Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs: Sojourn Church Worship Music Set List, Sunday, 1-11-09

You can find links to the congregational worship music set lists from many churches, including us Sojourners here in Louisville, at the Blog Carnival at fredmckinnon.com. Photos of our evening worship band courtesy of Dan Canales.

We began, as always, with a Call to Worship — this one, from Psalm 13:6-9.

1. Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing, lyrics by Robert Pinson; music – American folk tune.  It can be so easy to lose sight of the profundity in this song.  Look at the opening of verse three:

O to grace, how great a debtor

daily I’m constrained to be

Let that grace, now like a fetter,

bind my wandering soul to Thee.

The grace that releases us also binds us.  And the call of God on our lives demands a response from our entire being, which is the definition of “worship.”  A heart “bound” to God, “tuned” to sing “songs of loudest praise” to Him.

2. Be Merciful To Me, words and music by Randall Goodgame, from the Caedmon’s Call CD In The Company of Angels 2. This song followed our corporate prayer of confession.

This particular verse is a good backdrop to our entire 2009 sermon series at Sojourn Church, and the accompanying B.C. Blog:

From the garden to the cross
Thy mercy will endure
My soul purged from all dross
In blood made pure

Next we listened and read words of assurance from Romans 5:18-21.  If you regularly read this Monday series on sojournmusic.com, you’ll notice that we read a lot of scripture together in our worship gatherings.  This is an important distinctive for us.  We don’t want to relegate Bible reading only to the sermon, but rather we want to read, recite and sing scripture from the start to the finish of every service.

3. Awake My Soul, words and music by Sandra McCracken, from her CD The Builder And The Architect.  Sandra’s husband Derek Webb has also recorded this song, as has Caedmon’s Call.  It’s been a Sojourn staple for years, and one of my personal favorites.  At one time or another in this “Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs” weekly series, I’ve pointed to all the lyrics in “Awake My Soul” as an example of an effective, biblically saturated song.  As I type this post now, this is the verse that stands out to me the most:

I trust no other source or name,

nowhere else can I hide

This grace gives me fear

and this grace holds me near

and all that it asks, it provides.

Following this we celebrated the Giving of the Peace by greeting and welcoming each other.  Then Pastor Daniel Montgomery brought the second sermon in our Old Testament sermon series, “The Fall” (Genesis 3).  As I said last week, you can check out “The B.C. Blog” on Sojourn’s brand new online magazine, TravelBlog, for all kinds of musings, resources, fun stuff and in-depth studies, all centering around our 2009 journey through the Old Testament, which, as Jesus said, are “the scriptures that testify of me.” (John 5:39).

4. Only Your Blood Is Enough, words and music by Sojourn’s own Neil Robins (also part of the band Dirt Poor Robins).  We debuted “Only Your Blood Is Enough” in this service.  Neil adapted it from Isaac Watts’ “Psalm 51, part 2″.  You’ll be able to hear it soon, as part of our forthcoming worship CD of original material based on the hymns of Watts.  Tomorrow here on sojournmusic.com I’ll post a short interview with Neil (who is also the producer for this new CD) that will give new details on the recording.  This is a follow up to the talk I had with him last week, which you can watch here:

5. Cling To The Crucified, words Anonymous, alt. by Kevin Twit, music by Kevin Twit.  Kevin is the founder of Indelible Grace.  You can find this song on their latest album, Indelible Grace V: Wake Thy Slumbering Children. You can also read an interview with Kevin Twit, conducted by Sojourn Worship & Arts Pastor Mike Cosper here on sojournmusic.com, as part of Mike’s “Guitar In The Church” series.

After “Cling To The Crucified” we reflected on 1 Corinthian 13:20-26 together before our final song, and the benediction.

6. Solid Rock (My Hope Is Built On Nothing Less), words by Edward Mote, music by William Bradbury.  Like the imagery in the song itself, this is a rock-solid hymn, and a good one to send us out.  Here is a video from last year’s Lead Conference in St. Louis, featuring one of our band’s doing “Solid Rock”:

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

Jeremy Quillo — vocals and guitar

Lorie King — vocals

Mike Cosper — electric guitar

Daniel LeChance — keyboard

Simon Groce — bass guitar

Matt Harris — drums

Scott Slucher — liturgical readings

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

Brooks Ritter — vocals and guitar

Lindsey Lewis — vocals

Samantha Bartlow — vocals

Dave Richards — liturgical readings