i am an offering

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.)

Yesterday’s service was great.  Especially the message.  Man was it hard-hitting and necessarily so.  I love how our pastor will constantly challenge men in the church and cause us to think hard and fast about what we’re really doing to lead our families.

Some highlights for me were that “some things you just can’t do in the recliner.  You have to get up, turn off the TV and do them.”  I’m not much of a recliner and TV sort of guy, but the concept applies to whatever area of life has become “your lazy” area if you will.  Pastor Wade also gave us the challenge that if we have problems with daydreaming/fantasizing we should focus that energy on how to make our marriage better and how to honor our wives and families more instead.  What a great concept!

We are also held accountable for making sure we talk to our daughters about modesty.  Men, we understand how these things work - we were (and maybe are) all there at one point or another.  We need to teach our daughters especially how their dress affects other men.  Great challenges yesterday.

The songlist (posted in collaboration with other worship leaders at Fred McKinnon’s Sunday Setlists)

• Wonderful Grace of Jesus - gathering song.  Being a fan of Southern Gospel music and in particular The Cathedral Quartet, I’ve always loved this song.  It was a great way to remind us of what God has done for us in Jesus.  The only problem with this song is that it can get a bit too high at some points for your average singer.
• The Name of The Lord (Strong Tower) - hadn’t sung this for awhile so it was fun to sing it again.  The congregation seemed to lack a little energy and I was wishing so much that we had some hand-clapping or some percussion involved on this one.  I suppose I could have started the hand-clapping.  Whoops.  Leading worship from the congregation didn’t work on that one from me this week!  Guilty!
• When I look into Your Holiness - I had only sung this song a couple times but for some reason the words really struck me yesterday and drew me into worship.  Such a simple song, but so effective.  “When all things that surround become shadows in the light of You - I worship You!”  What can help us to make the things that surround become shadows so that His light shines brighter in our lives?
• Oh the Glory of Your Presence - I had never heard this song before.  I’m not sure if it was because my heart was already very open to worship or if the song was just well-written, but I was able to really enjoy worshiping through this song as well.
• ‘Tis so Sweet to Trust in Jesus - closing hymn.  Another classic.  However, this one also gets a little high.  I love the fact that our pastor also knows how to lead worship, though, because he had us repeat the chorus after his closing thoughts - but he brought the song a few keys down.  Nice work!

We also had the experience of hearing from my friend Tara who shared about her time as a missionary in Sudan.  It’s exciting to hear the work that God is doing throug her.

The rest of the day was filled with eating with friends and family and watching lots of olympics.  And boy am I glad we stayed up to watch the men’s swimming relay race.  What a race! Our men certainly represented our country well - both in how they swam and how they handled the interview afterward.

Yesterday was week #2 of guest teachers at Living Word.  We were blessed to have a message from a guy that I actually counseled at camp once who’s now helping with the youth at our church.  He’s grown a lot and it’s been really amazing to see.  He shared from Hebrews 10, continuing where I left off last week. There are five great encouragements in Hebrews 10 that I’d definitely encourage you to check out.  We sang:

• Soon and Very Soon (traditional hymn)
• Beautiful One (Tim Hughes)
• Before the Throne of God Above (hymn reworked by Vikki Cook)
• Victory in Jesus (hymn)
• These songs are part of the Sunday Setlists post from Fred McKinnon.

Yesterday was also a complete sabbath from any computer time from me and boy, I didn’t know how much I needed that!  Lately, God has been opening my eyes to some ways I need to remanage my time and it’s already beginning to pay big dividends.  More on that to come.  Enjoy your week!

Yesterday at Living Word was a bit different than usual.  Our pastor is on a much needed vacation, so I filled in with the teaching yesterday while the other two deacons helped to lead the service.  Will, Kelli and Robin did a fantastic job of leading worship, bringing back a few of my favorite hymns that I hadn’t sung for a while.  Songs for the morning:

• Praise to the Lord the Almighty (hymn)
• Blessed Assurance (hymn)
• Softly and Tenderly (hymn)
• Jesus, Thank You (Sovereign Grace)

One of the best parts of the day for me was a testimony from Hans, one of our youth who had just been to what’s called FLY BootCamp (Free Lutheran Youth Boot Camp), an intense time of training and encouragement for youth from the Free Lutheran Church around the country.  This year they focused on evangelism with some hands on training.  I must admit, when it comes to evangelism - especially on the street, everyday, talk to whoever you meet evangelism, I fall way short.  Hans challenged all of the adults in the congregation to be examples for the youth, because that’s where the youth get their inspiration and encouragement to keep going.  I was sure convicted!  What a great challenge for adults for every area of life as well.  People are watching, folks.

By the way, Fred McKinnon just started something pretty cool to get people seeing what other churches around the country are singing week to week.  This post is part of his ‘Sunday Setlists’ post. Check it out, especially if you’re interested in some new song ideas.

Tomorrow, I want to dive into a hard topic, one that I’ve been wrestling with this past weekend as some interesting things have happened with this blog - pride.  I’m going to be honest and raw and hope that some of our thinking might shift a little.  See you tomorrow.

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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