i am an offering

Yesterday was a bittersweet day at Living Word.  We had a packed service and people we’re singing out, which was great, but the service was mixed with some very hard news.

Our Pastor and his wife our going through an incredibly difficult situation right now and I would love so much for you to lift them up in prayer.

Our service looked like this:

• Pre call to worship: Come, Christians, Join to Sing - Sovereign Grace arrangement.
• Call to Worship from Psalm 46 - reminding us of God’s constant strength in times of trouble.
• In Christ Alone - Getty/Townend
• Lord Most High - Harris/Sadler
• Scripture Readings
• Once Again - Redman
• Jesus, Thank You - Sovereign Grace Music
• This list is a part of the Fred McKinnon’s Sunday Setlists community.

We were blessed with a sermon from our sister church’s intern pastor - reminding us as we continue through the book of Romans to look at our own sin before juding others.

This will be a busy week here - and I will be back in full force (finally!).  Here’s the schedule for the week:

• Tomorrow: Some general news and announcements.  Lots of things happening in my life.
• Wednesday: Blog Action Day 2008 - we’ll be discussing poverty from a Christian perspective.
• Thursday: Updates on our process of building worship teams at Living Word.
• Friday: Not sure yet - leave a comment if you’d like to hear about or discuss anything specific.

I miss blogging and being involved in the worship community - so, here we go again!

As always, another great day at Living Word.  And a fantastic day of rest with the family.  I’ve been attempting to set aside Sundays as a complete day of rest from several things (computer, housework, yardwork).  Of course it has to start after the service, but even to have the majority of the day be restful is extremely helpful.  It’s given benefits already.

Here’s what the service looked like yesterday:

Pre-service gathering song: Let Your Kingdom Come - Sovereign Grace Music.  More on this song in a minute.

Blessed be the Name of the Lord (Strong Tower) - Love this song.  It’s such a great reminder of who God is and so good to repeat these thoughts as we worship.  And, several people started the clapping in the congregation - thank God for worship leaders who don’t even know they’re worship leaders!

Let Your Kingdom Come - we officially taught the song here.  I love this song as it talks about making our desires His desires and making His “glorious cause” our own.  In the midst of our new building project I think this song will play a pivotal role in reminding people that we are about building God’s kingdom, not just having a place to come to church.

I usually like to use a new song as a pre-service song and then do it again during the service after people have it in there heads a bit.  How I taught it was by singing a phrase and then having the congregation repeat the phrase.  We did the whole verse, and one spot in the chorus that has a note that sort of comes out of nowhere.  It seemed like the congregation grasped this song very quickly and it seems like teaching them a new song this way seems to work really well.  Does anyone else have expereince with this?  If you were at Living Word yesterday, did it work for you to learn the song this way, or was it distracting?

Closing song - In Christ Alone - Unfortunately, the words to this song were not right on the screen.  The words we had up were from Brian Litrell’s “In Christ Alone” (which is a great song - just not the one we needed!)  This is a good reminder that we always need to double and triple check things and not rely on the song title alone to enter a song.  Many people knew the first verse and we’re singing along with me as I tried to figure out what to do.  I just simply stopped the music and read the words to the fourth verse, which directly applied to the message that had just been given.  A few people told me how disappointed they were that we didn’t get to actually sing the song.  We’ll do it again soon.

The message was very convicting and encouraging at the same time.  We learned about subtle ways that we steal and how important it is not only to tell the truth about our neighbor but to “build their reputation” as well, as Luther mentioned in his explanation of this commandment.  It was a great morning.

(This post is a part of the Sunday Setlist community at Fred McKinnon’s website.)