I’ve got VBS in 15 minutes but I wanted to get the recap posted so here goes. We had a huge increase in attendance this week, up almost 150% from last week. This was great as it made worship leading so much easier. Large crowds generate their own energy and are much more willing to sing and be involved in service than smaller crowds. It also made me very excited to see so many people, including many new faces, coming out to hear the word of God preached. Not really sure what caused this major spike in attendance although our new pastor did have his picture on the front page of the religion section of a major local paper last week, so that could have been a contributing factor. I personally met several new people before service began. I love meeting new people before service. Every week I try to look at service through the eyes of someone experiencing it for the first time, but it is much easier to do when I’ve met someone who is acutally there for the first time.
Onto the music. This week is filled with songs that we’ve been doing for a while. The intent was to do a brand new song this week, and with only 4 songs each week I try to fill the rest of the song slots with familiar tunes if one is going to be brand new. On Wednesday we lost our rehearsal space to a community concert group who uses our building as a back-up rain location so we did not get a full band rehearsal. Because of this I made the decision to delay introducing the new song and go with an old standard instead. Here’s what we finally ended up with:
opening
Let God Arise (G) > This song is always a great opener. I’m having problems right now finding new songs that are high energy, fast tempo, and work as a good opener, but are also singable with a congregation. I need to spend some time cruising around Sunday Set Lists to see what others are using.
worship set
All We Need (E) > We’re probably getting to the point where we do this one a bit too much, but like I said, we needed familiar and it worked. People were singing along and it served as a great intro to our worship set.
‘Til I See You (E) >This was what we threw in instead of the new song. We’ve been doing this song as long as I’ve been at Mayfield. I remember introducing this one my very first week here. It was interesting though that I actually received comments about how much people loved the new song. It’s just another reason to remember to never assume people are familiar with something just because you’ve done it a lot in the past.
closing
Amazing Grace (my chains are gone) (E) > We gave this one a very simple feel by having Rebecca (keys) switch to the baby grand and really take lead on the song. It sounded beautiful and really wrapped the service nicely.
Honorable Mention: This Is Our God (E) > This was supposed to be the new song this week that unfortunately got cut. We’ll come back around to it soon I’m sure.
That’s all I have to share. Make sure you don’t miss Sunday Set Lists this week as it is the one year anniversary!
Probably a wise decision on not introducing a new song w/o maximum rehearsal. Let God Arise is a great, high-energy song. I’ve been toying with the idea of springing that one on the team. So many good ones to choose from. Thanks for sharing this week.
check out this song … Psalm 63
you can download it free at itunes or from
the mars hill web site (as a podcast?)
it’s so cool & sung in a congregational setting
i listen to it at least a couple times daily
lifts my spirits every time, just the word of God