This past Sunday I lead worship in the NLC. Well, I really didn’t lead worship this Sunday, the Lord lead and I just kind of helped the people connect with our God. And then it wasn’t even ‘me’ out front doing what we have coined ‘leading worship’. This past Sunday our choir lead with me. Or maybe I should say I lead with them. Talk about a ‘worship leading choir’… Wow, they were really leading this Sunday. Our opening song was a new song for us to sing, I’m Free. I know it’s not a new song and a lot of churches have been singing it for awhile. But it was new for us to use it in our worship services. We will sometimes use our choir to introduce new songs to the congregation. So the song isn’t a ‘stand alone special’. It’s a song that fits into the worship service and most always point to the theme of the day or series. But that’s another blog subject.
Anyway… I moved our choir from the ‘special’ music category to the worship leading side. It’s been a breath of fresh air for me and for our choir also. This is a topic for another blog.
Wow I better get to what I was talking about earlier. The choir started off with I’m Free and then we sang You Never let Go and went straight into When I Think About The Lord. In the middle of that song we had a baptism. During the baptism the piano vamped and then when the baptism was over we back into the song with a key change too. The sermon theme was on sickness and illness and how the Lord can reclaim those times in our life and give us more strength than we could ever imagine and recycle our life back to us in a new way. And that’s exactly what the life story of the guy being baptized was! Talk about powerful.
After the message we sang Trading My Sorrows for a response. Yeah, it’s an oldie but boy did it fit so well into the service.
But now the best part of this whole post is the fact that while we were doing this in the NLC, Eric was up in Cook with a different service order, different music, different size praise team, leading people into the presence of God also. Now I wish I could have been in two places at the same time. To be able to go to both services and see how the Lord works in the different venues would be a wonderful experience. The services had a very different feel to them. They were very different in make up and flow. And it was the Lord leading and guiding and blessing the whole church both in the NLC and in Cook. It wasn’t just the planning and placing of songs, and the readings, the sermon and the producing that created what happened on Sunday. It was placing all of those things in the hands of the Lord and letting Him write the songs, write and live the scriptures that were read, write the sermon, and produced those services that did it. And actually the Lord could have done all those things (as He really did) but if we didn’t allow Him to live and work through us none of that would have happened.
Now to recreate that Sunday after Sunday and not get in the way. That’s what we have to work towards.
As one of our volunteers said about this weekend, “We serve an awesome God and are so blessed to experience His presence in such a mighty way.
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3 comments:
Preach On
John, I had to write and tell you that I just got back from practice were we too are singing Never Let Go and Trading My Sorrows. You are right Trading My Sorrows is an oldie but goodie. This week we are closing with another oldie that I am sure you have done, Still. What a powerful song!
I wanted to leave you with an example of God's perfect timing. Our church has recently gone through a rough patch which resulted in loosing a deer friend and an incredible bass player to another church. After scrabbling for only a couple of weeks to fill the spot, God moved in Adam and his wife from Seattle. Adam comes to us with 15 years of bass experience and a heart to serve. Although I miss my dear friend I am very grateful for Adam. Perfect timing!!!
Josh
Josh,
God is so faithful and His timing is always perfect. Glad to hear about Adam. I'm sure all of us have story after stroy about how God was there when we thought it was not going to happen.
Last year our orchestra played an arrangment of Holy, Holy, Holy for a prelude. It was a great way to start our Easter services off. The beginning started off with a low cello/double bass line of one note for about 14 measures. We didn't have a cello/double bass player and the synth was playing all the upper string parts. Mark, our baritone sax player had just started playing with us that year. He was playing the cue notes for the string bass part in the beginning. It was about 14 measures of one note without any place to take a breath. Mark knows how to do a woodwind technique that is called cyclical breathing. This is where you breath in through your nose while at the same time pushing out air with your cheek muscles. The outcome of this technique is one continuous sound without any stops for breathing. He was the perfect person to play that part. God is amazing, in the way He places the right people in the right places at the right times for His good works.
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