Over the past few months, we've been trying some different team configurations in worship on Sunday mornings, to break us out of the "same ol', same ol' " routine. Today, instead of a full band and singer team, Ruth Pingel lead from the keyboard, with Jon Shipman and I playing acoustic guitars and singing. We did this several weeks ago, and it went well, so we put it on the schedule again for this month. Jon and I try to play different voicings on the guitars to help fill out. We were going to add some hand percussion today, which didn't happen, but overall things went well.
Tony Fajkus lead the meeting today, with Trey Allemang and David Bost. He opened by calling everyone together to have them go back to fellowshiping for the first 10 minutes - really gave us a family feel to start things off with, and an opportunity to say hello to new folks right at the outset.
Here are the songs we did today:
1. We Worship You - in E (Ruth Pingel) This is a great worship chorus Ruth wrote a couple of years ago, that I don't remember if I'd heard before or not. It helped us transition back from fellowship with each other to fellowship with the Lord.
2. Let My Soul Cry Out - in E (Charity Long) This one's by our friend Charity in at Christ's Family Church in Omaha. It's a great upbeat tune, and got things going.
3. Today Is The Day - in Bb (L. Brewster/P. Baloche, Integrity's Praise, CCLI #5200924). Always a favorite of ours, this one worked well today, and it was fun doing it with just the three of us.
4. My Jesus, I Love Thee - in E (William Featherston, Public Domain, CCLI #27817). Ruth started this beautiful hymn out solo, and Jon and I joined in with guitars and harmonies, including an instrumental verse after verse 3 that made space for worshipful reflection. I'm not always big on instrumentals in corporate worship, because sometimes it puts people in 'concert mode,' where they're watching us worship. But this was well-placed today, and I think was an effective tool to help people open their hearts and express their love to the Lord. We came back in vocally on the last line to finish the verse, and sang the 4th verse before flowing into...
5. I Could Sing of Your Love - in E (Martin Smith, EMI Publishing, CCLI #1043199). We just sang the chorus of this one, interspersed with free worship. We went from this right into the bridge of...
6. One Thing - in E (M. Sampson/D. Zschech, Hillsong Publishing, CCLI #4869957). After singing of our love for Jesus, and then His love for us, the bridge of this one, "I will seek your face, call upon your name, Jesus, all I want is you, Jesus" was powerful. We had a couple of exhortations in the middle of this one, about how God was opening the door for us to come to Him, and then sang the chorus - "Lord your name is higher than the heavens," etc., before closing the worship time.
A few people shared about the after-school outreach that they're starting this week. It's really great to hear what's on people's hearts about loving our community. Then my friend and fellow worship leader Paul Shipman brought us a great word titled, "Preserving Love - the Vehicle of God's Purpose." After last Sunday's message from Dave Richard about God opening doors to us, this was a timely encouragement for us to really devote ourselves to the Lord, to know Him, know His word, and to obey His commands so He can have His way in us and through us. Paul was very passionate and personal in sharing his heart and the word of God with us.
I'm excited about next Sunday, when Veeve Holtz is going to be leading us in worship along with a gospel music team she's been working with, which includes some singers from a gospel choir at Truman State she's worked with that we've begun to get to know. I'm expecting it will be an awesome time, and I'll let you know how it goes!
Hope you had a great day with the Lord and His people. Read about what went on all over the place in worship at Fred McKinnon's Sunday Setlist blog carnival on theworshipcarnival.com.
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