Night of Worship Recap
Thanks everyone who helped make our Adore: Night of Worship a Success. We really had an awesome time with our first ever event like this. The night was basically broken down into 4 sections (similar to our morning of prayer and worship), and we had about 2-3 songs, and a prayer/activity divider.
We opened with the first 1:30 of I Gotta Feelin’ by the Black Eyed Peas (just staying timely with something that was culturally relevant and lyrically appropriate for the evening… and well… I love the “Tonight’s gonna be a good night” hook). We went straight into No Not One by Christy Nockels. Followed up by Lord of All by Kristian Stanfill (which we got our Adore title from).
We then moved onto a Lectio Divina (or divine reading). Sometimes this can be a touchy issue for people because of the almost ‘emptying’ mysticism that is associated with it, but I think there is a theologically ok way of doing a lectio divina, where we read, re-read, and re-read a piece of scripture, focusing on moving form surface to application as we read. We capped that section with a reading of the Prayer of St. Francis lead by Ginger Dooley.
We moved onto Be Thou My Vision with just Chris Arias on keys and Rachel Jackson leading with Megan on harmony which was killer. Almost hauntingly good! We then did a new Starfield tune Holy Is Our God and then Glorious One by Steve Fee.
Next we broke up into groups of 3-4 and prayer for our local community, our city, and our world for several minutes, a great time for people to just connect with others and simply pray. We closed the section with an abridged version of St. Patrick’s Breastplate prayer, read by Kevin Hammond.
We went on to sing the How He Loves by John Mark McMillan, the It Is Well remake by Todd Fields, tagged that song with a bit of Our God Reigns by Chris Tomlin, and followed that all up with Glory to God Forever by Steve Fee.
We next moved onto a section where there were seven buckets setup around the room filled with sand. Next to the buckets were different questions about sins people deal with. One station dealt with greed, another lust, another jealousy, etc. As they felt convicted or recognized sin in their life, they were encouraged to take a scoop from the bucket and put it into a plastic bag that everyone had. From there they filled up each bucket and placed it at the foot of the cross. I was highly encouraged by the participation level and response to this activity. We capped that section off by a reading of the St. Ignatius of Loyola Prayer for the Disturbed read by Faye Davenport.
We went into Beautiful by Phil Wickham and capped it with the end of Fix You by Coldplay. We moved into Hosanna by Brooke Fraser. We served communion and finished with the very communion-appropriate song Mystery by Charlie Hall.
Thanks to all the volunteers and everyone who really made that evening come together!!!
Sunday Summary – 07.05.09
With summertime in full swing and a holiday weekend, we had slim availability for our musician core. We were able to field a small but very capable lineup for the week with Bill Hunton on acoustic, Roger Hiles on keys, and Mike Dooley on drums. Megan Sullivan and Ray Hilton took on the vocal pieces, and it ended up being a great mix. The songs were arranged slighty different than the tracks, of course, and it helped create a good sound with great energy considering we only had 3 instruments on stage. The set went like this:
Amazed – Jared Anderson
He Knows My Name – Tommy Walker
Rescue – Jared Anderson
Worth it All – Rita Springer
The Heart of Worship – Matt Redman
An obviously piano heavy set, and it turned out to be great. Our congregation numbers were a little down with a holiday weekend, summer travel, and without our teaching pastor preaching. That’s not to say our energy wasn’t there. Though, I admit, I am looking forward to being out of the summer, when we’ve got all the folks in town!
Sunday Summary – 06.28.2009
Well, things were a little different this morning. Over the past year we’ve put an emphasis on being a church that serves. We have really grown in that area, including Faith In Action sundays where we go and serve on a Sunday morning instead of meeting in our building. This has been great for us to build a culture of service around the church, but recently on staff we discussed how we could do the same in other areas. One of those areas is prayer. We thought that if we are willing to put service front and center on a sunday instead of having a traditional service with sermon, we could do the same for prayer. So, a team of us got together to plan out a prayer based service for the mroning.
It was amazing.
We broke the service into five parts: individual prayer, prayers or the church, prayers for the community, prayers for the nation, prayers for the world. We broke each of the sections with songs as well.
- Individual: During the individual section, we included scriptures for reflection, as well as individual prayer videos.
- Church: In the church section, we had prayer requests over the past months printed onto cards on the seats throughout the room. We asked people to get in groups of three and pray through some of the requests, as well as share their own concerns. We then prayed for staff and elders in the church. Thanks Doug Scott for leading that section.
- Local Community: We setup 12 tables around the room with images of the local community in Smyrna (Campbell High, City Hall, etc) with some listed prayer points. We asked people to basically walk through the ’stations’ and pray for the individual areas of the community. People also took communion during this time. We capped it off a with a communion video we made for just this morning… very powerful.
- National: We had people pray for different leaders and military in our nation. Chuck Dunlop lead us through the individual subjects as people sat in their seats and prayed through. We capped it off with Sarah Pascual doing a really powerful prayer of revival.
- Global: We asked people to break up into groups of six. On cards in the seatbacks, we printed out nations/people groups of the ten most persecuted countries. People prayed over these countries, and we finished the time by having Peter Ngunyi say a prayer in Swahili and teach us how to say “In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
Our band lineup for the morning was Chris Case, Leah Case, and Ray Hilton -VOX, Kyle Nighman – Rhythm, Ben Snider – Lead, Vern Baker – Bass, and Jacob Arnold – Drums. It was once again a really, really solid lineup. Great songs for the morning, with mostly a focus on hymns. Here was our set:
How Deep the Father’s Love – Nicole Nordeman
The Solid Rock (On Christ The Solid Rock) – Charlie Hall
Mystery – Charlie Hall
It Is Well – Todd Fields
Amazing Grace – Together:Songs for the Soul (Various Artist)
I think all the songs were great for the morning. This was the first time we did Mystery, but it was really powerful and tied into communion. I also really like Todd Field’s It Is Well. I think most modernized versions of that song struggle with the originl chorus and echo, and his version does a good job having a catchy hook and staying lyrically relative to the song.
We also invited Kerry Jackson, a local artist who has experience painting during a worship service. He created a great Jesus with crown of thorns piece that I’ll post soon. He ended right as we got to communion/video/Mystery. It was perfect.
I was hesitant about the morning, wondering just how into the service people would be, but it was definitely a success on that level. People participated, got into groups, and more. Thanks to everyone who helped plan, and everyone who participated! What an amazing, amazing morning.
Sunday Summary – 06.21.2009
Well, another Father’s Day came and went, and what an INCREDIBLE morning it was. Alan was back from study break and ready to just lay out so much of what he had learned. Great teaching, 9 spontaneous baptistms, great stuff.
As is somewhat tradition for CCC, we opened fathers day with some rock songs. Last year we did some 60s/70s rock tunes, so this time we wanted to do a little more of the 70s/80s rock tunes, or at least artists that were in that genre. We chose Message In a Bottle by the Police and Runnin’ Down a Dream by Tom Petty.
Our lineup was Chris Case and Ray Hilton – VOX, Bill Hunton – Rhythm, Jon Gallagher – Bass, Michael Hines – Lead, Chris Case – acoustic, Anders Henson – Drums. What a solid and talented lineup. Everyone knew the songs and I think we really nailed it. Here’s the set:
Message In a Bottle – The Police
Runnin’ Down a Dream – Tom Petty
Salvation Is Here – Hillsongs
Lift High – Fee
My Savior, My God – Aaron Shust
God is With Us – Michael Olson
We Shine – Fee
We ran little long, not only message, but setlist was big, and we vamped on My Savior, My God throughout the baptisms, but still an incredible and moving service.
