Worship Recap – May 3rd, 2009

There’s two big things I want to share as part of this weeks recap. I’ll start with the first, which is a very bad habit that I’m trying very hard to break. I’ll close with the second, which is probably the most awkward moment I’ve ever had while leading worship. Make sure you read all the way through so you can share my pain

OK, first the habit before we get to the songs. When I was at THR3E last week I learned a simple concept that I now realize I struggle with greatly. It’s got such a simple solution too. Here it is. “Walk slowly on Sunday mornings.” On Sundays my head is spinning. There’s so much that has to be done to get ready for service and I can usually be seen as a blur through the hallways as I try to get the whole checklist taken care of in my mind. I fly from point A to point B, sometimes with little regard for who I am passing by in between. I sometimes miss out on great opportunities to develop relationships because I’m too concerned with technical details. I’m getting better, but it is a constant struggle in my mind. My point is simple. Don’t miss opportunities to do ministry because you are too busy trying to do ministry.

Now to the song set. It was a rough setup this morning because the 8:00 service ran over time. After a sprint setup we were left with a whole 6 minutes worth of sound check AND rehearsal. Monitors were not where they needed to be, transitions were not as smooth as usual, and tempos were a bit off, but God was still worshiped in the midst of Chaos. I love that about our God.

Jesus Messiah (G) > Our service opener. I’ve said it before, I used to hate this song. The more we do it the more I love it. It’s quickly becoming one of my favorites for any set and also one of our stronger songs as a band.

Reign in Us (A) > This was our new song this week. It’s a great song by Starfield. If I could, I would probably include every song off of “I Will Go” in our weekly sets. It was a new song so we’ve got to work on dynamics and transitions a little more as a band, but overall it was a great tune. We’ll see if it catches with the congregation or not. It will most likely be our opener next week. I’ve embedded the song at the bottom of the post so you can give it a listen.

The Stand (A) > This is a great song. If it’s not in your usual rotation it should be. It’s pretty simple with powerful lyrics and some great building dynamics. The most important part is a soft pad coming from the keyboard to fill in some of the quiet spots which allows the vocals to really carry the early parts of the song.

Here we go. Now we get to the end of service and THE awkward moment. First some back story. We’re usually very careful to plan service so that we wrap up in under an hour. Most weeks we end within 2 minutes of our mark. Some weeks we drift to either side. This was one of those weeks. For a variety of reasons, by the time the sermon wrapped we were already 7 minutes over the one hour limit. There was no way a 5 minute closer was going to work on top of that. It was a pretty simple decision that the closer needed to be cut. It was much more difficult to make it happen. The band moved into position while the pastor was praying out of the sermon like usual. As he was still praying I was trying to work my way around the band to let them know the song would be cut. Apparently the message got lost as I was trying to move around to the band too fast and trying to be quiet enough that I didn’t disturb the quiet moment. The prayer ended and it came time to do something. I didn’t want to simply say we had to cut a song due to time. I’d rather have everything seem intentional, even when imrovised. I stepped up and told the congregation we would be dismissing differently, that instead of singing our pastor would come back and give us our benediction and then we would go out into the world to BE the church (we were in Acts for the sermon). Our pastor connected with this, jumped up, and gave a benediction, but instead of dismissing afterwards he resumed his position in the front row expecting another song. Another message mis-received. In the meantime I’ve got my back to the congregation because I’m trying to get the band to start a full volume walk-out instrumental. That’s our usual cue for people to leave. As I’m trying to get our drummer to start a beat he is just shaking his head at me and mouthing “that’s not how the song starts,” thinking we were still going to do the closer. At this point I turn back around and see the entire congregation standing and staring at us. Finally I walk up to the microphone and simply and plainly tell the congregation they are dismissed, but at this point our video guy puts up the slides to the song we were going to do. Once people saw the slides go up they stay, still expecting another song. Finally I get my drummer to jump on the instrumental and the rest of the band joins in. A handful of people finally either figured out what was going on or simply got tired of waiting around and start to leave. The rest of the room reluctantly follows suit. We finally wrap the instrumental and start to strike the stage when my bass player walks up to me and summarizes the experience in the best way possible by saying “Yeah, that just happened.”

That was my experience for the week. I can look back on the closing and laugh now knowing that sometimes these things happen. When the spirit moves and changes the service at the last minute it generally has a way of working out. When YOU decide service needs to change at the last minute it can be a bit more of a challenge, but it does lead to good stories.

For more Sunday Set List fun head over to Fred McKinnon’s blog to check out stories from other Worship Leaders around the country.

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