i am an offering

Sunday Recap

Yesterday was a great day - full of family times, which I really loved.  It was also a good, albeit, slightly stressful day at Living Word.

Our service starts at 9:20.  I had the day off from leading worship yesterday but of course, like most of you out there, I was still keeping an eye out for anything that might be amiss.  Well, 9:20 comes and I realize that no one is sitting at the projection computer.  I quick find Pastor Wade and ask if the person who usually sends the file for projection had sent it or if she was coming.  Minimal panic ensues.  When I say minimal, though, I really mean it - it was quite amazing how much peace I ended up feeling, even knowing that we might not have any words for the screen.

So, after a phone call and a few minutes we realize we have the words on Pastor’s laptop, but no jump drive.  He makes a transition into announcements and calmy asks if anyone has a jump drive.  Someone does and we’re able to get up and running with all of the lyrics with a few, but not many hiccups.  The worship service goes well and God was glorified.  However, He could be glorified even more with a little bit better planning and communication.  Moral of the story - always, ALWAYS have many people in the communication loop when you’re all at different locations.  I’m really looking forward to being in our building early next year so some of these problems will hopefully go away - but at the same time, we need to work harder to make them go away now, so that we don’t face the same problems in the building.

But God was good, and blessed us anyway with great music and great teaching on “You shall not Murder.”  We sang:

• We are Called to Be God’s People
• Bless That Wonderful Name
• Knowing You
• Thou Art Worthy,  CCLI  14789
• The Wonder of it All

And Pastor Wade led us in two choruses of “I Have Decided” after hearing the pianist playing it as a music bed under the prayer time.

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As usual - a great day at Living Word yesterday.

We sang:

• Rise Up O Church of God
• Blessed Be Your Name (Redman)
• How Great is Our God (Tomlin)
• Speak O Lord (Townend / Getty)
• We Are Called to Be God’s People

We had a bit of a glitch with the final hymn - but those things happen.  I was so encouraged by several things yesterday:

• The lady battling cancer continues to raise her hands in worship with a joyous smile on her face.
• A visiting friend of a young teenager in our congregation closes her eyes in worship and I could see her mind exalting Jesus Christ through it.
• A young man raises his hands to God during the Lord’s Prayer (I had to have my eyes open because I was holding my squirmy daughter )
• Finding out that two new regular visitors sing, play the bass and play the guitar

Wade preached a fantastic sermon on the 4th commandment - very convicting and encouraging.  We are able to bring our daughter to the zoo and thouroughly enjoy watching her “ooh” and “oh” and scream in delight at giraffes, squirrel monkeys and many other animals.  Ended the day with a movie with my wife and got to bed slightly early.  A great Sunday.

The holiday weekend is over and I’m back to blogging!  I would have blogged Sunday, but I actually listened to the sermon that day so I decided not to (more in that in a bit)!

Songs we did:

• God of Wonders (Byrd / Hindalong)
• Hosanna (Baloche / Brown)
• O Worship the King
• Cleanse Me

I was so thankful for a supportive pastor on Sunday who took me aside before the service and prayed for me.  We had been going through a slightly difficult situation over the weekend and I was so thankful he showed his support by praying that I would be able to lead worship well.  I was also so blessed by watching a woman who has been battling cancer raising her hands in worship.  I almost had to stop singing.

Pastor Wade gave a great message on the 3rd commandment (remembering the Sabbath (meaning - stop) day and keeping it holy).  It was a good reminder and caused our family to just stop and rest that day and man was it ever a restful day!

A great day at Living Word.

It was good to be at God’s house and worship after a week away.  It always feels good when you feel like you’ve “come home” to church as well!  Songs from yesterday provided by some great volunteers:

• We Trust in the Name of the Lord our God
• Be Lifted High
• Your Name
• Blessed be the Name (although, this one didn’t quite work out, more in a second)

As I was proofing the service before it was put into EasyWorship and saw “Blessed be the Name” I thought to myself, “Hmm…I don’t recognize that song.  Great!  Must be a new one that we’ll learn.”

As we came to that song and the worship leaders started it I could tell something was wrong.  The words weren’t matching what the leader was singing and the congregation wasn’t singing along.  Then the music stops.  The right words are searched for and everyone realizes that the wrong song was put into EasyWorship.  We had a good chuckle and kept going.  Although our church is very forgiving with stuff like that, it was still a bit of an awkward moment.  Coming this week I’d like to look at what happens when certain things don’t quite work out the way you expected them to.

• What Happens When…The Wrong Song is on the Screen and the Projection Volunteer can’t Find the Right One?
• What Happens When…Your Guitar is So Badly Out of Tune You Have to Stop the Music?
• What Happens When…The Music Track for Special Music Won’t Play?
• No Matter What The Sound Tech Does a Microphone Keeps Feedbacking?

See you the rest of the week!

I thoroughly enjoyed our worship time yesterday. I had the day off from leading worship and it was great to just be led again. It brought joy to my heart to do Days of Elijah, not only because I love that song, but because the people who led it are elderly saints in our church and usually pick older music. It was so cool to have them do that song! The boom-chick arrangement was slightly humorous, but overall the song was led very well and fit the topic of the message perfectly. The song list was as follows:

• Victory in Jesus
• Thy Word
• Great is the Lord (Smith)
• Days of Elijah
• Take Time to Be Holy (closing song)

We were in the nursery yesterday, so I was only able to listen to a few minutes of the sermon before leaving, but some thoughts really hit home. Pastor Wade said, “God is not a priority. He’s everything. Jesus is either Lord of all or He is not Lord at all.” Wow. I’m looking forward to listening to the rest of the message.

We also had a very enjoyable Father’s Day with supper at Texas Roadhouse - yum! - and I’m finally going to be able to get a perennial bed done in my yard that’s been on the back burner for two years because I haven’t wanted to dig through a foot of rock to get it out of the yard. Thankfully, due to offering free rock at a garage sale and my neighbor needing rock for underneath a shed he was building, we were able to clear the entire space that I’ve been wanting to redo. Now to just find a truck I can use to go pick up a whole bunch of dirt.