Great time in the presence of the Lord….
Praise the Lord (Kauflin)
You Never Let Go (Redman)
I Could Sing of Your Love Forever (Smith)
I Love You Lord (Klein) (Communion)
Song of Freedom (original) (had to cut b/c of time at one of the campuses:)
Savior King (Fieldes/Sampson)
See more setlists @ http://www.theworshipcommunity.com/sunday-setlists-86/
We had a powerful time on Sunday. We introduced “How He Loves” and the people responded. I led at our Syosset campus and we had an extended time during that song where the Lord gave us Psalm 46:10 (Be still and know that I am God). A hush came over us and it was so sweet to just stand for a few moments in His presence as children of the Father.
Here are the songs:
Sing, Sing, Sing (Carson, Gilder, Nunn, Reeves, Tomlin)
Indescribable (Story)
Salvation Belongs to Our God (Howard, Turner)
How He Loves (McMillan)
Happy Day (Cantelon, Hughes)
See more setlists here: http://www.theworshipcommunity.com/sunday-setlists-81/
So here are the songs we worshiped with this week at Shelter Rock Church in Manhasset and Syosset, NY…
The Lord moved and I felt there were two things He emphasized: 1) He delights in us as we delight in Him 2) In the presence of the Lord is fullness of joy.
Blessed be Your Name (Redman)
Your Grace is Enough (Maher)
In Christ Alone (Getty/Townsend)
Hosanna (Fraser)
After message…
Here I am to Worship (Hughes) (new verse harmony written with Harold Greene):
D / [A/C#] / C / [G/B] [Gm/Bb] [D/A] / [E/G#] / G [D/F#] Em /
Closed with “You are Good” (Houghton)
Check out more setlists at http://www.theworshipcommunity.com/sunday-setlists-80/
I had Monday off and Olivia did not, so I took one of our Chihuahuas, Belle, to my very junky office and we cleaned it out. It was a treasure and trash trove. I found a complete drumset, a set of handbells (with the white gloves!), even an ice scraper for the car 
. It’s so clean and big now…it’s Olivia’s turn to make it look good:).
It was nice today to actually work in there. There’s plenty to do. I’m looking forward to a place where people want to hang out.
Especially me!
It took me a long while to get used to playing/singing with in-ear monitors (IEM). I’m sure part of it was my own slow adapting, but there’s still part of me that goes back and forth on their usefulness. As a worship leader, I believe one of my jobs is to respond to what is happening among the worshippers I am leading. The IEMs cut you off from hearing them. Sure, you can have audience mics, but they’re never going to be anywhere near perfect and they are the first things that get cut in a “crisis” situation (you worship leader out there know what I mean).
I remember I was having a conversation with an experienced engineer and he told me that hearing the congregation was not important – that it did nothing more than to build up the leader’s ego. I completely disagree!
There are not many greater privileges than hearing the people of God sing to Him. To hear them cry out to Him. It moves me and I believe it moves the heart of God (See Genesis 18:16-33 (Abraham); Exodus 32:7-14 (Moses)). Why would I want to do anything that impedes this?
All this said, IEMs can be a good tool. You can definitely hear yourself better and if you use click tracks or loops they are an absolute necessity. They can truly improve some musicians’ playing and/or singing. Wedges can make getting a good house mix difficult (especially with an inexperienced engineer) – I am well aware of this. But, there is a lost art to getting a good wedge mix AND a good house mix.
A good balance is to use one ear. You need to trade ears often as you don’t want them to wear unevenly . I know many don’t advocate this, but some find it to be a good compromise.
The key is not the choice between IEMs or wedges. It is the worship leader/team’s ability to hear and respond to those they are leading. That should have higher priority than the technology we use to hear ourselves.
Why are there so few opportunities to worship the Lord together? It’s so wonderful, so amazing and makes us (hopefully) more like Jesus. As we praise we are filled with more of the Holy Spirit. He baptizes us anew. We see more of His fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. Who wouldn’t want more of that (especially those who live with us:)?
When I was in Illinois, there were two fellow staff members and a few others at the church that loved to get together informally and worship. Usually around the piano and sometimes with a guitar we would just begin to sing and proclaim Scripture. There were prayers for each other and various needs we were aware of. We would cry out for God to move in the upcoming services. Sometimes it could be dry and just us singing a few songs before we went about our day, but often it was so much more.
Many times we would sing, “I’m falling on my knees” from the song “Hungry” and everyone would be on their knees. It wasn’t uncommon to glance over and see someone on their face, prostrate before the Lord. We all looked for times when we could slip away and worship…it was such a delight to get in God’s presence and focus on Him.
So many amazing things were happening at the time in the church body and I believe this was a key to that. People crying out to God for Him to make His presence known.
Sunday morning meetings are wonderful and I’ve known the presence of the Spirit in powerful ways during these times. But there are so many other items that must be attended to (announcements, etc.).
I miss the fellowship and power of those intimate times with a few – two or three – singing and declaring the goodness of God.
With the current change in seasons I have a renewed longing for those times. I long for the expectancy they produced. Anything could happen – Jesus could do anything and He was doing it.
Lord, may it be so again in greater measure.
FredMckinnon.Com has a great place to recap your Sunday worship set called, appropriately enough, Sunday Setlists. I was the guest worship leader yesterday at Shelter Rock Church in Syosset, NY so I thought I’d throw my hat in the ring .
Thanks to the worship team: Beth, David, Sara, Warren, Joe, and Brian…thanks for making me welcome and letting me lead!
Thanks Pastors Steve and Jerry for having me as well.
The Spirit was strong and there’s nothing more wonderful than just basking in the Lord’s presence together.
Setlist:
Your Grace is Enough
Everlasting God
Revelation Song
I Surrender All (Hymn)
Mover of Mountains (Original)
God of this City
{I started this post as a response to the question, “What is worship?” posed by Stephen Simpson at the CSM Forums. Check out the site for some great conversation.}
I hear so much talk these days about how just singing some worship songs and hearing a sermon has gotten stale, boring. How we need to expand our creativity in services and come up with new ways to experience God. And while I think it is valid to seek to be creative (God is the most creative Being of all), I think we miss the point of worship. I think we could all agree that the worship life of the early Church in Acts was vibrant and definitely not boring. But we see from Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church that it was very simple: Chapter 14 talks about gathering, singing a couple of songs, having words of prophecy, tongues, etc.. This is so simple. You don’t really need a producer for it. Do we need special lighting* for the Holy Spirit to come in power and heal broken hearts? When He comes – how could that possibly be boring?
So what is worship?
There are so many “right” definitions of worship that you can read in so many amazing books. But my favorite way to discuss worship is to talk about what happens when I worship. What happens when I come into the presence of the living God and see just a glimpse of who He is. So often I can’t even stay on my feet. I have to fall to my knees and then that’s not even good enough. I’m on my face. He is so great, He is so wonderful, that nothing I could say or sing or do would even be close to enough. All I can say is, “You are worthy. You are worthy.” That is the place we truly worship and that is the place I want to be as much as possible. If more believers (and unbelievers) could have those encounters, disagreements over style and music would take a backseat to the main event: His magnificent presence.
Definitely not boring.
*I don’t have a problem with “production” as an avenue for someone to use his or her gifts, but these elements become the focus too often.
