Real Worship

Stevenage (am)

Wow, what an awesome morning!  Mark stood up to pray at the start of the service; the band began to improvise around the chords of A & D; everyone joined in – praying, worshiping (in English, in tongues), singing – a beautiful, harmonious symphony; and that’s where we stayed for the next 30 minutes or so.

There was an ebb & flow of worship, prayer & prophecy; crescendos that were powerful & passionate followed by times of beautiful, quiet intimacy – all interspersed with words of prophecy and encouragements from scripture (4 or 5 different people sharing what God was saying to them).  We would worship, God would say something to us, we would respond & then worship some more… (& so it continued).

There was no script; we communed with God.  Of course, the set list was “thrown out of the window”; of the six songs originally planned, the only one we sang was:

• Mighty To Save (Ben Fielding, Reuben Morgan) Mike

Lyrically, the song fitted with the prophetic words that were brought and with parts of the teaching from Mark (though it wasn’t planned that way).

The teaching will probably become the first part of a new series called, “Real Life, Real Church”.  Starting with Jesus’ mandate in John 10:10 to bring us “…life… to the full”, we looked at what He meant when He said “life” (as opposed to our definition); then contrasted John 12:23-26, where Jesus warned against holding on to & loving our own (selfish) lives & how that destroys us compared to living His (selfless) life.

Exeter (pm)

We began with some improvised, “free” worship in the key of E which led straight into the first song:

• You Are Good (Israel Houghton)

We ended the song with a “big finish”; the band holding the last chord while everyone cried out, “You Are Good!” – applauding God, declaring His greatness and shouting His praise.  At the end of the crescendo, I started playing the intro to the next song (which we played in the key of A – making for a smooth transition between the 2 songs):

• For Who You Are (Marty Sampson)

It was a high energy start to the service and people were most definitely engaging.

Wile we were singing this song, a line from the verse stood out to me:

Waiting here patiently

Just to hear Your still small voice again

We quietened the music and I felt impressed to say that God wanted to speak with us and that we needed to spend some time listening – which we did.

Sandra shared a picture she saw; it was of a little child, running care-free through a field, holding her father’s hand; describing the sense of excitement the child felt.  We spent some time in that space.  We sang of our desire to run to Him & hold His hand; He spoke to us about wanting to remove the chains & heavy burdens that hindered us.

We sang two more songs:

• King Of Glory (Brad Avery, David Carr, Mac Powell, Mark Lee, Tai Anderson)
• Your Love Is Like (Rick Pino)

It was funny that after spending time singing about us running to God, the first  line of the next song to sing was:

Who is this King of Glory

That pursues me with His love

The last song was a beautifully intimate response, reveling in His love as we sang:

Your love is like the ocean

I’m drowning in Your presence

Getting lost in the gaze of Your eyes

Getting lost in the warmth of Your smile

Links:

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