I had the opportunity to lead worship at my church’s morning gatherings yesterday. I also led at our high school group last night but talking about all of those would be too long for even me to read. Here’s a look at the setlist:
- For All You’ve Done (Hillsong)
- Responsive Reading (I put this together myself, weaving several different sources in)
- Jesus Paid it All (arrangement by Stanfill)
- Poem Reading and Scripture Reading
- Offering: At the Cross (the hymn, Rose and I sang this by ourselves, based off of this arrangement)
- Glorious Day (Bleecker arrangment)
- Amazing Grace (traditional hymn)
- The Wonderful Cross (Tomlin/Redman arrangement)
In our later morning gathering we switched out a few of the songs and did Jesus Saves (Tim Hughes), Beautiful the Blood (Steve Fee), and Grace Like Rain (Todd Agnew).
A couple quick thoughts on the morning:
- Doing this many readings was a bit abnormal for my church. I’d love to hear from those who were there how it came across for you. And I mean that, if you didn’t like it, you won’t hurt my feelings. I always prefer feedback even if it isn’t positive.
- Putting this post together made me realize how many hymns we sang. Most of them we did arrangements of, some of which kept the traditional melody totally intact, others did not. I had a kind older man comment to me that he didn’t appreciate the new arrangements.
- We do those arrangements to allow for the whole band to play, create more energy, to try and mix a bit of the old with new musical forms. We never take lightly doing a song that changes the way it is sung. I always consider a song’s words more important than the music as it was originally written though.
- The more I’m involved in worship ministry, the more I consider preparation to be the biggest key to “success” for church worship bands. I’m beyond grateful to serve at a church where volunteers continually pour themselves into preparing well for a weekend.
- If I had one goal for the morning, it was that the meaning of Palm Sunday within Holy Week would come through to those near and far from God.
