This post is part of the service Setlist community over at TheWorshipCommunity.Com.  After you read mine, be sure to check out the other setlists posted there!

The Setlist:

Walk-In:

• Lord Most High [Harris, Sadler]

Service:

• Indescribable [Story]
• His Name Is Wonderful [Mieir] / You’re Worthy Of My Praise [Ruis]  (a Capella)
• Holy is the Lord [Giglio, Tomlin]
• Worthy [Redman]
• SONG OF RESPONSE: More Love More Power [Del Hierro]

Service flow from Planning Center.

This post is part of the service Setlist community over at TheWorshipCommunity.Com.  After you read mine, be sure to check out the other setlists posted there!

The Setlist:

Service:

• How Great Thou Art [Hine]
• Great is Thy Faithfulness [Chisholm, Runyan]
• Amazing Grace [Newton]
• Blessed Assurance [Crosby, Knapp]
• What A Friend We Have In Jesus [Converse, Scriven]
• SONG OF RESPONSE: Onward Christian Soldiers [Baring-Gould, Sullivan]

Service flow from Planning Center.

The Recap:

As you can see from the setlist, this past week was HYMN SUNDAY at East Valley.  This type of service has been a long time coming, though we do actually sing traditional hymns quite often.  Maybe the fact that the whole service was traditional hymns and done in the traditional arrangement, made people more aware.

The genesis of this setlist is interesting.  We started using Planning Center Online (PCO) back in February and I have really grown to appreciate the scheduling aspects of this tool.  A few weeks ago, I was looking at the upcoming weeks and noted that July 18 had the making of the “perfect storm” (OK, maybe a poor example, but from a worship planning standpoint, I was nervous!).  You see, most of our core band was going to be gone – the dreaded “BLOCKED” date in PCO vernacular!

What to do?  WHAT TO DO!

The core musician that was available was our pianist, Mrs. Hopkins, who can play any hymn from memory and most of our new songs too!  I thought it would be cool to feature her and thought a hymn-focused Sunday would be great.  As for planning, I thought that it would be great to let the congregation select the hymns!  I’ve used Surveymonkey.com at work for a few things, so I created a “Hymn Sunday Ballot” and asked people to vote for their top 3 hymns.  The plan was to select the top 5 or 6 and use them in the setlist.  People voted online and also used a paper ballot I inserted in the previous Sunday’s bulletin.

The “Top 10″ were:

1. How Great Thou Art
2. Great is Thy Faithfulness
3. Amazing Grace
4. Blessed Assurance
5. What A Friend We Have in Jesus
6. Onward Christian Soldiers
7. It Is Well
8. He Lives
9. Victory in Jesus
10. Oh For a Thousand Tongues to Sing

I think it went fantastic!  We will definitely do this again.

I didn’t share my “GO TO” then, but the one that I would have shared is:

He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.  Psalm 91:4

I know there are tons of Psalms that speak of God’s help, faithfulness, and love in times of trouble; but this one has always seemed to remind me that HE is great, mighty, strong, and powerful and I am small, truly powerless, and dependent on Him for everything (protection, etc).

It’s one thing to say He protects - how much more to say He protects and is faithful !  We have so many examples of things or people that  protect, but NONE are completely faithful like God (if we are truly honest).

What’s your “GO TO” Psalm?

The Concept:

Our church is part of an affiliation of churches called Converge Worldwide; and regionally, we are part of Converge PacWest (CPW).  A few months ago, I was at a local conference and thought about how cool it would be to have a worship service for the seven CPW churches in our local San Jose area.

I shared my vision with our church elders and BOOM – off I went…dreaming and planning!

A cool addition to the original concept was the taking of a love offering for a local, non-church, community need [Holy Spirit-inspired...thanks Eric!].

This past Sunday, we had our first Evening of Worship!

The Setlist:

• Everlasting God [Brown, Riley]
• Our God [Myrin, Redman, Reeves, Tomlin]
• How Great is Our God [Cash, Reeves, Tomlin]
• Mighty to Save [Fielding, Morgan]
• Nothing But the Blood [Lowrey]
• To The Cross [Baloche, Ingram]
• Revelation Song [Riddle]
• God of this City [Bleakley, Aaron, Comfort, Jordan, Kernaghan, McCann]

Planning Center Online order.

The Recap:

We pulled in people from four churches to form the worship band – it really sounded cool!  Most of the songs were familiar, though Our God and To the Cross were new for some.  I was curious how it would sound, given that many churches do similar songs, but in a slightly custom way – given their own “sound and culture”.  The Holy Spirit simply work it – we all found our groove and it was like we’d been playing together for a while.

We met on our church lawn under a tent that had been rented for a Friday-afternoon wedding.  Pretty cool to worship, pray, share Communion, and fellowship out there in a relaxed atmosphere.  That morning, one of our church elders shared how, as he’d been praying for the service, he’d sensed that Jesus would be there lounging with us as we worshiped Him.  I think people were able to relax, worship, and enjoy God and His people.

The 1.5 hours seemed to quickly slip away…the service really flowed.  By design, the various movements were: Awesome, Holy God > DEVOTIONAL > Personal, Loving God > COMMUNION > Our Responsive Worship: Exaltation & Missional > LOVE OFFERING > SENDING OUT.  We involved four pastors from the various churches in portions of the service.

As mentioned above, we took a love offering for a local Catholic charity’s “Pack-a-Back” program – which benefits low-income children in the area.  Those who attended gave $420 – enough to give 14 kids a new backpack and supplies for the start of the school year.  AMEN!

All in all, it was a great service!  Other than a broken guitar string during during the FIRST SONG (!), I thought it went well [glad Frank brought two guitars]!  I’m looking forward to doing more of these Evening of Worship events at some of the other seven churches – I think my fellow worship leaders are as well.  My heart was pretty full – though my body was tired!

Our next Evening of Worship is August 22 and will be a free concert “on the green” by PAGE CXVI.  I’m pretty excited to host them!  If you’re reading this and are located in the San Jose area (or will happen to be here), come out on August 22, bring a lawn chair or blanket and worship with us!

x

This post is part of the service Setlist community over at TheWorshipCommunity.Com.  After you read mine, be sure to check out the other setlists posted there!

This post is part of the service Setlist community over at TheWorshipCommunity.Com.  After you read mine, be sure to check out the other setlists posted there!

The Setlist:

Walk-in:

• Because of Your Love [Baloche, Brown]

Service:

• All Hail the Power of Jesus Name [Baloche, Holden, Perronet, Rippon]
• Glory to God Forever [Beeching, Fee]
• Salvation is Here [Houston]
• Jesus Messiah [Carson, Cash, Reeves, Tomlin]
• SONG OF RESPONSE: Rising [Baloche, Redman]

Service flow from Planning Center.