FredMcKinnon.Com

I’m not sure where to start.  The last few weeks at my home church have been … well, incredible.  We’ve made a conscious effort to slow it down, to hear God, and to allow God to do what He loves to do … change lives and minister to people.

It started 3 weeks ago when we prepared for a service where we’d offer people the opportunity to be baptized – right there, right then, no excuses.  We baptized 126 people.  It was amazing.

Then we shared testimonies and built faith.

Then we prayed for the sick and those in need of healing.

Yeah … at that “community church” – <begin sarcasm> you know the one where they don’t allow the Holy Spirit to show up.  </end-sarcasm>

I’m sensing a flow, an anointing, an expectation … that I haven’t sensed in a while.  I cannot explain it, other than to say .. I like it … a lot.

One of the big objectives that was given to me in taking this position over 3 years ago was to get more people involved in the music/worship ministry at SSCC.  I think that’s definitely happened as we’ve experienced tremendous growth.

Perhaps the biggest joy I have is in stepping back and allowing others to lead.  This Sunday was no exception when my friend Russ Hutto led his first full service at SSCC.  Russ has led a song here and there and has played in the band plenty of times.  I felt like the time was right and handed the keys to Russ and he did an amazing job.

Our songs:

“My Savior Lives”
“Beautiful One”
“Overcome”
“Holy and Anointed One”
“Doxology”
“Blessed Be Your Name”

After singing “Overcome” and moving into one of my favorites of all-time, “Holy and Anointed One”, it seemed that the Presence of God was so thick you could touch it.  Something about singing “we will overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony” followed by singing the Name, “Jesus”.

Wow.

So, how was your worship services?

PS:  Oh yeah, almost forgot – I’m sharing this recap as a part of the weekly “Sunday Setlists” event hosted at TheWorshipCommunity.Com.

OK, so first … what is this #sundaysetlists thing in my blog post title?

It’s called a “hash tag” … a way to tag or identify a blog or twitter post so that people can know it’s subject, keywords, or you can even search twitter based on them.

“Sunday Setlists” is an event that started right here on FredMcKinnon.Com, but has since transferred over to TheWorshipCommunity.Com – where people post a recap of their worship services each week.  Be sure and check out the other posts.

So, on to my recap of our worship service at SSCC for Sunday, August 15th.

Wow.  I can’t express how incredible it was.  We have never conducted a baptism during our worship services in the building … they have always been special gatherings, outside, at some place with a pool.  We had our first baptism service yesterday, which was a complete surprise to most of those who attend our church.  The bigger surprise; however, was that we were prepared to baptize anyone who wanted to be baptized … spontaneously.

We opened up with a couple of songs:

“I Have Found” (Kim Walker)
“Mighty to Save” (Hillsong)

Then, David (our pastor) taught on salvation and baptism.  It was a shorter, 25-minute sermon.  Then he basically challenged people to respond.  We were ready with the excuses.  We had stacks of brand new shorts and T-shirts of all sizes.  We had undergarments.  Personal Products.  Hair dryers.  Combs.  Photographers.  Videographers.  There was really no reason to NOT respond …

And respond they did.  Between the two services, countless people confessed Jesus Christ as their Lord, and +/- 126 people got baptized.

Young, old.
White, black.
American, Chinese.

I’m still blown away … we played instrumental music, sang a bit, worshiped the whole time, and simply let the music “ebb and flow” with the baptisms.  Makes for some tired feet … a good 1-1/2 hours into the service and still seeing people lined up all the way down the wall of the church, waiting for their turn to publicly demonstrate their faith in Christ.

And that’s a recap for our church.  How about yours?

Hey Everybody!

Yesterday (Sunday, August 8th) was my first time back on the stage, leading worship at SSCC, in a couple of weeks.  It was great to be back.  We started a new series called “Small Steps, Big Faith” and our service didn’t have a “sermon” … just a flow of worship, testimonies, and communion.  Well, we did “kind of” have an impromptu sermon during our 9:00 AM service when one of the pastors lost track of time in his 5-minute “setup” … which turned into 25 minutes!

Thankfully, a little “Campfire Meeting” backstage after that service helped us workout the timing kinks and we nailed the flow in the 11:00 AM service.

Walk In Song:
“Washed by the Water” (NeedtoBreathe)

“Glorious” (Paul Baloche)
“For All You’ve Done” (Hillsongs)
“Amazing Grace/My Chains Are Gone” (Hillsongs)

*Testimony:  I shared a faith-building testimony about prayer.
*Testimony:  One of our pastors, Steve, shared a faith-building story about how God called him into ministry.

“Great is Thy Faithfulness” (Traditional Hymn Version)
*The Lord’s Prayer (corporate prayer)

Communion:
“You Gave Your Life Away” (Baloche)
“Jesus Paid it All” (Northpoint Live Version)
“Christ is Risen” (Matt Maher)

From a technical standpoint, we used a cool backing lyrics video for “Christ is Risen”, which required us to play this song to a click.  The animated lyrics and backgrounds were powerful and added a nice visual dynamic to the worship experience on that song.

We wrapped up our Sunday with a big, family “Beach Night” on St. Simons Island – it was a great day celebrating with other Believers here in the area!

This recap is a part of the “Sunday Setlists” event hosted by TheWorshipCommunity.Com.

Wednesday Evening:  3 hours of rehearsal
Thursday Evening:  3 hours of rehearsal
Friday Evening:  1 hour of rehearsal, 2 hours of passionate worship for hundreds of people at “Night of Worship”, SSCC.

Sunday Morning?

Exhausted.  Hoarse.  But the benefit of using the same band and songs from “Night of Worship”?  A simple sound check and rehearsal.

So, off we went, into another gathering of God’s people in this place we call “St. Simons Community Church”.

Walk-in:  “You Save” (1st Service) and “Mighty to Save” (2nd service)
*this is the song that I co-wrote with Mandy Thomson.  Wow, I’m overwhelmed by the incredible response to this song.  It was kinda weird to do this as a “walk-in” song, so I made a decision to move it to “in” the service during the 2nd service.

Opener:  “Alive Again” (Matt Maher)
Worship:  “Blessed Be Your Name”, “Mighty To Save” (1st service), “You Save” (2nd service), and “How Deep the Father’s Love”.

Loved having Ms. Carol Parks play violin again.  Her intro to “How Deep the Father’s Love” was beautiful, and of course, ‘You Save” isn’t complete w/o the violin!

Closer:
Well, Pastor David pulled a fast one on us, and stopped about 75% into his sermon and called me up …. he felt like it was time to stop and worship.  So, we pulled an impromptu version of Kate Miner’s “Holy Spirit Come”, followed by “You Save” and “Open Up the Sky” by Jonathan Stockstill.

An incredible day of worship and ministry, capping off an incredible weekend!

Curious as to what other churches did?  Checkout the weekly “Sunday Setlists” event over at TheWorshipCommunity.Com!

We enjoyed a great time of worship at SSCC yesterday.  We were in Week 4 of our “Prevail” series on spiritual warfare.  Pastor David taught about the “breastplate of righteousness” and challenged us in some big ways.

As far as the musical aspect of our time of worship, here’s a snapshot of what we did:

Walk-in:

“When We All Get to Heaven” – a fun arrangement I made where we open it up in the old, traditional style, acapella.  Then, we rip into a funky version that is a blast to play, and after singing all 4 verses and the Chorus, we end the song with a campmeeting-style, double-time backbeat Chorus.  Always gets the people excited.

Opening Song:

“No Other Name” – Todd Fields/Northpoint Live arrangement.  This is always a great go-to song for a shorter, 3-minute opener that rightly brings attention to the Name of Jesus.

Middle Set:

After a short teaching (ie. 1 minute) on the word “hosanna” and what it means, we sang back-to-back “Hosanna” songs …

“Hosanna” (Paul Baloche/Brenton Brown)
“Hosanna” (Hillsong)

Then, the band left the stage and I moved to the grand piano where we did an intimate, reflective arrangement of “Sanctuary” (Lord Prepare Me) with piano, vocal, and acoustic guitar.

After the sermon we closed with the old Vineyard song, “Take My Life” (aka “Holiness”) by Scott Underwood.

Loved leading this week.  You can watch our services live or “on demand” at www.sscclive.com.

This recap is a part of the “Sunday Setlists” event hosted weekly by TheWorshipCommunity.Com.