Notes on Sunday Worship
Sunday, September 7, 2008 at 04:08PM Note; This post is part of Fred McKinno's 'Sunday Set List' feature on his blog. If you haven't been there, you ought to go.
I didn't feel anything much during the worship sets this week, although I'm sure I played well enough, and it needs to be said--just because I don't feel anything, doesn't mean the Spirit isn't moving. This was our first Saturday since early June, having doing Sundays only for the summer. It was sparsely attended--maybe 20 or so--and we had a fairly big crew onstage, for us anyway - three acoustics, bass, and three singers, which felt a little funny. The Saturday night set was:
Better is One Day
Indescribable
More Love, More Power
Breathe
We're doing communion every Saturday night all year, in part to entice a few people away from Sundays, to free up seats. I don't know why ANYONE wouldn't want to come on Saturday night and sleep in on Sunday, but that's just me. And Mrs. Sunday Musician. She and I were both tired Saturday night, and left after the worship so we could come back in the morning and sit through the sermon with my daughter Stephanie, visiting from Washington state. I fell asleep on the couch at 8:20, and had to be rousted for bed at 10:00.
Fresh from an eleven hour catnap, I felt ready this morning. As we ran through the set, in which we replaced 'More Love, More Power' with 'Everlasting God', Brandon walked in. Brandon is early twenties, teaches at the same store as I do, and decided to come check us out. He's a good player, so I went through the whole is-this-good-enough game in my head as we rehearsed.
Had a good laugh at myself during the worship set. I made a serious flub, reflexively looked up at the audience to see if anyone noticed, and there was Brandon in the back, shrugging as if to say, "Eh, what're 'ya gonna do?'
The Other Ed, in charge of worship at our church, characteristically guided us through a great set, always putting the audience first.
Speaking of 'moments' (read here and here), I had a personal musical moment during rehearsal Saturday night - Ed tossed me a solo during More Love, More Power, and I had fun with it. Then he pulled it during the actual worship set, which was the exact right choice. I'm way past being offended by something like that.
HEAD'S UP!! Please take a look at the very next post, "Drum Shield or No Drum Shield", and give me your opinion. I'd love to hear comments from y'all regarding drum shields, and whether you like them or not.
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Reader Comments (6)
The Sunday set:
Better Is One Day (Redman)
Everlasting God (Brown)
Glorious (Tomlin)
Breathe (With the Shortcut Sisters)
Why the changes? Sunday's crowd has a lot more energy and Everlasting God is a favorite. Our college students(Hope College) are back and bring a lot of enegy. Reprised Better Is One Day chorus at the end, started Everlasting God with the chorus before going into the RIFF. Nice way to include audience in the worship as their voices take the lead. Three very good female singers lead out in the song Breathe with the church joining in. Very powerful. Ed played a very nice acoustic guitar behind my simple piano lead.
Great set. I forgot about More Love, More Power. That's a beautiful song to do.
Yeah, I'd kind of forgotten about "More Love, More Power" too. Good song. And "Better is One Day" is still one of my favorites.
I responded to you question on my site. Thanks for the comment. I haven't done more love, more power in quite a while, it might time to bring that one out of the penalty box.
Being in the moment......that is the call for all worship leaders, sounds like the "other ed" has a good handle on that! Have a plan and be ready to chuck it when necessary. Is it just me or does God speak to other people in the midst of leading worship in order to emphasize certain things? Just wondering....that happens a lot to me but I have a very "tight" framework where I lead....not a ton of wiggle room
Great Set, hope you have a great week!!!