You can find links to church worship music set lists from all over the world, including this one, from the Blog Carnival at fredmckinnon.com. Photos here provided by Dan Canales. Before we get into this, I want to say that our pastor of worship & arts, Mike Cosper, will have a special word about our upcoming CD on sojournmusic.com this Thursday. Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed to get the message … or just remember to come back Thursday. And now:
1. Thorns, by Sojourn’s own Charlie Richardson. Charlie is one of our most prolific writers of songs for corporate worship. “Thorns” is a song that works in many different parts of a worship service:
You’re more constant than time
Stronger than the urge to conform to this life
You’ll lead me home — Help me find my way to you.
After this song came the Call to Worship. After noting that our sermon series enters the book of Joshua today, the liturgist read from Joshua 1:9:
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”
2. On Jordan’s Stormy Banks (I Am Bound For The Promised Land) by Samuel Stennet and Christopher Miner. A great choice, given that our sermon series entered the book of Joshua today:
No chilling wind, no poisonous breath
Can reach that healthful shore.
Sickness, sorrow, pain and death
Are felt and feared no more.
We then held a baby dedication ceremony — twenty five babies over four services! Sojourn Kids Director Jared Kennedy noted that this is more accurately a dedication ceremony than simply a baby dedication ceremony. We’re dedicating these babies to God, but the parents are also vowing to dedicate themselves to raising these children to know the Lord. And we, the assembly, vow to help these parents to do that. We vow to be the community of faith that children need.
3. All I Have is Yours, by me (Bobby Gilles) and Rebecca Elliott. You can find this song of offering on our Before The Throne record. See the chord sheet here on sojournmusic.com, and listen to the mp3 from our Myspace page, Myspace.com/sojournrecords. Many people have sent me emails or otherwise told me how they’ve used “All I Have Is Yours” as a wedding song, funeral song, vision campaign song and especially as a baby dedication song. It’s always an honor to know that people are blessed by the song and are able to use it in events which are important to them:
The more I give, the less I need,
I learn that You’ll provide for me.
Was blind to this, but now I see
that all I have is yours.
Our liturgical reader then reminded the parents who had dedicated their babies, and the rest of us, that life is full of things that bring us fear. He said, “We need to answer these fears with the words of the Psalms:
Psalm 42:5-6,
Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
4. Oh Help My Unbelief, by Isaac Watts, with new music by Justin Smith of Indelible Grace:
But there’s a voice of sovereign grace,
sounds from the sacred Word
Oh ye despairing sinners, come
and trust upon the Lord.
Following this we engaged in the Passing Of The Peace. Then one of our elders-in-process James Santos delivered a message on Joshua 1, entitled “Be Strong And Courageous.” James taught that Joshua’s courage, and ours, comes from the truths found in Joshua 1: God never dies, His promises never fail, His presence never fails and His Word never fails.
To learn about how we use and respond to the word of God in our services, from scripture readings to sermon to the prayer of illumination, hear last week’s short audio interview “Worship: Why We Do What We Do.” And this Thursday in that series, we’ll be talking about the Lord’s Supper at Sojourn and in Christian worship.
5. How Deep the Father’s Love for Us, by Stuart Townend. This was our communion song for the week:
How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turned His face away
As wounds which mar His Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory
After noting that God’s grace is shown to us through in the way he rescued Israel, our liturgist then lead us in this corporate reading:
Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.
-1 Corinthians 15:24-26, 28 NIV
Remember that you can read, adapt and use many of the readings we use at theopensourcebook.org, a joint effort between Sojourn Worship & Arts Pastor Mike Cosper and Nathan Bierma of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship.
6. Great and Mighty, by Aaron Senseman, Cliff Young and Joshua Moore. This is a good song of Sending and dedication:
Hold my heart, O Lord
Keep me ever in Your will …
7. Our Great God, by Fernando Ortega and Mac Powell. This is one of the first songs I remember singing at a Sojourn worship service, back when we gathered in rented space off Louisville’s Bardstown Road. It’s still a fun one to sing together, joining lots of voices, belting out:
Hallelujah, glory be to our great God,
Hallelujah, glory be to our great God.
Worship band for the 9:30 a.m. and 11:15 a.m. services:
Charlie Richardson – vocals and guitar
Laura Beth O’Nan — vocals
Mike Cosper — lead guitar
Brian Holton — bass guitar
Alex O’Nan — drums
Lachlan Coffey — liturgy readings
Worship band for the 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. services:
Brooks Ritter — vocals and guitar
Katie Vaughn — vocals
Mike Cosper — lead guitar
Christi Osterday — cello
Phillip Miller — bass guitar
Andy Meyers — drums
Scott Daniel — liturgical readings
