Real Worship

Ali was recovering from illness & injury this week, so I chose the songs for both Stevenage & Exeter congregations.  I kept the list the same for both.  Here it is (though we didn’t actually get to sing all the songs from the list in either congregation):

• Lord You Are Good (Israel Houghton)
• For Who You Are (Marty Sampson)
• Indescribable (Chris Tomlin)
• Dove’s Eyes (Rick Pino)
• Your Love Is Like (Rick Pino)
• The More I Seek You (Zach Neese)

All songs were played either in E or A, which I played capo 2 on my accoustic.

Stevenage (am):

Praise & worship “took off” in Stevenage this week.  Right from the start, people freely chose to give themselves, singing passionately from the heart, raising their hands, focussing their attention firmly on God – celebrating His goodness.  This continued through the second song, “For Who You Are”.

When we reached the third song, however, people began to disengage.  Whether or not this was because we’ve not sung the song for a while, I don’t know; I think, perhaps more realistically, it was because I was a bit unsure of the arrangement .  So, I cut the song short, held the last chord (capo 2 C) & began to improvise lyrically over the top of it – singing directly to God.  Then… Wham! It took off again; only this time, more so.  All around the room, more & more people were crying out to God, engrossed in His presence.

This passion & intensity continued for the whole of the rest of the worship.  We sang Rick Pino’s anthemic “Dove’s Eyes”; repeating the chorus:

“I love Your face

I love Your kisses

I love Your embrace

I love Your presence”

We looped the chord progression for quite a while, allowing people to sing their own words.  Throughout the worship time, we left a lot of space for this to happen.  We flowed out of the extended free worship time, finishing with the beautifully intimate, “Your Love Is Like”.

Exeter (pm):

Though the set list was the same, the flow of the service was different to Stevenage (as you may expect – different band members, different congregation, different circumstances etc.)  For me, it didn’t flow as easily.  Don’t get me wrong, I could see people around the room engaging in worship, obviously meeting with God; it’s just that people didn’t want to go where I wanted to lead.  There’s no criticism in that; there is no obligation on anyone to do what they don’t want to.  The only criticism I would offer would be of myself – should I allow that to be a source of frustration.  That would be wrong; it would mean that I only see people as being there to somehow validate “my ministry” – ugh!

Herein lies my dilemma.  My desire and aim during a worship service is to encounter God & provide a platform that facilitates as many as possible to encounter Him & gives Him the space to move freely.  Within the process, I may feel that we need to sing a certain song or lyric, or I may speak an encouragement or verse of scripture (as can anyone).  With no-one obliged to follow any instruction or encouragement, I can either find myself “out-there” on my own, or I can hold back & choose not bring what I believe God has given.  Neither are desirable.

Bizarrely, the highlight in Exeter this week was the Chris Tomlin song, “Indescribable” (the very one that didn’t do so well in Stevenage).  Oh well!  We only managed to get as far as “Dove’s Eyes” before it was time for Mark to bring part 2 of his teaching on “Discovering the Real You”.

This post can also be found in the “Sunday Setlists” blog carnival at FredMcKinnon.com