Behind the Mic – June 26th and 27th
June 28, 2010
Worship set for June 26th and 27th (Worship Center)
Our God Saves – Paul Baloche
Greatly to be Praised – Steve Fee
Praise to the Lord – Hymn
You Never Let Go – Matt Redman
Blessed Be Your Name – Matt Redman
We Have Overcome – Elevation Church
Tell the World – Hillsong United
Well this weekend, I was originally supposed to lead worship for FUEL in The Hub, however Darren, the head worship leader for the main services in the worship center, got sick. So, I filled in for him. I have to be honest, at first I was a bit nervous since this was actually the first time I’ve led a full worship service with a different band in a long long time. I’ve helped out a lot and led songs here and there, but when it comes to full worship sets, it’s been LiFT for a long time now. It ended up going really really well though. Everyone in the band played great, and, from my perspective the energy was great, and the congregation was incredibly engaged.
We opened the service with a couple songs that everyone knew well, followed by a welcome and some announcements. We then played You Never Let Go, another well known song which allowed the congregation to truly engage and worship whole heartedly.
Greg then gave his message on Isaiah 42, explaining the freedom we have through Christ and how we are set free. He also spoke on the prophecy of Isaiah and how it is fulfilled in Mark 700 years later. It was a great message.
Coming out of the message we played the hymn Praise to the Lord. Now to be honest, and most would probably agree who know me, hymns are not really in my main element. However I do love them, and grew up on them. The lyrics are direct and inspirational, and say things that are often overlooked in modern worship. Scripture tells us to worship with Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Too often I feel that I focus a lot on spiritual songs, which I would consider to be more of the modern praise and worship, simply because I relate to it musically easier. However I, we, can’t forget the importance of the Psalms and hymns. It is something I’m sure I’ll be challenged with for a while, but acknowledge I need to be a little more open.
Anyway, after that we played the good old song Blessed Be Your Name, which no matter how you look at it, is a great song. Everywhere I play that song, no matter who is in the audience or congregation, that song gets the biggest response. It seems to draw absolutely everybody to Christ, because it really covers every aspect of life, both positive and negative.
We then played a new song, that came out of Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC. It was a great song that I simply had a great time singing on. It was over the offering so the congregation didn’t sing it, which allowed for me to really let go with it. It was great and I hope to do it more often over at The Hub.
We then had a prayer time and then closed with Tell the World, a great high energy song, where the guitarists get to shine a bit and have some fun.
Overall it was a great and powerful weekend, and when LiFT isn’t scheduled to play in The Hub, hopefully I can get over and do it a few more times.
(In saying all of this, LiFT is my family and absolutely love worshipping with them. I can’t wait to worship with them at camp this summer in Buffalo!)
