7/10/11 @ Bethel Bible Church

Another Sunday...another chance to gather together as the family of God and celebrate all His wondrous works!

Our very own Dan Bolin preached today and did a great job. Like usual! Not only does Dan have a ton of wisdom about scripture and ministry and life in general - he's also great at communicating it.

Dan's sermon was focused on "hospitality." It was a great, timely word for all of us. Here's what we did for worship.

YOU HAVE SAVED US (A)
We've done this Baloche song a couple of times, but it never really worked. We really struggled with the groove. In all honesty, I don't think the band was "ready" back when we first learned it. However, the band did a great job on it today. It's one of those songs that I love and that I keep thinking the church will really grab, but it just hasn't happened. Could be a case of the band loving a song that's just not working. That really is one of the hardest parts of the job - cutting songs that might be awesome that just don't work. We didn't have Tim on B3 this week, so I think that might have hurt us a little bit.

Call To Worship
While looking through some liturgy books, I came a cross a lengthy adaptation of Isaiah 40. The longer liturgy was great, but didn't really support what we were singing and saying in worship for the day, so I decided to shorten the piece as a "call to worship":
Hear and know that the Lord is the everlasting God!
He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives strength to the faint. No matter what befalls us, those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint!

However, once I started reading it, my projectionist flashed the actual scripture on the screen. I didn't mind - mine was a paraphrase and I appreciate him taking initiative. If I had known, I could have stopped him, but since it happened live, I just read it.

SONG OF HOPE (A)
Karen, our keyboardist, kept playing through the transition, which was nice. Dale counted us into this one, an old favorite. Karen learned the "bell riff" from the bridge and played it on our Korg and it was really nice. I don't know that we've ever played that particular riff during the bridge, but it was nice. Weird thing about riffs - sometimes they don't matter, but other ones can really make a section stand out. Shawn, our bassists, had learned every single lick of the bass line and it made a huge contribution to the overall groove.

Welcome
Dan did a quick welcome, asked folks to sign our visitor book and turned it back over to the band. We're used to a welcome that's a bit longer, but Dan is such a friendly face, I think he made everybody feel welcome right from the start.

MY HOPE IS YOU (C)
I keep trying to not love this song, but it's just not possible. To me, this one of the tightest band tunes we've got. Ray Wilson had all the electric stuff down cold! Karen even took the synth line from the mp3 and played on piano/synth in verse 1, which gave the song some nice shimmy before the drums came in.

Scripture Since I was going to be teaching a new song about community, I read from I Peter 3:8-9:
Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.

I then tried to remind folks that scripture is instructive for us. In fact, scripture gives us a great application on how to do this in I Corinthians 12:26:

If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

COMMUNITY (F)
This Ross King tune is one of the most original, relevant worship songs I've ever heard. There's no song like it and it's great for congregations to sing. I actually taught the chorus a few times before the band took off on it. I think it went okay. New songs take time, but I felt confident that this one really supported the message of hospitality that we were sharing.

Prayer
Over the intro of the next tune, I prayed that our love would be like Christ's and I thanked God for the amazing love shown in Jesus.

HERE IS LOVE (F)
My cue wasn't as obvious and a couple of the band members didn't land the intro, but with such a vast song, I don't think it mattered. (Plus, they nailed it in second service!) This is also the first time we added the "no love is higher" part at the end. The band and Sarah ROCKED it. I'm not sure how the crowd took it...as I was doing it, I realized I might could have kept the melody the same all three passes instead of ascending each time.

The other big news today was the introduction of a drum shield. This gave our sound guy some leeway and it allowed Dale to go back to using real sticks. (Happy day!) I think the shield allowed for the drums to sit much nicer in the overall house mix instead of being something that the mix had to fight.