Worship Recap – Sept. 21st, 2008

Sometimes in worship, execution goes perfectly. That is to say that everything in service progresses exactly as you intended it to, and yet the elements of service just don’t seem to be flowing smoothly, and the week just seems to have hit the mark. When this is the case you have to step back and look at the planning process in order to identify where and how things fell off track. You’ll hear more about this in the detailed recap below. This was another solo week for me as the band continues their vacation. Our theme this week was “before the beginning.” That’s a rough topic to match songs to. There’s not a lot of songs written about what God may have been up to before creation. Here’s what I came up with:

Opening

God of Wonders >It was a crazy start to the service. Usually people are either seated and ready to go or they are standing out in the hallway chatting and they will usually wander in by the second song. This week however was different. For some reason people were scattered IN the worship center engaged in casual conversation (including the pastor!). This leads to a very awkward start. Also, this was not as familiar a song as I had initially thought and so it did not become the energetic sing-along that I hoped it would be.

Help Me To Find You > This is a new song. It is one that has really spoken to me over the past few months and one that I would love for our church to be singing regularly. However, being brand new combined with following up a low impact opener simply seemed to leave people scratching their heads. No fear though, we’ll get there.

Your Love Oh Lord > Another song that worked, but just seemed to miss the mark a little bit. Who knows though, each week I watch the audience and gauge involvement. Most of the time I’m spot on, but sometimes my perceptions are way out in left field, so hopefully people were able to connect much more than what I observed.

Offering

Blessed Assurance > It’s always fun to sing old hymns in a mixed crowd of born church goers and new church goers, especially when you change the time signature from the traditional arrangement. The traditional hymn is in 9/8 time, which is a nearly non-existent time-signature in modern music, so the modern arrangement by Third Day is done in 6/8 time. This means that those who know the traditional hymn are consistently early throughout the song. Hope it didn’t make anyone too uncomfortable because I found all the spontaneous singing rather enjoyable.

Closing

There was no closer this week. Don decided to end the sermon in silence as an illustration of the theme, “before the beginning.” I kind of wish he would have told that to the 130 people in the room. Here’s what happened. Don finished his sermon with prayer and then went and took his seat in the front row. Once people began to realize that nothing was happening, all of a sudden 260 eyes had turned to me as I sat in my seat. That’s because people know that when Don prays and sits, Brian stands and plays a song. Methodists don’t usually enjoy a break in their routine, especially when you haven’t filled them in on it in advance. After 2 minutes of this Don finally stands up. I was filled with an instant feeling of relief because these people were about to get the explanation as to why I wasn’t closing the service. But no. Instead, Don walked casually out the back of the room. I think he was trying to initiate the movement to the doors, but instead here’s what happened. 260 eyes slowly followed Don all the way to the back of the room, and then quickly turned right back to me once he had cleared the doors. Finally, after 2 more minutes in silent dark, the tech guys kicked the lights on and people began to awkwardly make their way out of the room. I truly don’t believe this ending accomplished all we’d hoped with regard to an emotional connection between people in the room and the theme for the week. 

Again, some weeks just remind me how glad I am that God works in powerful ways despite our own inadequacies and that sometimes even the best laid plans can miss the mark no matter how well executed they are. Even those that do the teaching need to learn a lesson every now and then.