The service started out well enough, when it came time to start the first set, Brian (the bass player this morning) had something he wanted to say, so I let him kick things off. He was stoked about Sunday School this morning and wanted to share that an encourage others to be a part of it. I'm the Sunday School teacher (discussion leader actually)and the best testimonial is a passionate student! Sunday School was great this morning because we had great discussion on the passage Acts 3:1-26. The class is normally the worship team plus a few others.
In the middle of the first song the monitors dropped out, and apparently the PowerPoints were not in the right order too (strange because we have done the song before and we use the same file). At the time I wasn't exactly sure what was working and what wasn't, I couldn't hear myself or instrument and was struggling to keep the song together. I moved my opening remarks to after the first song and read the passage from Luke on Martha and Mary and connected it to choosing what is best and on Sunday that is gathering with the other believers to hear God's Word and worship God together. I banged out a chord and everything sounded fine, so I had the drummer start us off. It didn't last long and we pressed on through the song and the one that followed and I closed out the set with prayer. I grabbed my tuner, keys and wallet as I left the platform. I wasn't sure what was going on, but my cigarbox bouzouki doesn't generate much volume on its own.
I headed home to get my Acoustic Guitar and print out a different leadsheet. Living in a small town and 3 minutes away from the Church is a real blessing! I quickly printed the sheets, tuned my guitar, ran the most difficult song to warm up, and headed back to the church. I got back in the middle of the sermon. The second set had the monitor pop in briefly but at least I could hear my guitar. We struggled with the second song because I changed the key so I could play it on my guitar and pretty much hung the bass player out to dry even though I gave him an updated leadsheet. We were on track by the half way point and finished strong, but ...
A youth passed out from dehydration, so we didn't get to the third song in the set. Brad (the drummer this week, worship leader last week) went down to help out. Our last song ended up being a walkout song after the pastor's closing prayer.
The good news was that the house mix was intact throughout all the music, so many in the congregation probably did not notice anything was wrong, but probably wondered about me changing instruments for the second set of songs. It was good we pressed on through the songs without drawing extra attention to the fact we were struggling; I believe it enabled most everyone to focus on the Lord in worship instead of our technical issues. God is good!!!
In retrospect it was a great service inspite of our technical difficulties. We worshipped together and God's word was preached with power. Take away thought from the sermon: we may not die in the presence of God (Annanias and Sapphira), but be certainly die in the presence of our children and friends when we profess one way of life and live another.
Here is the set list:
It Is You Opener-Come to Worship
Peter Furler ©2002 Ariose Music/EMI Christian Music Publishing
Masterful Creator GITS-Father
Lyrics by Mark Hudson, arrangement by Doug Thorsvik ©2006
Who is This GITS-Jesus
5118470 ©Joel Payne/RESOUNDworship.org, Administered by The Jubilate Group, UK copyrightmanager@jubilate.co.uk
SERMON: Fear Came Upon the Whole Church - Acts 5:1-11
David Stanley ©2002 100% Wool Records
I Cannot Ignore Response-To Each Other
©2001 Jordan Fowler Dropknee/Prologue Worship
Grace Greater Than Our Sin Closer-Believe/Trust
31690 Public Domain Words and Music by Daniel Brink Towner and Julia H. Johnston
MLCC 05/31/09 Leadsheet
(I use a custom font so, you will have to make font size smaller to get the line breaks correct)
Check out what songs other churches are singing at FredMcKinnon.com
3 comments:
Zoiks, what a day for you. Glad you were able to press in and make it through. God's faithful, eh?
What a day! God bless you for your servant heart, attitude and perseverance
SOunds like you had a great service - in spite of the tech challenges. (Just remembered that my mic went out during our first service too! Batteries were dead - sometimes folks don't seat the rechargables correctly and they don't charge.) The sermon really helped me check my "tude"...God is so good about that! Blessings!
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