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Creative Chaos: Easter at SSCC
Posted on March 27th, 2008 in Church Life, Worship Confessionals by Fred McKinnon
Hey Everyone,
Taking part in “Creative Chaos” today, a blog carnival of sorts birthed by Carlos @ Ragamuffin Soul. In this series, we discuss various “creative elements” we’ve used in the past week or coming week for our church services.
Since I’ve not done an Easter “Confessional”, I thought I’d include that here, along with some of the creative elements we incorporated into this celebration of life we call “Easter”.
1. C3
I love a good worship choir. I had a vision to have an occasional “feature choir”, appropriately named “Community Church Choice”, or C3. My boundary here was 30 people … if I couldn’t have a MINIMUM of 30 people, I wouldn’t proceed. Thankfully, more than 60 people signed up. This is good, as we had between 40-50 people actually participate due to scheduling conflicts. Since C3 doesn’t participate every Sunday, we only rehearse a few times prior to the event where we sing. So, for the 3 Thursdays prior to Easter Sunday, we rehearsed our opening 3 songs.
Walk in: Glory Hallelujah (no choir)
Walk in: For All You’ve Done (full choir)
Opening Set:
Happy Day (Tim Hughes) (full choir)
Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone), featuring Shannon Lewis, Todd Hendrix, and full choir.
(see this post with video of arrangement we did, taken from Hillsong’s Conference last summer)
Second Set:
In Christ Alone (Townsend)
Hosanna (Hillsong)
Closer: I Will Never Be the Same Again (Hillsong)
Walk-Out: Again, I Say Rejoice (Israel Houghton)
2. The Truth
After our worship sets, lights went black and we showed an awesome video called “This is the Truth”. It’s not an original creative element, we got it off Sermon Spice .. it’s the 3rd one down when searching with this link. It’s well worth the preview and purchase!
3. We Got Stoned
That’s right. David’s message was on removing the stones or hinderances that we have in receiving God’s love. He talked about our wrong-impressions of God, resentment, unforgiveness, among other things. All of these are big stones, rolled in front of us – hindering us from receiving God’s love. Well, Jennifer went on a mission to Jacksonville and purchased 2,000 stones …. and we put a stone under each seat, for each service. It was a simple, physical way to touch a stone, imagine putting your hindering issues upon it, and they were encouraged to take it with them and throw it in the ocean.
The best creative element? The ones only God can do … creating tender, receptive hearts … in each service, hands shot up across the auditorium for first time commitments to Christ. Praise God!
It was without question one of my most joyous and EFFORTLESS Easter Sundays in years. I would’ve thought it would be tough, being in a larger church with more logistics and people, but I feel that we prepared in advance and didn’t try to “over-produce” anything, and as a result, we just “had church” and it was wonderful!
How ’bout you?
Fred
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6 Responses to “Creative Chaos: Easter at SSCC”
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Yes, I agree whole-heartedly. It did feel ‘effortless’. It was blessed to have been a part of it – it felt so laid back, and at the same time a celebration. I’m still buzzing from Easter Sunday! YAHOO!
a 40-50 person choir – now there’s something most church’s are missing. sounds like some great sets and a fantastic Sunday!
will the choir become a regular? or was it a one time hit?
Hey Jim,
It was awesome, and you are correct, the worship choir is really missing these days. It’s not something we’ll do every Sunday – probably 1-2 per quarter … or more like 4-6 times per year. This keeps it exciting, special, and fresh, and doesn’t over-tax the volunteer choir members with weekly rehearsals in an already-hectic schedule.
As for the hit .. from all the feedback I’ve rec’d thus far, it was definitely a “hit”!
Shannon -
I’ve lost count how many folks have complemented the job you did on Amazing Grace/My Chains Are Gone .. that Verse and part was written FOR YOU, bro! Perfect range, perfect tone … it was amazing!
Fred
Hey Fred,
Thanks for the post over at my new blog. Hey great set, and props on the choir. We did Hosanna and Amazing Grace, too!………without the choir, unfortunately
Love it. I’m really enjoying your blog.
[...] And lastly, back to my church, Fred McKinnon, our music director, posted his thoughts on our Easter Service this past Sunday. [...]