Sunday Setlist 9-27

We started off the morning with "Come, Now is the Time to Worship" (Doerksen) and segued into the chorus of "You're Worthy of my Praise" (Ruis). We had planned to introduce "I Will Boast" by Paul Baloche, but I didn't have full voice due to a sinus infection, so we punted at the last minute.

Some of the ladies on our worship team started their own team a couple years ago to lead worship at our Women's Retreat and they led an "unplugged" rest of the set up to the sermon with:

"When I Speak Your Name" (Clark, Kuehn)

"Breathe" (Barnett)

"Jesus, Lover of my Soul" (Hillsong)

"Peace" (was not familiar with this and don't know the author)

We closed out the service with the full version of "You're Worthy of my Praise".

Check out “Sunday Setlists” blog carnival at: http://www.fredmckinnon.com/myblog/2009/09/27/sunday-setlists-62/

Sunday Setlist 9-20

Today was one of those "fear & trepidation" Sundays because we installed a new DigiDesign Venue digital sound board last week (amazing what this thing can do) and it was our first Sunday to go live. We worked out most of those kinks at a rehearsal last Weds night, but there was still some concern about how it would all go. It actually turned out really well. We still have some things to work through, but there were no major issues that shut down or interrupted the service. Thank you Lord!

Choir opened with "Let the Worshippers Arise"

Segued into "Shout to the Lord"

-Welcome-

"Everlasting God" (L. Brewster arrangement - w/o the guitar shredding)

"Your Name" (Baloche)

"The River" (B. Doerksen) This was our prayer ministry time

-Offering-

"Great is Thy Faithfulness" (trad. arr.)

-Sermon-

Closed with "You are Holy (Prince of Peace)" (Imboden/Rhoten - MWS arr.)

Check out “Sunday Setlists” blog carnival at:
http://www.fredmckinnon.com/myblog/2009/09/21/sunday-setlists-61

Sunday Setlist August 30th

I was excited about today's worship service because we filled the electric guitar "hole" that has been there for several months (we've had a very talented supply guitarist pop in on occasion, but nothing steady). And it was a good thing because we kicked off the service with Lincoln Brewster's arrangement of "Everlasting God" and moved right into Paul Baloche's arrangement of "How Great Thou Art" and then launched into the chorus of "How Great is our God" to finish the set (actually ended back on "How Great Thou Art" acapella).
After a welcome time we sang "Revelation Song" which our people love (who doesn't?) and then moved into our prayer ministry time with Michael & Lisa Gungor's "Filled with Glory". Another favorite song for our people is Tony Guerrero's "How Great You Are" which took us into the sermon. We ended the service with Billy Foote's arrangement of "Sing to the King".
It was a good day in the house of the Lord!

Check out “Sunday Setlists” blog carnival at:
http://www.fredmckinnon.com/myblog/2009/08/30/sunday-setlists-58/

Sunday Setlist 8-16

Sunday morning was another great day of worship for our church.

Our choir opened with a great song called "Come & Worship" and really set the tone for worship. The we opened with an original tune I wrote over a year ago called "To Him Be the Glory" based on Eph. 3 (Now to Him who is able to do more abundantly than we ask or think...). It's a 6/8 tune in E and so we went straight into Tomlin's "Famous One" and followed up with the chorus of "Offering" by Baloche.

After a welcome time we continued with "Mighty to Save" and then segued into "Healer" for our prayer ministry time.

Our pastor has been preaching a series called "Loving God. Discovering Your Spiritual Pathways." and the sermon was on "Loving God through Caring for Others". All week I just kept thinking of an old Maranatha chorus called "Make me a Servant" by Kelly Willard, so we sang that unplugged (piano only) just before the sermon.

We closed the service with "Our God Saves" by Baloche.

It was a great morning of worship and I was pleased with how everything went.

Part of Sunday Setlists. Come share yours.

Memorial Day Weekend

What a great weekend! We left Thursday evening and drove to the in-laws in Burleson, TX. Slept in Friday morning and then decided to go see the 1:00pm showing of "Night at the Museum" #2. It was a good little flick. We ate a late lunch at a hamburger dive (very good homemade patty burgers) with "frings" (fries and rings) and then headed over to the Freestyle Skate Park in Kennedale and watched the boys skateboard and rollerblade. Tyler is getting really good on his skateboard and Austin took the dare and "dropped in" on some serious half pipes with his rollerblades! After a quick trip back to the in-laws to change sweaty clothes we went over to my Moms and hung out with her, then got some yumminess from the Marble Slab.

On Saturday we had a nice breakfast with the in-laws and then celebrated my father-in-law's birthday with a big late lunch and played some badminton in the backyard.

After driving home I had to run up to the church and take care of some last minute preparation for the Sunday service and then came back home to make a quick video for our summer mission trip.

Sunday morning turned out to be a great day. We had special guests "Shiloh" (a Phillips, Craig and Dean-sounding trio from the Dallas area), so we didn't have much to rehearse with the worship team, which made for a very relaxed "pre-service". Our Classic service sang quite a few congregational hymns, we prayed for families who had lost loved ones in the military as well as our active-duty servicemen and women. "Shiloh" then led in some great worship starting with "Favorite Song of All", an awesome rendition of the Nat'l Anthem, "Proud to be an American", and ended with "He Touched Me".
In the contemporary service we started off the service with Michael W. Smith's "A New Hallelujah", prayed for our military and then had our own prayer ministry time with Tommy Walker's "Break Through." Shiloh sang again, but changed the last couple songs to "Days of Elijah" and "I Bowed On my Knees and Cried Holy" with backup from our worship team. We ended the service with a song called "Glory" by Reuben Morgan from Hillsong.
We ate lunch with the guys from Shiloh and after seeing them off relaxed at home. Holly went to spend the night with a friend in Houston, so the boys and I headed off to our favorite boy eatery "Buffalo Wild Wings" and then came home and watched a movie.
So far Memorial Day Monday has been very quiet because the boys are still asleep and Holly isn't home yet!

Sunday Setlist May 17

It was a good day in the Lord's House! Here's the setlist for this morning:

King of Glory (Bates)
Because of Your Love (Baloche)
Mighty to Save (Hillsong)

Choir special "Enough" (Tomlin)

The River (Doerksen)
Came to my Rescue (Hillsong)

My Faith Has Found a Resting Place (Billy Foote arr.)

Sunday Setlist

After last Sunday off for a vacation, it was good to be back with the worship team and our worshipping church!
Here's the set list from our contemporary service:

• Sweeter (Ratcliffe, Houghton)
  
• To Him be the Glory (Ray)
• Offering (Baloche)
• Come, Now is the Time to Worship (Doerksen)
• Filled with Glory (Gungor)
• Amazing Grace (Chains) - (Newton, arr. Tomlin)
  
• Friend of God (Houghton, Gungor)

We were missing electric guitar and had a fill-in bassist (my son!), but it sounded really good from my vantage point.

Lessons in Worship Ministry Leadership Part 1

I've learned a few hard lessons about worship teams in my short time as a worship pastor and the last couple of weeks have brought those lessons back into focus.

Why did I ever think it was okay to allow just anyone who asked to join the worship team? I'll tell you why. Because I have been (still am to some degree) the consummate people-pleaser. In the past someone would come to me after a worship service and either ask how to get on the worship team, or ask if they could come to rehearsal and I, in order not to hurt their feelings would politely agree to let them come aboard. I even agreed on the spur of the moment one Sunday morning before the services to let someone "fill in" who then became a permanent fixture; no audition, no application, nothing. I didn't even know if they could sing. I assumed they could sing (and they could), and I assumed their character was consistent with a Christ-follower (which it was, for the most part).

I think another reason we think it's okay, is because we are desperate for band members and vocalists and we'll take the first person that says they play guitar or sang in all-state choir in high school for four years.

One scripture paraphrase from Proverbs says "Sometimes it takes a painful experience to make us change our ways." Ouch. I learned and have changed my ways.

I have recently had two different people approach me about joining the worship team vocals. I no longer have difficulty saying "We have an application/audition process that you'll need to go through." It's really not that hard to say. And it gives you an out to say later "I don't think we're a good fit for your giftings." After doing a little research on the first "applicant", I discovered that they were living with someone who was not their spouse. To be honest, I find it difficult to believe that someone can claim to be a Christ-follower and hold to the belief that there's nothing wrong with living together out of wedlock (that's what they used to call it back in the day). But these are the days we're living in folks. An epidemic of biblically illiterate "believers".

Will it be difficult to tell this applicant the truth of the matter? That I have a calling and responsibility to protect the integrity of our platform with the tenacity of a bulldog? Yes, but I have learned that I would rather suffer for a moment, than regret my people-pleasing, moment-of-weakness decision for years.

The other applicant was invited to rehearsal by a current vocalist and when I talked with her about becoming a part of the team, I didn't hesitate to tell her that living "above reproach" was one of our core values for becoming a "platform personality." You're up there for the world to see and you have to ask yourself, "Is there anyone who might attend our service who, upon seeing me on the platform, could mutter under their breath 'What in the world are they doing up there? That's not right!'"

And she got that. I explained that it wasn't about anyone being "perfect", but rather living a life "so as to preclude any possibility of criticism." She agreed. And she has a beautiful voice to boot!

Six weeks into the new year

Things have settled down considerably here at the beginning of '09 especially after the last couple of months of '08. Since I didn't blog much then, I'll give a brief summary.

On the homefront, the last few months of the year were filled with two boys practicing and playing football in addition to their school and church activities. Tyler was playing for a youth team in Magnolia and most of his games were in Magnolia. Austin was playing for a homeschool team that practiced in Conroe (45 min drive) 3 times a week and played ALL OVER the Houston area once a week.

On the church front, I committed our band to playing the Christmas music for our choir. Which meant we had to learn 9 songs in just about 6-7 weeks. I was also overseeing the planning for our Christmas outreach called "Miracle on 6th Street" (which included 8 scenes of the life of Christ, a hayride, food/drinks, the choir music and a children's play area). We also had a special month-long emphasis called the November Worship Experience. Which meant that I went from planning one church service to planning two services. We also changed from having 3 services (1 traditional and 2 contemporary) to having 2 services (1 traditional, 1 contemporary) and this caused some problems with our Sunday School classes. Some people who had been in a contemporary service and then a late Sunday School, now were forced to attend a traditional service. We had to do some rearranging of classes, but we got it done. All of these things converged to create the "perfect storm" for stress and I felt it. By the time our "Miracle on 6th Street" event was over the first weekend of December, I was DONE!
I took off 5 days and went to Ruidoso, NM with a couple of buddies to unwind. And then because of the way Christmas and New Years fell, the church office was closed for essentially two weeks. And I stayed at home and did NOTHING. It was glorious.

So, here we are with a new year and it has been pretty quiet, but things are about to heat up again for Easter. We just started our Spring Discipleship semester (in most places it would be the "Winter" semester, but I just can't bring myself to call it that) and we have 5 courses that our people can choose from:
The Truth Project, DivorceCare, Deep Thoughts, Catholic Connection and a Ladies Bible Study called "Lord, I Want to Know You".
This Sunday we have the African Children's Choir singing in both services. It should be exciting.