March 14

I am still surprised when God takes a service and knits it together so that the various threads make one tapestry. 

March 7, 2010

A couple of items from yesterday's service: Tom and I teamed together. I would be interested in feedback (not the kind from sound systems) regarding that arrangement.  How was the sound?  Did the songs flow in ministry? Any other comments? 

In terms of lyrics projection, I noticed at least one instance of the mouse pointer showing up on the projection screen. This demonstrates the need for projection ministry training. Volunteer availability for training has, however, been a challenge. 

Wednesday evening

Bruce preached on Phil 3:7 and talked about God offering us something beter whenever he calls us to release something. For some reason, I am still suprised when God coordinates the songs with the message.

YWAM team sharing

Last Wednesday a Youth With A Mission team, recently returned from their Africa Outreach, came and shared in our Wednesday evening service. What a challenging word! They were sharing about the plight of the children. The comment made by one of the girls on the team was challenging. "I used to think that giving my money was what I should do. But God has been challenging me to think outside the box. How can I help the children. God is telling me to throw away the box." How can we be God's hands touching the children with His love?

Development of Projection Training

I am pleased with the progress on developing the projection training.  It looks like it will be essentially four units:

1. Unit 1 - Ministry, Worship, and Projection
2. Unit 2 - Preparation for Service
3. Unit 3 - The User Interface
4. Unit 4 - Best Practices

During this week the people involved in the projection ministry will be creating their accounts on the wiki that we will be using in unit 1.  Sunday morning we will start in ernest.

Lyrics Projection training

I am going to be putting together some traing for the people who are doing the lyrics projection.  I would appreciate some feedback regarding the projection ministry at Lamb of God.

It is kind of one of those things where, when everything goes right, you don't think about it. However, please think about what is working well.  Where are we excelling?  Where can we improve?  I will be reviewing the comments to help in identifying opportunities for improvement that we might be able to move toward by providing some additional targeted training.  This is, in no way, a negative reflection on what is currently being done.  We want to perform our ministry in a way that enhances our worship experience and honors our God. 

Carried along....

2 Peter 1:20-21 (New International Version)


20Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. 21For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

What does it mean to be carried along by the Holy Spirit?  What are the implications for our times of worship?

Christmas Eve

I liked the carolling in the narthex as people walked in.  I think it helped them to prepare for our Christmas celebration.

Deep words

I love the depth and richness of many of the Christmas carols, especially in the later, less well known verses.  We sang one of those on Sunday.

Come Desire of nations come

Fix in us Thy humble home

Rise the woman's conq'ring seed

Bruise in us the serpent's head

Adam's likeness now efface

Stamp Thine image in its place

Second Adam from above

Reinstate us in Thy love

Hark the herald angels sing

Glory to the newborn King

December 6 service - walking in step with the Spirit

I'm thinking that I must have missed something.  Bruce said at the start of the service that the focus on the services during a\Advent were going to be Christ's first coming, his coming now, and his coming again.  I didn't catch that in the service on Sunday,  however.  Maybe he was talking about Wednesdays.

At any rate, a couple of things from worship that I am wondering about any feedback.  First, the songs in the first worship set (with the exception of the last one) all moved directly from one to the other without any pause.  This was intentional. 

• Come, Now is the Time to Worship =>
• O Come Let Us Adore Him =>
• Celebrate the Lord of Love =>
• Trading My Sorrows =>
• Joy to the World

The intention was that the message of each song would build on the previous.

Secondly, for the offering song I chose one that I was hoping would be easy for the congregation to pick up on.  I think they did.  "You are the vine, we are the branches, Oh- - -" etc.

First Advent service

I really enjoyed the music at this service.  I think it was easy for the congregation to pick up on (once the timing on O Come O Come Emmanuel was understood) and had a mood that reflects the mystery of the incarnation.  One of the things that music can do is to communicate in a way that grasps not just the brain, but the heart too.

November 25 service

If tomorrow all the things were gone I’d worked for all my life,

And I had to start again with just my children and my wife.

I’d thank my lucky stars to be living here today,

‘Cause the flag still stands for freedom and they can’t take that away.

Bruce quoted this song at the beginning of the service.  Line 3 is what my student workers would call "an epic fail".  The stars don't influence luck.  Their role is to proclaim the glory of God!  A better choice for song lyrics that carry the thought would have been to use "A Mighty Fortress".

"The Word they still shall let remain nor any thanks have for it;

He’s by our side upon the plain with His good gifts and Spirit.

And take they our life, goods, fame, child and wife,

Let these all be gone, they yet have nothing won;

The Kingdom ours remaineth."

November 15, 2009

The service was quite long - but it did not seem long at all.  Jeff did a great job of holding our interest, story telling, and relating the stories to the work of the Spirit of God in our midst.

I was concerned before the service how the technical parts would go, because there was a PowerPoint and a DVD for the children's sermon, a video (.avi) for during the offering, and another DVD for the announcements at the end of the service. 

The PowerPoint came in, and it was in Office 2007 format.  The projection computer has office 2003 - not compatible.  I took it to the office computer.  That one has Office 2000!  I had also brought my laptop along, so I ran out to the car and got that so I could transfer the PowerPoint to 2003 format.  Hurdle number one successfully cleared!

The DVDs came in line fairly easily.  I took care of the projector input switching up front, and Becky handled getting things running from the booth in back. Hurdles two and three.

The last item was the .AVI for during the offering.  This was a video from YouTube.  I knew that the chances of a working wireless network connection were at best about one in ten.  So I had captured the video at home and converted it to AVI format.  Indeed, the computer did not connect wirelessly on Sunday.  When I tried to run the AVI, however, the computer could not keep up with it.  It would hang part way through.  So I had to quick learn the song.  I am glad that I had played through the file a number of times getting the video capture!  So we did the offering song live rather than running the video.

I think it is time to replace the projection computer.

And it all came together.  God is faithful!

Scripture for November 8

Galatians 3:26-4:7 (New International Version)



Sons of God

26You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Galatians 4

1What I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. 2He is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. 3So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. 4But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, 5to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. 6Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba,[a] Father." 7So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.

November 1 - Galatians 3:1-14

The scripture was as follows:

 

1You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 2I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? 3Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? 4Have you suffered so much for nothing—if it really was for nothing? 5Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?

 

6Consider Abraham: "He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."[a] 7Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. 8The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you."[b] 9So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

10All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law."[c] 11Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith."[d] 12The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, "The man who does these things will live by them."[e] 13Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree."[f] 14He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

Songs were:

• Kindness
• I Give You My Heart
• Empty Me
• Live For You
• Light the Fire Again
• You Are My King
• All I Really Want
• Your Grace is Enough

Points to ponder:

• What was the main thing that you think God was wanting to do on Sunday?
• How did the worship time an message strengthen each other?
• Were there particular songs that especially touched you?
• Were there other elements of the time that either enhanced or distracted?
• It was Reformation.  Did our service pick up on this?  We didn't sing "A Mighty Fortress".  Is that OK?

These are just a few questions to consider.

My own thought is that whether or not we sang a hymn which might be expected on Reformation Sunday is less important than that we have our ears attentive to what the Spirit of God is speaking to us.

October 25 worship

Lord, make us ready for our time of worship.  I pray that we would be drawn into your presence.

Every time a faithful servant serves
A brother that's in need
What happens at that moment is a miracle indeed
As they look to one another in an instant it is clear
Only Jesus is visible for they've both disappeared

May Jesus be the One who is seen.

October 18 service

I have a couple of questions regarding Sunday's service that I would like to get people's impressions on.

1. How did the service hold together?  Did the worship time mesh with the Word time, etc?  The reason I ask is because I did not have the text or sermon theme to work with at the time of putting the service together.  I didn't sense something disjointed or anything like that, but I am wondering if there may have been themes that were present even though they were not overtly planned that way.

2. Musically how did our time seem?  It was the Sunday of 6/8 time worship in the key of D. :-)  Seriously, the songs did flow one into the other.  Was that helpful in the flow of the worship in addition to the flow of the music?

As a reminder, these were the songs:

Pre-service:
 - Come, Now Is The Time To Worship
 - You're Worthy Of My Praise
Opening Worship Time:
 - Praise To The Lord The Almighty
 - High and Lifted Up
 - You are the Lord
Offering:
 - Our Father
Closing Song:
 - Beautiful One

3. Responses to the new-ish song - You Are The Lord?
Here is a link if you need to hear it again.



I took care to try to make sure all the songs were in a singable key.  There is probably no key that works for everyone, but hopefully the key of the songs was not a stumbling block to the message or the moving of the Spirit.

October 11 service

This comment I am copying for Laura.  It got posted under a different date, but applies to 10/11/09:

Ok, so I have missed the last three Sundays, but was there yesterday and am struggling with what to say. First, I need to ask, why is no one useing and/or commenting on this Blog? There have been no postings since Sept. 13TH. What's up with that? I thought those involved agreed to be part of trying to decipher what the Spirit of God would like to see us change to draw people closer to Him and into a deeper worship of Him. The verse in Revelation from Sunday, "WORSHIP GOD", just keeps resounding in my heart. Also, when Bruce referred to MAKING your grandkids hug you as oppossed to them running into your embrase, really, to me embodies what our own personal worship needs to be. We cannot just rotely sing praise songs and or hymns and expect to give God the glory He deserves or expect to be filled up with the joy of His Holy Spirit. Hence, my thoughts: The worship team needs to select songs that are made to be sung by a body to the Lord as opposed to songs meant to be an offering by a few that the congregation can listen to and be ministered by. The first song Sunday was awesome and I really felt the Spirit trying to do a work in the body, then, not so much! Songs that are complicated to sing along with, or AGAIN, TOO HIGH, lose the congregation fast and the moving of the Spirit is dropped like a hot potatoe! You can just sense the loss! Then, when Jeff got up, BOOM, the Spirit was back, had the body's attention, and WAS POWERFUL! The same with Bruce's sermon, POWERFUL! PRAYER TIME, POWERFUL, COMMUNIION POWERFUL, in spite of the song choices...much love, but we need to confront this as worship teams and be willing to make it about lifting up our Great God and leading the people in need to His strong arms for direction and comfort....It is so not about performance! If we as worship team members will practice before, and then just WORSHIP GOD on Sundays and not be in performance mode, I truly believe we will see His Spirit blanket our worship service and anoint it as He already is anointing Pastor Bruce, readers, and prayers at LOG. Thoughts?


Laura

Your thoughts?

I haven't posted here in a few weeks.  But I want to again invite the other designated authors to initiate posts at any time.  And anyone can reply to existing posts.

September 13 service

I got to sit in the congregation for this service, so I got a bit of a different perspective for this Sunday.

I had a couple of thoughts regarding preparation for the Sunday service.

Thought 1: As I was singing the words to the songs, I realized how easy it is to sing through them without letting them touch the heart. And the words are deep and should be allowed to be used by the Spirit to touch us. I'm thinking it might be good to ask the people who are going to be leading on Sunday morning to read, preferably aloud, the words to the songs. Reading them rather than singing them can let them sink in - kind of like a speed bump for the heart.

Thought 2: As Bruce was talking about us growing up and being able to handle a sharp knife or matches as we mature, I thought about the Sword of the Spirit. What if we put the text for the coming week in the bulletin so that those who wished to could begin to chew on the Word prior to coming to church? This would not necessarily have to bind us to using that text the following week. It could be the text that we would use unless the Spirit re-directed to something different. It could be put in the bulletin, not as the text for next week's message, but as a verse to focus on through the week.

Thought 3: With the story of Charlotte Eliott, I thought about a technique that I have been learning about in a class that I am taking. It is called digital storytelling. Here is a link that gives a bit of background: http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/ One way to think of digital storytelling is parables presented in 21st century media. I could see this technique used with something like the Charlotte Eliott story, or with a parable, or an illustration, etc. Again, it would require more preparation in advance to put together the media, etc. Two weeks lead time would be somewhat tight, but possible.

OK, now some logistics observations:

• Some of the songs were in difficult keys to sing, notably "Be Lifted High".
• I received a comment from someone after the service who was sitting in maybe row 3 or 4 toward the side of the church that the sound was overpoweringly loud. Any observations from anyone who was sitting in a different area? How was the sound where you were?
• Practice before the service was running during the Bible study and was easily heard in the Bible study area. Can we make a commitment to end practice before the study starts? Or is that not such a big issue?