This was a HUGE day for us at Mayfield. All week long we were digging at our order trying to find a few extra minutes to fit everything we had going on. In the end we ended up with a 72 minute plan, a little over our usual hour goal, but it was as streamlined as we could get. In addition to our usual worship elements we had new members joining during service, our traditional advent reading and candle lighting, a lot of announcements including presenting our December mission focus, Heifer Project, a special presentation from our teen choir, and communion. We also had our District Superintendent Dave Scavuzzo with us as our guest speaker. For those of you unfamiliar with the United Methodist system a district superintendent oversees all churches within a geographic area and serves essentially as the pastors’ boss. With all this going on it made for a jam packed service but everything went through and all of our teams came through in a big way. Here’s the breakdown:
Opening
Video: Christmas in a Nutshell > We opened with a great new video from Worship House. Hit the link to check it out.
Love Has Come (F) > This is a great song from Todd Fields. We’ve been singing it for a few weeks and it’s really caught on. In my opinion it’s one of the more fun songs to play from our current song list. We usually do it in G but dropped it to F this week as an experiment to make it a bit easier to sing for a female vocal range.
Angels We Have Heard on High (G) > We have been doing a hybrid of the Chris Tomlin (YouTube) and Josh Wilson (which doesn’t seem to be anywhere on the internet anymore) arrangements. It’s a great new arrangement and much different from the slow and mellow version we’ve done in years past.
New Members
Announcements
Glory in the Highest (A) > I’ve wanted to use this as a Christmas song since it came out in 2006. The added verse on Tomlin’s newest Christmas project was just the push I needed to throw it in the set. We dropped it to A. It’s a little lower than I like, but we are connecting it with O Holy Night on Christmas Eve so whatever key we choose is also the key for O Holy Night and that high note gets a bit much above A or Bb.
Advent Reading and Candle Lighting
Teen Choir
Message: The Shock of Real Christmas
Communion
Jesus Messiah (G) > I go back and forth on Christmas songs. In years past we’ve made a complete jump to the traditional selections when advent hits. Other years we’ve tried to steer away completely from the “classics” altogether. This year we are blending our sets and this song confirmed that choice. While not a Christmas song per-say it was the perfect closer to the Advent message Pastor Dave delivered.
Service came out to 72 minutes on the dot. Again, a little past our usual hour target, but every element was timed perfectly and the whole service played out exactly as we had planned. Thanks to everyone on our music, tech, greeting, and prayer teams for stepping up today in a big way and welcome and congratulations to all of our new members.
Great set list! Thanks for sharing – looks like a great ministry!
I had not thought of using Jesus Messiah as a Christmas song, but I like it.
It won’t be part of our Christmas Eve services, but it was a great song to tie the advent message and communion together.