Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs: Sojourn Worship Liturgy, May 3, 2009

You can find many other church music set lists in the Blog Carnival at fredmckinnon.com, which we participate in each week.  Our normal photographer,  Dan Canales, was out of town today.  But have no fear — Dan asked Ryan Harvey to take photos this week, and Ryan was happy to oblige.  Besides photography, Ryan also plays drums.  In fact, you’ll be able  to hear his mad percussion skills on our Over The Grave album very soon.  And now, on to the report.  We began this week with a song:

1. Living Faith, written by Bobby Gilles and Brooks Ritter, based on “Hymn 140” by Isaac Watts.  When selecting material from Watts to work with for our Isaac Watts project, I found myself drawn to this hymn because it was so challenging:

Mistaken souls that dream of heaven,

and make their empty boasts

of inward joys and sins forgiven

while slaves to greed and lust.

As the title implies, it is a call to pray for a living faith.   The fact that God would even enlighten our darkened hearts enough to have that kind of faith is an act of grace on God’s part.

This song is cut #2 on our upcoming Over The Grave: The Hymns of Isaac Watts: Volume One, which will be available online one month from today.  Later this week I’ll share with you the story behind the creation of our cover art for this record, from the artists themselves.  Get our updates via RSS to make sure you don’t miss that one.

After singing “Living Faith” we heard the Call to Worship, this week based on Psalm 124:8.

2. Fellowship So Deep, by Aaron Senseman and Kinley Lange, recorded by Caedmon’s Call.  We’ve often sang this song right before the Passing of the Peace, and also during Communion.  It’s also a good response to the Call To Worship:

We can feel his love among us; we can sing redemption’s song

We can hear the Spirit call us to a place where we belong

For His joy is in our laughter and His comfort in our grief

Let His love here ever after be the language that we speak

We then prayed a prayer of Confession, following it with a contemporary hymn that expresses petition and assurance in the mercies of God to forgive our trespasses:

3. Be Merciful To Me, by Randall Goodgame.  This is a simple, plaintive cry for God’s mercy.  We love doing it for that very reason:

through shadow dark, and valley deep

be merciful to me

We then read Words of Assurance from Ezekiel 36:25-28 before turning to “the songbook of the Bible” for our next corporate song:

4. Psalm 25, by Joe Day, a pastor at our Acts 29 sister church Mars Hill in Seattle.  Joe draws from Psalm 25: 8-10 in this fresh arrangement.  You can follow him on Twitter @joeday.  Joe’s melody is very memorable, which makes for a great combination when you couple it with the eternal truths of scripture.

Following “Psalm 25” we engaged in the Passing the Peace, which are liturgist led us into by saying:

Before His arrest, beating and bloody death, Jesus said to His disciples:

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
John 14:27

Jesus died to make peace between God and man, between his people, Jew or Gentile, slave or free, man or woman, and to give us peace in the midst of the most horrific events possible. This peace is ours through faith in Jesus, His death and resurrection. Let us share this peace with one another by greeting those around you today.

Then Lead Pastor Daniel Montgomery preached on from Judges.  As most of you know, The B.C. Blog on our online journal TravelBlog is the place to go for further reflections on our semon series from Pastor Daniel and other Sojourn leaders.  In fact, one of Daniel’s most recent articles talked about how to find resources for digging deeper into the book of Judges.

5. Alas and Did My Savior Bleed - Morning; When He Returns - Evening.  Two songs, by my two favorite lyricists: Isaac Watts and Bob Dylan.  The morning song following the sermon was the famous Watts hymn, set to new music by our own Alex O’Nan and Brooks Ritter.  You’ll be able to hear it soon on Over The Grave.  The evening band used Dylan’s apocalyptic gospel song “When He Returns” instead.  Both make good songs for use during the Lord’s Supper, which we’d planned to partake of during this time.

In light of the swine flu situation we decided to refrain from communion this week.  We typically hold communion by having believers come forward in line, tear off a piece of bread, dip the bread into either wine or juice (their choice) and eat it before filing back to their seats. There are only four confirmed or suspected cases in Kentucky, but since we average over 1400 attendees from many parts of the Louisville region, we felt it best to take the precaution of canceling communion for one week.

Another thing we usually do with the Lord’s Supper is a time of Offering.  After Sojourners come forward to take the bread and cup, they file back to their seats.  Along the way they pass by at least one station where they can drop their tithes and offerings into a basket.  To find out why we teach that tithes and offerings are acts of worship that should be treated as part of the worship liturgy, and why we orchestrate the offering the way we do, check out last week’s six-minute audio interview of the Worship: Why We Do What We Do series here on sojournmusic.com and our free iTunes podcast, Sojournmusic.com Radio.

Since we didn’t hold communion yesterday we instructed members to visit the offering baskets after the close of the service.  We followed the post-sermon song with a corporate reading adapted from a Puritan prayer.  Remember that you can freely use many of our readings in your own church services, as well as the readings of other churches and ministries, which you can find at theopensourcebook.org.

6. Oh Church Arise, written by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend.  We sung this as a song of dedication, arising out of gratitude to God for our redemption through the cross.  I love the clarity Getty and Townend bring to the nature of our warfare:

Our call to war to love the captive soul
But to rage against the captor
And with the sword that makes the wounded whole
We will fight with faith and valour

7. The God Who Saves, by Caedmon’s Call.  This is one of those songs that we’ve had in the Sojourn Music repertoire for years, and it never gets old.  Its a great song for the Sending, right before our community announcements and the Benediction:

There is truth in His body raised that third day
there is joy in the stone rolled away
there is hope pouring out of the tomb where He lay
pouring out pouring over the grave

Worship band for the 9:30 am and 11:15 am Sojourn services:

Brooks Ritter — vocals and guitar

Laura Beth O’Nan — vocals

David Weir — lead guitar

Robert James — bass guitar

Alex O’Nan — drums

Scott Slucher — liturgy readings

Worship band for the 5 pm and 7 pm services:

Jamie Barnes — vocals, keyboard and guitar

Rebecca Elliott — vocals and keyboard

Mike Cosper — lead guitar

Phillip Miller — bass guitar

Andy Meyers — drums

Jamie Barnes — liturgical readings