Sunday Setlist 1-11-09
This is part of Sunday setlist over at FredMcKinnon.com
Yay! We were finally back into our regular building this week – our beautiful Little White Church on the Hill! It was so nice to be back to a service without major time constraints, and back to using all of our own equipment again… although I did enjoy having a bigger sound board!
We had a pretty basic set today, including one song that the team would really like to put to rest for a bit… we just did it so many times in a row (because it was what the church needed to hear & sing) that the team is a bit burnt out on it.
Here is our set for today:
Jesus Messiah – Chris lead
O Worship The King
Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
Lead Me To The Cross – I lead
~ children’s message on Giving – part 2
Trading My Sorrows – slightly shortened (Thankfully!)
~ Message on Leaving The Old Behind
Doxology
Overall it went well. The mail issue that we had was that part of the team missed the first 3 songs during practice, so there were some issues during the service. Chris was calling out reminders of where we were at… what chords they needed to play, etc. The first few rows of the congregation were able to hear him, but I don’t think it carried past the 4th row… at least I hope it didn’t!
Other than the chord changes and a couple of false starts it went well! I think I may have threw them when I added an impromptu prayer in the middle too – it wasn’t planned, and after the other issues I think it threw them. Oops!
Jesus Messiah went much better than last week – I could actually hear people singing along! I think having the words up on the screen instead of printed out on paper was part of the difference, although Chris’s admonition to listen to Christian music more may have helped too, who knows.
The biggest question I’m walking away with is on Lead Me To The Cross… the bridge just seems a little hard for a congregation to follow. I’m not sure if there is a way to either change it or if most leaders skip it completely, or if their congregations are able to follow without an issue. Is it just one of those repetition things? It’s still a very new song, so I guess I’m adopting a wait & see attitude on it for now.
So, that was our Service today. Due to the flooding we weren’t sure where we would be having our service, but it all worked out. Had we been back at Peace Lutheran, we would have cut Come Thou Fount, and possibly shortened Trading My Sorrows even more, along with Pastor Chris’s message.
Thankfully I dropped some things by the church yesterday and discovered that the propane tank was empty – it could have been a very cold service this morning! We were able to get the tank refilled yesterday and the heat was working marvelously again today. The heat is back on, waters have mostly receded and the snow is almost completely gone now, so hopefully life will get back to normal for a while.
Have a great week!
13 comments
Jennifer,
Thanks for sharing, and being part of Sunday setlists … and for spreading the word.
I know what you mean about that Bridge on “Lead Me to the Cross” – in cases like that, always feel the liberty to just cut that part of the song!
Glad you are back in the bldg!
For the Kingdom,
Fred McKinnon
http://www.fredmckinnon.com
http://www.theworshipcommunity.com
Jennifer,
Also – forgot to mention it, but if you haven’t heard about it already, hope you’ll consider taking part in our group study of “Pure Praise” – a heartfelt devotion on worship by Dwayne Moore. Each day, we’ll be discussing that day’s devotion on TheWorshipCommunity.Com. You can purchase and download the book from the publisher at any time and jump in. Just go to the forums for more info:
http://www.theworshipcommunity.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=64
I finally scrolled all the way down to the bottom of the blog. For a couple of weeks I’ve tried to read your setlist post and just thought there was something wrong with your page…
We’re loving Jesus, Messiah at the moment and I’m wanting to introduce the funky new Come Thou Fount this year.
Thanks for posting!
Hi Jennifer,
I love Lead me to the Cross and I do know what you mean about the bridge. We simplify the bridge a bit by singing line 2 & 3 exactly like line 1. We don’t change the melody line until line 4 going back into chorus. This seems to make it a little easier to follow
I love the updated Come Thou Fount – it’s the one we use every time. I’m trying to get more updated hymns into our line-up, but I’m also trying to stick to my rule of not more than 2 new songs each month. When you have a list of new things you want to introduce, that can cause a bit of impatience!
Thanks for the tip! We’ve only done Lead Me To The Cross twice now – the first time was during a communion service more as background music, so the bridge wasn’t an issue. Sunday I had everyone else on the team not sing, just because I wanted to make sure it was clear… it’s a struggle some days figuring out how to make a song work isn’t it!
Jesus Messiah is big at our church right now. It had to grow on me first, but great song.
re Lead Me To The Cross – some of this sort of thing is part of what the congregation are used to. We do a lot of Hillsong and other contemporary music, so we’d all struggle with hymns. The bridge of LMTTC actually worked better than the rest of the song when we first introduced it, because of the repetition. Different horses for different courses and all that
God bless you Jennifer
David,
We don’t do hymns too often either (although I love them too!), but our congregation is… more mature. I’m planning to do more Hillsong United this year (we already do some Newsboys, Delirious?, Tomlin, etc) so I think they will get it figured out. I hope so!
Thanks for the input…
Honestly I was the same way. It is one of those songs that NEEDS to be led by a guy, and fortunately we have a great guy to lead it! I now find that it’s bouncing around in my head, so that’s a good thing.
Fred,
Thanks for the reminder – I’m already signed up, but I’m waiting for the book to arrive – hopefully it will get here tomorrow. I did download the first chapter though, so I guess I’d better get to reading.
Have a good week.
First of all floods, snow, and cold make my microphone problems seem trivial. Glad to hear things are getting back to normal for you.
We have begun adding some of the newer hymn renditions to our repertoire. I had two moms come up one Sunday and to say thanks. They had stopped coming with their family for a while because they were afraid their kids wouldn’t learn any of the great hymns of faith that had been such a part of their own lives growing up.
Russel,
This is something that I struggle with too – feeling that my kids will miss out on the rich theology of those great hymns! While our congregation is mostly older, the music we use in worship is not. I am blessed to have a pastor that embraces modern music, but there are times that I long to pull out a hymnal! For now I am earnestly looking for modern renditions of hymns so that all of us can still be blessed by the theology that is found there, but not be bogged down by the (occasionally) dirge-like feeling that their melody lines bring.
Thanks for the comment!
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