Hey Gang,
As mentioned in my post this past weekend about goals of blogging in 2013, I’m posting my weekly “Sunday Setlists” post. This is a blog event that I started 234 weeks ago. It’s hosted over at TheWorshipCommunity.Com and I encourage all worship leaders and church attenders to consider leaving a short recap of their worship services.
At my church we had a guest speaker from 3DM Ministries. It was a nice change of pace and we were really challenged by the words he brought to us.
Our opening walk-in song was “Blessed Be Your Name“. We did this in a lower Key of G and one of our newer singers, Rochelle, led this vocally and did a great job.
Kicking off the top of the hour was the super-energetic praise song from Gateway, “The Lord Reigns”. We did this song in the key of C with a modulation up to D. This makes it quite high but extremely powerful and energetic. Before singing this song I took a few minutes to challenge our congregation about the words we were declaring and for us to sing this as if we really, truly believed that God reigns. The high key is a challenge for female vocals so I did a special arrangement of the vocals where the guys carried the melody in octaves and arranged the female vocals on lower harmonies.
The next two songs that we sang were the hymn, “Come Thou Fount” (D) followed by Matt Redman’s “10,000 Reasons” (G). I really love this song and our church seems to really sing out on it. It’s a powerful song that is becoming a favorite for us.
Although we had a guest speaker I worked last week to get a glimpse of what he’d be teaching on. I walked away with an idea that he would be challenging us with a New Year’s challenge of dedication and consecration to God; a renewal of commitment. As I pondered a closing song I kept thinking of the older song that Michael W. Smith covered on one of his worship albums, “Lord I Give You My Heart”. This seemed perfect and I realized yesterday that it was indeed a perfect closer for the message.
I had a couple of vocalists lead the verses as solos, including the return of Beth, a singer that ministered in our church for over 10 years but had taken a few years off. It was great to have her back.
That’s a wrap for us. I’m eager to hear about your services and would love for you to tell me about what was meaningful to you by leaving a comment below.
For the Kingdom,
Fred
Our walk-in was “Open the Eyes of My Heart” – SonicFlood style
Then “Hallelujah, Your Love Makes Me Sing,” followed by “That’s Why We Praise Him.”
One of my worship team members shared a testimony about God providing a job for him, and we followed that with “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” – styled after Israel Houghton, who added a tag to the chorus [Lord You are faithful, faithful to me.] – It gives a new dimension to the hymn – allows for some breathing/response time.
Then followed that with Paul Baloche’s “Offering”, as our sermon series yesterday was about consecrating ourselves to the Lord.
those are some great tunes. I’ve yet to do “Offering” though I love it .. I really should do that one soon!
Dude I’m impressed that you did 10,000 Reasons in G. I’ve only been able to do that at evening events. We usually do it down in E… Looks like a great set!
Nate, I let my tenors carry the melody, and I drop the sopranos to alto, and the altos to tenor … I have a post pending on creative vocal arranging coming out in a couple of days … it gives the energy you want while still giving a singable part to some folks.
Even in G, it’s high — but our congregation has really grabbed it. Russ typically DOES lead it in E, btw.
Fred
Fred McKinnon
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email: fred@fredmckinnon.com
twitter: @fmckinnon
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/fredmckinnon
From Jan 20…? Did you send this blog post from the future!?
obviously
Fred McKinnon
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email: fred@fredmckinnon.com
twitter: @fmckinnon
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/fredmckinnon