Worship Confessional, August 8, 2010

This post is part of Sunday Set List over on The Worship Community Blog. It's where worship leaders post their experiences for all to see and to share what God is doing through worship.

We are in the last few weeks of our series BECOMING A HEALTHY CHURCH.  Today we focused on the characteristic of GOD INSPIRING WORSHIP. The whole service was about worship.  We even broke up the sermon part into three sections and had video, songs and scriptures that talked about worship.  I like it when we can have an experience that is "out of the box" and not your typical Sunday experience.  I think it worked well!

In a recent survey this characteristic was the strongest in our "Strength" areas.  I'm glad to see that, but that doesn't mean that we've arrived.  We still have work to do in defining what "worship " is and isn't.

Becoming A Healthy Church--God Inspiring Worship

We opened with this video




Glory To God Forever (Beeching/Fee)--our 4th week on this song. I think it's catching on!

All Because of Jesus (Fee)---what better what to start the service than to declare that "All because of Jesus I'm alive".  Love this song!
Welcome/Announcements/Offertory
Sermon 1-
Worship: What Is It (Video from Floodgate Productions)
Message- Robbie Boyd (Psalm 103)
Worship Rises (Vacher/Sellars)  I was so excited to do this song today.  My friend, Chris Vacher, helped co-write this song which is the anchor song on the compilation  of the same name which is worship songs written and sung in Canadian churches (except today it was sung in a Texas church). It's a great song and we'll keep singing it a while.
Scripture Reading (Psalm 24/ Psalm 95)
Wonderful Maker (Tomlin)-an oldie but a goodie...this one just fit today
Sermon 2
Message-Robbie Boyd (John 4: 21-24
All Creatures of Our God and King (Crowder)-- Great old hymn. We even used the background from the video on Crowder's video of this song.  Majestic!
Video--Worship Everywhere (Shift Worship)


Sermon 3
Morning Message- Robbie Boyd (Romans 12:1-2)
Worship Rises (Reprise)
From The Inside Out (Hillsong)

How was your Sunday?


4 comments:

terry timm said...

Jim,

I love how you stay with a new song for 4 weeks (at least) with your congregation. Question for you: how do you know or determine if a song is catching on with your people? Have you ever bailed on a song after just a week or two?

I am big on new songs and have a tendency to throw too much new stuff at my congregation.

Check out my blog for my worship confessional...

Jim Drake said...

Terry thanks for stopping by.

Our intention to stay with new songs came after many many tries at new songs and none of them sticking (plus I was shocked when I ran a CCLI report and saw how many songs we were singing) So we've chosen to do only 12-13 new songs a year.

Now, how do I know if it's sticking 1) visually I can see people engaging and singing 2) 2nd week is always a tell-tell if it has energy and momentum then I know it's catching on. 3) the real test comes in the rest---in the in between times when the song has time to set on people I get messages from people who say they've been singing and hearing the song, then when it comes back a couple of weeks later and they sing with all they've got I know that it's set.

You bet there have been one timer songs--I know immediatelyif it hasn't been what I expected. I'm still learning after 23 years of doing this.

Again--thanks for stopping by.

Janette said...

Great to see a few churches doing 'Worship Rises' in the US too! Did you church seem to really respond to it?

Jim Drake said...

Janette-Thanks for stopping by

Yes they seemed to like it. Took a break from it this week and next. Will come back to it in September.

Jim