outside is better

Hymnaling (and being Methodist)

I lead the singing at my church a couple of times a month. It is an eclectic United Methodist congregation in a fairly sketchy part of Lexington. I love it.  Leading worship in this unique setting taught me many things. The use of the hymnal in a congregation is the biggest lesson.

Methodists are a singing bunch.  Charles Wesley's hymns form a theological foundation for our tribe. I have a good buddy doing a Ph.D in Wesley studies and we have had some interesting conversations about the role of hymns.  I took a theology of song writing and one of the projects was answering the question "Can a robust Wesleyan theology be founding soley in the hymns?".

At The Rock (my church), I usually lead from the hymnal.  It makes it easy on an older congregation.  Even our younger folk enjoy hymns, probably due to the context. They really respond to older revival songs and we have several great musicans with their own interpretation of these tunes.

Using the hymnal means changing the way I play and chart out hymns. It has also been a great devotional study, going through these hymns early in the week and preparing for worship.  The great thing about the UM Hymnal are the distinctive sections of "Prevenient Grace" and "Sanctifying and Perfecting Grace".  This is the stuff of Wesleyans.

I grew up singing out of the hymnal and even though my home church started using screens when I was in middle school (mid 90's), I still ended up with a hymnal in my hand.  As a child, I casually flipped through the hymnal during the sermon. I had my favorite hymns that I always wished we would sing. The words drew me into the song.  Hymnals are a handbook on practical theology. 

Yesterday I led a hymn I grew up singing; "Only Trust Him". It was written by an old school Methodist, John H. Stockton.  He was converted at a camp meeting in the early 1830's, and spent his life as a minister, evangelist and hymn writer.  The fourth verse really plays into some classic Methodist language....

Come then and join that holy band,
and on to glory go
To dwell in that celestial land
where joys immortal flow.

The communal language and the focus on heaven struck me.  These are favorite plays for the people called Methodist. You can say they are themes that run wild in our songs. We know we need each other and we know we have been adopted as children of God.

Using these songs and songbook isn't a reversion to traditionalism, but tradition.  Worship is contextual engagement with tradition, narrating a story about what really matters.  Through the Holy Spirit, we are gathered in the song of the Church on earth and the Church triumphant. Our song is Jesus Christ and His eternal reign. That hasn't and never will change.

Worship Leadership: Sharing the Set (Legally)

 Part of the frustration of song leading today is the legality of sharing new music with your team.  Yes, you could murk around the lines and make copies of CD's.  Another option uses YouTube.com to share new music. But this ties you to how fast the internet can be, and Youtube doesn't work well when it comes to repeating pieces.  There are plenty of blogposts by worship leaders trying to find a way to easily as well as legally fix this problem.

Another issue is the pastoral care of a volunteer worship team.  Small gifts (such as strings, sticks or other accessories) go a long way with the people who show up week in and out.  The skills of Hospitality are part of leading a worship team.

Over the last few weeks I have been using Rdio.com for my music.  It is a cheap subscription based service with a large amount of music available.  For a small fee (either 5 or 10 dollars a month), I can stream an unlimited amount of music to a number of devices.  Modern worship music is easily found, with a vast catalog of my favorites.

Rdio also has a social element, with friending and shared playlists.  This is where I think it can serve a worship team.  Most musicians love music, and Rdio has tons in different genres.  So why not purchase a web subscription for 4.99 a month (a mobile version is 9.99) for each regular member of your team? This would allow you give them a small gift they would use, as well as legally share music with them. Setting up playlists for specific services is easy, and they can be shared with the team members.  If enough worship leaders used this, we could also contribute to each others playlists and share our own new favorites.

The wealth of tools available make life easy.  It boils down to finding how to specifically use them for worship leadership

 

Long Live The Children's Choir

There are parts of 20th century evangelical church that I think do not need to be thrown away (youth camp and VBS). I want to add the children's choir to that list.  Today at church our handful of kids got up to sing two songs; Away in a Manger and We Wish You a Merry Christmas.  Are these the best Advent songs for following the worship calender...? Probably not, but it was definitely worth it.

Through singing, those kids embedded a sense of Christian memory in their heads as they learned those two songs, especially Away in a Manger.  I remember a children's program when I was a child that taught us many of the great hymns of Christian Faith.  I still know almost every verse of A Mighty Fortress is our God because of that program. I also grew up around the type of pageantry that gets overwhelming, but I learned so much about faith through the songs I was taught as a child.  Yes, it is possible to just parade around kids in their parents bathrobes and utterly miss the Christian story, but it is also possible to teach them the deep hymns of faith.  These are the things that stay alive in the back of our mind.  When Meredith and I first started going to Nicholasville Baptist years ago, I remember all of the revival hymns that we sang because I had sung them as a child.

So lets not forget the children's choir.  Instead of badly recorded backing tracks of Chris Tomlin songs lets teach them old hymns, especially around Christmas and Easter.  It plants the story of God and salvation history (or Heilsgeschichte to show off a word I learned last night) in these very impressionable minds.  It helps us to teach kids that they belong to something much bigger than themselves. 

 

Advent Voices: Jeffrey Rudy

Jeffrey Rudy is a Phd student focused on Wesley Studies. We run in the same network, but I don't think we have actually met, although just joined a small group with him!!  This Advent Jeffrey is going through Charles Wesley's Hymns for the nativity of our Lord This is a great collection of hymns and it would be good addition to your devotion time this month. Jeffrey is posting his thoughts on his blog Anglo-Methodist as well as at Levite Camp. 

Sunday Setlists 11.28.10

This Sunday we started Advent off at my Church.  I am sure that many other churches shared at least one song on our setlist.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
O Come let us adore him

Jesus keep me near the cross

Wonderful Merciful Saviour

It was a great time of worship, and I loved being in a congregation that was really excited about Advent.  A more interesting part of the service was before our scripture reading.  Last year when I was planning Advent services at Asbury Seminary we were trying to find ways to really echo some of the Old Testament experience regarding Advent, specifically the idea of waiting for God.  We ended up taking 2 different 200 seconds of silence broken up by a responsive reading of Isaiah 40:6-8

        A voice says, “Cry out.”
        And I said, “What shall I cry?”
       “All men are like grass,
        and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.
        The grass withers and the flowers fall,
        because the breath of the LORD blows on them.
        Surely the people are grass.
        The grass withers and the flowers fall,
        but the word of our God stands forever.”

This Sunday we did the whole 400 seconds instead of breaking it up, but did use this reading at the end.  It was really great being with a congregation that was ready and willing to be part of Advent and wanted to change things up. We heard a great sermon on Faith that was a great start to the season as well.

Sunday Setlists 9.5.10

If you want to read other setslist from todays, crusie over to TheWorshipCommunity.Com and see them.  This is a great way to see what other songs are being used in worship at other churches.

Our service today was the first starting a series on spiritual "words".  Today was fasting. After racking my brain for several days I decided to just concentrate on strong songs.  I also realized that we would be without a projection engineer, so we need to stick to the hymnal.  That really isn't a big deal because we usually use it once during the service anyway and I am a pretty big fan of the hymnal.  It is powerful to keep it in the hands of the congregation, because in it is a faith history told in song.

We sang

Oh Worship the King
It is well with my soul
Depth of Mercy (Wesley)
Jesus keep me near the Cross

I am glad that I don't have the stress of thinking of our songs in worshipas primarily serving as an assistance to the sermon, my pastor Aaron is great and loves strong singing.  Sometimes it is easy to forget that our worship isn't supposed to be "about" God but is directed towards Him. Worship is our response to the revelation of Jesus Christ, and today's entire service was a wonderful example of that.  It never gets old to sing about the wondrous power of the Father, the loving gifts of the Son and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. 

Sunday Setlist 8.15.10

This post is part of the sunday setlists meme over at TheWorshipCommunity.com.

I love being part of these meme's.  Looking over other setlists and situations is really fun for me.  Here was this last Sunday's music set.

1.  Crown Him with Many Crowns
2.  Your Grace is Enough
3.  Create in me a Clean Heart

4.  Be Thou my Vision

5.  Whiter than Snow

This last Sunday was at the congregation that Meredith and I atten and I have been doing surpervised ministry at the last month and a half.  The Sunday congregation is primarily a traditional service, with a serious contextual look at how music is used stylistically and lyrically.  Besides the songs I lead, we also sing the Gloria Patri and Doxology.  I am intentional with picking songs that are somewhat "country" or fit inside a country gospel framework, while also looking for pretty strong songs.  This past Sunday had more hymns than usual, but it really fit the sermon which focused on the gospel message handed down...and it never changes.  The sermon text was from Revelation 2, so you know that got me going.  All together, it was a great day of worship.

Sunday Setlist: 6.13.10

I had the opportunity to lead yesterday morning at Nicholasville United Methodist Church.  This is where Meredith and I attend normally, and it is a great place full of friends and a caring community.  Our service this week was part of a series on apologetics, and yesterdays service was focused on prayer and when our prayers aren't answered.

Because of this, I wanted to sing songs that dealt with suffering, but specifically how our God is faithful throughout our life.  This meant dealing with a variety of emotions, and I also wanted to make sure that we sang about how God as Father, Son and Spirit interacts with us.  Part of this intention is understanding faithful acts specific to both the Triune nature and the overall character of God.

The Set:

Blessed Be Your Name
In Christ Alone
Your Grace is Enough (Maher version)
Knowing You
Wonderful Merciful Savior

I think that it went well.  I always try to make sure that a good overall picture of who God is will be presented in the musical section of worship.  This means trying to use specific Triune language and not emphasizing one attribute of God to much.  I also try to make sure that we sing about a specific picture of Old Testament and New Testament.  With that in mind, it sometimes knocks out some songs...and you always have to design around needs of the congregation, but I think this did a good job of that.  I wish that I could have dealt with Pentecost a little more, but that might have been cramming a bit to much in. It is always great contributing to Sunday Setlists.

Setlist 5.9.10

This was my first Sunday in a few weeks to lead worship.  This was a hard service to plan for, and at times frustrating.  The congregation is in one of those awkward places of being contemporary, but also having a significant portion of members that aren't familiar with many newer songs.  Lately it has been best to design around that issue, and mornings like this always teach me a great lesson.

All Who Are Thirsty

Before the Throne of God Above
All in All

Befriended (repeated again at the end)

We had a guest speaker who narrated the entire book of Ruth with the theme of overcoming grief.  They were older and had no real idea of the repertoire of the service.  We knew that there would also be alot of elements in the service, so we needed to keep music short.  I also taught "Befriended" to the congregation, so it was used more than once.  Where I really learned through this set was singing "All in All".  I admittingly had relegated the song to the "camp songs" bucket, and didn't want to use it.  But it is yet another song that inside the corpus of an entire service fit wonderfully.  I was really satisfied with how we spoke about God in this service, Since we are drawing to the end of the Easter season, it was great set to talk about the risen Christ.  The language of "Father" is woven in and out of Befriended so it was a great piece.  I struggle with the lack of a sung emphasis on the Holy Spirit in most sets, and todays didn't change.  There don't seem to be very many good songs that talk about the Spirit in deep levels. 

But looking back, the service went well and did a great job as a whole.  I love being able to throw this into the Sunday Setlists meme and see what others did.

Sunday Setlist

Sunday Setlist is a social media meme where Worship Leaders layout their sets from Sunday.  This is actually my first entry/foray into it, so here it is.  More info can be found here.

I have been leading in a semi-rotation at Nicholasville United Methodist Church.  We are in the middle of a series on outreach, and I was part of a great planning team for an amazing service.  I co-led with my friend Sara Lynn.

The service was interesting in 2 ways.  First, we are in a planning stage for a re-visioning of our community.  We are situated south of Lexington Kentucky, and we have a large population from Eastern Kentucky in our city.  This means we deal with poverty ALOT.  The Church is taking a dramatic turn towards our downtown community (where we are situated). Second, we were following the traditional Eucharist Liturgy from the United Methodist Book of Worship.  I love leading and designing worship from the perspective of contemporary use of Traditional elements.  We re-configured part of our sanctuary to face the outer glass walls which look over the courthouse and into the city.  We offered communion facing this direction.

1.  All over the World
2.  Mighty To Save
3.  Knowing You
4.  Lord Have Mercy-we did a different with the song.  Sara led the first two verses and between Pastor Matt led a time of confession using the Confession (Merciful God...) from the United Methodist Hymnal.  We played through this and then finished the song.

5.  Wonderful, Merciful Savior
6.  Mystery (during Communion)
7.  Hosanna

It was a great time leading and the service was really great.  Thanks to the whole team at NUMC.