Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs: Sojourn’s Music Set List For The First Sunday Of 2009 – 1/4/09

Visit the Blog Carnival at fredmckinnon.com to find the set lists from many churches, including this one.  Photos here provided by Dan Canales.

We started the New Year off, as we do every week at Sojourn Gathered, with a Call To Worship (this week, we used Psalm 8).  Then we sang perhaps the ultimate “call to worship hymn” in the history of the church:

1. All Creatures Of Our God And King, by Francis of Assissi in 1225.  Music by Ralph Vaughan Williams, 700 years later.  Francis employs the biblical device of having all creation — sun, moon, wind, clouds, stars, “all things” — praise God, even as we are doing so in the singing of this hymn.

Following “All Creatures Of Our God And King” our liturgical reader read from Romans 1:20-23, and then we prayed a corporate prayer of confession.

2. Nothing Without You, written by Bebo Norman.  I like the irony here, in the third verse:

take my body, and build it up

may it be broken as an offering of love

for I have nothing, I have nothing without You.

The Christian faith contains a lot of paradox.  This is one: building involves breaking.

Following this song, we read Revelation 21:3-5 as a celebration of assurance.

3. My Maker And My King, words by Anne Steel, music and arrangement by Sojourn Worship & Arts Pastor Mike Cosper.  Find the mp3 and chord sheet from the Before The Throne page here on sojournmusic.com.  This hymn of adoration is also a fine offering song, if you examine the lyrics:

What can I give

when all is Yours before?

Your love demands a thankful heart;

but my gift is so poor.

Following this song we engaged in the Giving of the Peace, greeting each other in the peace Jesus won on the cross.  Then Lead Pastor Daniel Montgomery preached the first sermon in our year-long study of the Old Testament.  This first sermon began, as the Bible does, with Genesis 1 and 2, the Creation.

If you missed the announcement over the weekend, Sojourn has launched a new online magazine called TravelBlog.  This 3-in-1 blog magazine features Pastor Daniel’s blog, “The B.C. Blog.” He and the other Sojourn pastors will publish frequent resources for understanding the centrality of Christ in the Old Testament.  Other parts of TravelBlog include a “Conferences and Events” page and “Stories From The Road,” with both fun and insightful stories and videos about our members and ministries.

4. Sovereign Grace, O’er Sin Abounding, words by John Kent; music by Sandra McCracken.  You can find this song on McCracken’s excellent The Architect And The Builder record — one of my favorite worship albums of all time.  This was our communion hymn of the week, which we sang as we filed forward to take the Lord’s Supper:

On such love, my soul, still ponder,

Love so great, so rich, so free;

Say, while lost in holy wonder,

“Why, O Lord, such love to me?”

Hallelujah! Grace shall reign eternally.

5. I Sing The Mighty Power Of God, by Isaac Watts.  We do a version based off an arrangement from the Rain City Hymnal CD, by our friends at Mars Hill Church in Seattle.  Check out their music on iTunes.

Afterwards we all read together from Romans 8:18-24.

6. We Are Changed, by Sojourn songwriters Neil Robins, Dave Moisan and Bobby Gilles (yours truly).  This is adapted from one of Isaac Watts’ lesser known hymns, “Not All The Outward Forms Of Earth” (also sometimes called “Regeneration,” or — how’s this for a song title — “Utter Helplesness”).

“We Are Changed” will be on the soon-to-be-released Sojourn worship album — the first of two CDs this year based on the hymns of Isaac Watts, and our first full-length follow up to 2007’s Before The Throne.  A couple months ago I shared some video from a recording session for “We Are Changed,” during which time I also wrote in detail about the lyric writing process for this song.  The post explains how this is different (and why it’s different) from Watts’ original hymn.  It’s an appropriate song for our politically-heightened times, when many look to governments, political parties and officials for more than what any mortal could deliver:

Not any government on earth, no law that God has given

No will of man, no blood nor birth can raise a soul to heaven

The sovereign will of God alone prepares the heirs of grace

born in the image of His Son — a chosen, holy race

Worship leaders for the 9:30 a.m. and 11:15 a.m. services:

Jamie Barnes — vocals, guitar

Rebecca Dennison — vocals

Hannah Turi — violin/ viola

Katie Mitchell — violin/ viola

Christi Osterday — cello

Dony Erwin — bass guitar

Matt Harris — drums

Worship leaders for the 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. services:

Dave Moisan — vocals, keyboard

Laura Beth O’Nan — vocals

Neil Robins — guitar, keys

Jacob Goran — saxophone

Robert James — bass

Smitty Smith — drums