we used was Psalm 57:7-10 and Psalm 100:1-5. We placed the video immediately after the bridge of How Great Is Your Faithfulness, had the piano continue playing softly underneath, and then went back into the chorus twice to end the song. The theme of these two particular Psalms of responding in song to God's love and faithfulness fit well with the song, and provided a creative venue to portray the scripture.

The service shaped up like this:

Instrumental Prelude: Come Christians Join To Sing (G)
Welcome & Announcements - Allison
One Hit Wonders song intro - David
-I'll Be There For You (G)
Call to Worship - Psalm 33:1-5
-Unchanging (G)
Reflection on God's faithfulness and unchanging nature
-How Great Is Your Faithfulness (A) w/ scripture video
-Glory To God Forever (A)
Message: 2 John - Matt Myers
Offering
-How Great Is the Love (Bb)
Closing prayer

Below is the scripture video we used.

WEEKEND REVIEW #19 - MAY 23, 2010

Yesterday we had a guest speaker at our church, Justin Laib, who is a friend of Dave's. Justin spoke on learning to rest in God from Matthew 11:28-30, both in the sense of observing a weekly Sabbath, and also in the sense of laying our burdens down and trusting God to carry them. It's always a mixed bag when planning a service with a guest speaker, because every speaker has their own style. But Justin did a great job in our context.

While planning the songs, I was looking through our repertoire and couldn't find a single song that touched on the theme of rest. That's when I remembered a song I heard about a year ago called "My Soul Finds Rest (Psalm 62)" written by Aaron Keyes and Stuart Townend. The song fit the theme well, and is also one I would like to sing again in the future at our church because of its deep theological content and singable melody. The only slightly funky aspect of the song is that the verses are in 5/4 and the chorus is in 3/4 - but that just makes it all the more fun to play!

Here's how the service shaped up:

Instrumental Prelude: Unchanging (G)
Welcome & Announcements - Elissa
Call to Worship-Responsive Reading: Psalm 100
-How Great Thou Art (B)
Time of silence for confession of sin / prayer
-Jesus Messiah (A)
-Glory To God Forever (A)
-We Fall Down (D->E) - We also had Isaiah 6:1-3 read in the middle of this song just before we hit the key change
Message: "I Can't Breathe" - Justin
Offering
-My Soul Finds Rest-Psalm 62 (C)
Benediction: Ephesians 3:20-21

WEEKEND REVIEW #18: EASTER!

Easter Sunday was one giant celebration as we sang and shouted about the one thing worth getting excited about: the fact that Jesus has beaten death and is alive!

Here's what we did:

Instrumental Prelude: Happy Day (C)
-Christ the Lord is Risen Today (C) - procession of the Christ candle
Welcome / Passing of the Peace ("He is risen ... He is risen indeed!") - Dave
-God Is Alive (B)
-You Have Saved Us (A)
Message: 1 Corinthians 15:12-19 - Dave
Offering / kids hand out jelly beans
-Jesus Messiah (A)
Spirit promo video & series preview - Dave
-Amazing Grace / My Chains Are Gone (F)
Benediction - Scott
"Now may the risen and reigning Christ, who has broken every chain and set you free, shine brightly in your lives and give you strength through His Holy Spirit to live for Him this day. Amen."

Bringing in the lit candle during the first song tied in what we did on Good Friday and illustrated Christ's resurrection in a powerful way.

We decided to give the children a part in the service by having them hand out a jelly bean craft they had made, immediately after the offering was collected. We've found it's always a win for us when we involve the kids in the service. We also purposely began and ended the service with hymns that we new most everyone would be familiar with - which I think was also a plus for all the visitors that were present. Overall, it was a great Sunday.

WEEKEND REVIEW #17: GOOD FRIDAY

Another Easter has come and gone ... it is finished ... He is risen! And now I can exhale, breathe a sigh of relief, and praise God for all He did in and through our Holy Week services this year. For our Good Friday service this year, we did a Tenebrae service that has been practiced by the church for centuries. Tenebrae means "darkness" or "shadows", and it consists of several readings from the gospels that lead up to the death of Christ on the cross. After each reading, there is a congregational response, and then a candle is extinguished. The responses we used consisted of songs, congregational readings, and taking communion. After each candle is extinguished, the lighting in the room gets progressively darker until the last candle is blown out, and then the room is complete darkness. After sitting in silence and darkness for a minute or two, the people are dismissed in silence. We used a simplified band (acoustic guitar, piano, bass, and two vocalists), and had two readers (Karah and Mike) who alternated readings back and forth. Here's what our service looked like:

Piano Prelude
Greeting: Leader: "The light has come into the world, and the world loved darkness rather than light."
Congregation: “God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”
Leader: “Lift up your hearts.”
Congregation: “We lift them up to the Lord.”
Here I Am To Worship (E)
Tenebrae Introduction / Explanation (Dave)
Reading 1: Luke 22:1-6 (Karah)
Response: Jesus Paid It All - w/o bridge (B)
Reading 2: Mark 14:12-25 (Mike)
Response: Communion
Reading 3: Mark 14:43-49 (Karah)
Response: Nothing But the Blood (D)
Reading 4: Mark 14:50, 66-72 (Mike)
Response: Reader: "You also were with that Nazarene Jesus."
Congregation: "I never knew Him."
Reading 5: Matthew 27:11-18, 21-26 (Karah)
Response: By His Wounds (G)
Reading 6: Matthew 27:27-37 (Mike)
Response: How Deep the Father's Love For Us (E)
Reading 7: Mark 15:33-34, 37-39 (Karah)
Response: Darkness and leave in silence

It was a powerful service where we remembered the death of Christ on the cross and the anguish He experienced on the cross. Mike and Karah did outstanding with the readings, as did our musicians (Jim, Elissa, and Karen) - I am so blessed to work with a great team of creative, artistic, talented, people!

Easter Sunday review coming next...

WEEKEND REVIEW #16 - FEBRUARY 21, 2010

This past Sunday we mixed it up a little with our band members - Brion Kendzora, one of our worship leaders and guitarists, played drums for the first time. He did a great job! And one of our high school students, Kevin Kerr, played electric guitar. Kevin has been developing his guitar skills over the past year or so, and is a very skilled musician - he also did a great job. I love seeing how these guys have been improving and developing their skills as musicians and as worship leaders!

Here's what we did:

Instrumental Prelude: Unchanging (G)
-Welcome/Announcements
Recite Apostle's Creed
-Everlasting God (A)
-You Have Saved Us (A) - new Baloche song - we taught this one the week previous, and when we did it this past Sunday, I noticed our congregation picked it up and ran with it - people actually clapped through the whole song too!
-From the Inside Out (C) - I connected this song with our theme from the previous week of transformation from the inside out (Romans 12:2). We also created space in the middle of the song for people to reflect and pray for continued transformation in their lives.
Message - Romans 12:3-8 - Dave
Serving Video (see below)

Offering
-Glory To God Forever (A) - this song has already become a staple in our worship repertoire and one that our congregation loves to sing out on. We started it with the bridge ("Take my life and let it be ...") to connect to the theme of using our unique gifts to serve God.
Benediction: Prayer from Ignatius - "Teach us, good Lord, to serve You as You deserve; to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek for rest; to labor and not to ask for any reward, except that of knowing that we do Your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

WEEKEND REVIEW #15 - JANUARY 24, 2010

Yesterday we celebrated communion together as a church. We typically do this once a month, and our "normal" way of doing it is to have one of our pastors or elders transition into and explain the significance of communion, tie it into that day's message, give thanks for the bread, have the ushers distribute the bread, and each person holds onto it until everyone is served, and then we take it together. Then we do the same with the juice. This is how we did it yesterday, and it is always a significant part of our services when we spend time confessing our sins to the Lord and giving thanks for Christ's death on the cross. We also vary up the way we serve communion from time to time, because we believe each method can be instructive in different ways, and it also keeps communion from becoming too routine. The other ways we have celebrated it include: having everyone come forward and serve each other, having all of our pastors and elders at the front serving the congregation, or giving an extended period of time for confession of sin and where people can come up when they are ready and receive the elements. I would be interested to hear how communion is administered at your church, and if you have tried anything different from the "norm" that has worked well. Feel free to leave a comment.

Anyway, here's what the services looked like:

Instrumental Prelude: Here I Am To Worship (E)
Announcements
-Jesus Saves (B)
-Revelation Song (F)
Message: "Preparing For the Inevitable" - Pastor Dave
-Soon (D) - great song from Brooke Fraser and Hillsong that tied in with our series on end times
Transition to communion - Dave
Instrumental: Give Us Clean Hands (G) - during passing of bread
Beautiful Jesus (A) - during passing of juice
Closing Prayer & Dismissal

What I Learned at Passion 2010

I had the opportunity to attend Passion 2010 in Atlanta this past week, and was blown away with how God worked. Here's a list of my takeaways and some things God did in my own life:

-Words cannot describe the power of standing with 22,000 passionate worshippers and lifting up the name and fame of Jesus. This is still the biggest takeaway for me, and was so refreshing to me. This is something I know I need regularly: to be in environments where I can participate actively in worship and not be the person up front leading worship.

-I was reminded by John Piper’s message that God is most passionate for his own glory. Why? Not because he is an egomaniac, but because he knows that as humans, we can get no greater pleasure than to bring Him glory and to make His Son Jesus famous.

-The Do Something Now component of Passion 2010 was breathtaking and beautiful. $1,393,077.42 was given to twelve different global causes. Wait let’s read that again because I think you missed it … ONE MILLION, THREE-HUNDRED NINETY-THREE THOUSAND, SEVENTY-SEVEN DOLLARS AND FORTY-TWO CENTS was given to fund causes such as underground seminary training for church leaders in the middle east, build wells for villages in Guatemala, provide small business loans for women in Haiti, package meals through Feed My Starving Children, build border outposts in Nepal to intercept sex trafficking victims, etc!!! What kind of college students give money like that? Only those who have been ruined by the goodness of God and who believe that all we have and all we are belong to Him. When Louie announced these causes and the amount that had been given, I was literally moved to tears and pictured people who have never had clean water to drink having a well built in their village that will provide clean water for a lifetime.

-When I compare Passion 2010 to previous Passion conferences I have attended, the most obvious difference for me was that I volunteered this time around, instead of attending as a college student. But I noticed another, more internal, difference: there has been a shift in my perspective of all the well-known worship leaders who lead at Passion. While Passion has always been about the fame and renown of Jesus Christ, they have also always partnered with song/worship leaders that are writing the songs that are being sung by the church worldwide. At past Passion events, I really believe that in my heart I was more excited about all the names that were going to be there than I was about the greatest Name of all: Jesus Christ. At Passion 2010, God genuinely changed my attitude on this and caused me to do a 180. My expectation and anticipation was centered on how God was going to work more than on hearing Chris Tomlin’s newest big song. This has truly been an evidence of God’s grace in my life.

God, thank You for allowing me to attend Passion 2010 and be gripped by Your greatness. I pray You would continue to live in me, and that by the power of Your Holy Spirit I would live a life that magnifies Your glory, in everything I do. In Jesus' Mighty Name, Amen.