I'm participating with other worship leaders in a weekly blog carnival called "Sunday Setlist" over at FredMcKinnon.Com and wanted to share my take on today's service. Take a moment to go over and check out all the creative things other worship leaders did at their churches around the world!
We started a new series today at The Brook called "Face to Face: An Encounter with God". We stripped the stage and used a black and white theme with candles - a very minimalistic look to set the stage for a more somber service. Today's service was entitled "Desperate for God". The worship was a little more low key and contemplative. We changed up the order of service today and did joint teaching so Richard Buckley, Josh Britt and I co-taught the sermon today. We also ended the service differently. We ended with a song that I wrote called "Invitation" (not recorded yet, it's coming!) and a movie of scripture rotating and asked people to stay in a time of prayer and when they left to leave silently and reverantly. It was different and while most left pretty soon, many did stay waiting on the Lord and praying. It seemed to be a good ministry time.
Here's the order of service:
Opening Video: The Gift of Worship (available from Sermonspice.com)
Welcome and Announcements - Josh
Worship
1. Mighty to Save (Hillsong United)
2. From the Inside Out (Hillsong United)
3. Here I Am to Worship (Tim Hughes)
4. Breathe (Marie Barnett)
Offering and Explanation of the Day - Richard
Video of Text of Isaiah 6:1-8 (created by my son Daniel Owen)
Sermon - Desperate for God
- Busted Up - "Encountering God in our Brokenness" - Jan Owen
- Given Up - "Surrendering to God" - Josh Britt
- Shut Up - "Being quiet and letting God Speak" - Richard Buckley
Response and Invitation
- Song "Invitation" (Jan Owen) interspersed with a movie with scripture (made by Christie Ross) and times of quietness before the Lord.
Recap: I thought it was very powerful. I think the time to simply be with God at the end was an unusual thing in most services so people were able to really be with God and have a conversation. We've had tons of great feedback and I could see God at work as I sang and saw people interacting with and responding to God. I was proud of our production teams for being so flexible and on their toes. They all - worship, service, technical - did a great job! For myself, it was an honor to share some of what God has been teaching me and to share the teaching time with both Richard and Josh. I was thankful for that opportunity.
How was your Sunday?
Mighty to Save is such a gift to the church. Everybody seems to connect to that one.
Posted by: Gary Durbin | September 08, 2008 at 04:22 AM
Great post. I like the descriptions of how you changed things up to focus the attention of the congregation.
Posted by: Bobby Gilles | September 08, 2008 at 05:46 AM
We had an AWESOME Sunday! It was great to see most of our folks back after many being away for the summer. We celebrated communion and I chose to dedicate my whole message to this theme. I used Michael Guglielmucci's story as an illustration of how we ALL need healing and we ALL need grace. Everything we did (even though not directly planned) pointed to this theme. I love it when that happens!
Posted by: Kevin M. | September 08, 2008 at 09:39 AM
I love your heartfelt posts, Jan!
It sounds like Sunday went very well, and I pray for both our churches--let God move as He longs to.
Mighty To Save and From the Inside Out -- such good songs; like Gary said above about Mighty To Save: So many connect to this one, to both of these songs I think. I know I do. :)
Posted by: Amanda | September 08, 2008 at 07:20 PM
Not wrong about "Mighty to Save"... great song. Thanks for sharing your Sunday Jan (and congrats on the 10 year anni for your church). By the way, I really liked the lyrics to "Invitation". It would be great to hear the music to it.
Posted by: Rob | September 09, 2008 at 11:57 AM
WOW!! What a powerful set!!!
Posted by: Brandon Teer | September 10, 2008 at 12:16 PM