Welcome to sojournmusic.com’s weekly worship music set list review. This set list is from yesterday’s worship service here in Louisville’s Sojourn Church. You’ll not only read a list of the songs we led, but also the readings and prayers from our liturgy.
You can find links to the set lists of this church and many other churches each week in the Worship Blog Carnival at theworshipcommunity.com. And you can learn about some of the songs we sing at Sojourn Gathered each week in advance of the Sunday service by reading my “Getting Ready For Sunday” post each Thursday at Sojourn’s online journal, TravelBlog.
Call to Worship:
When we gather on Sundays, we have a unique opportunity. We’re not just here to listen to songs and listen to a sermon, but to be an active participant.
Ephesians 5:19-20 says this:
Sing to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let me encourage you to not just be a spectator today. Make it your goal to be an encouragement to those around you and engage in the service. Stand with me, and join me in asking the Lord to bless our time together.
Lord, we want to see your power and your mercy.
Open our eyes to your glory. Open our ears to your good news. Open our mouths to praise you. By your grace, may we run to your promises and worship you with our whole hearts today and always. Amen.
Song: Come and Sing written by Sojourn’s Jeremy Quillo, recorded on our 2007 album Before The Throne. You can hear the full song for free from our Before The Throne Bandcamp page. You can also either order the physical CD or digital download from there as well.
Song: Sing Alleluia written by Steve Hindalong and Marc Byrd, with a healthy assist from the hymn “All Creatures Of Our God And King.” “Sing Alleluia,” like “Come And Sing,” is a good call to worship song.
Confession: At times, the circumstances of our lives seem to crush our joy and make us feel like we don’t have the words or energy to worship God. Our struggles often cause us to doubt His goodness. The Bible gives us words for those frustrating times. Listen:
As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God.
I thirst for God, the living God. When can I go and stand before him?
Day and night I have only tears for food, while my enemies continually taunt me, saying, “Where is this God of yours?” My heart is breaking as I remember how it used to be: I walked among the crowds of worshipers, leading a great procession to the house of God, singing for joy and giving thanks amid the sound of a great celebration. Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? – Psalm 42:1-5
Take some time now, in the silence of this room, to pray to God and admit your frustration and doubt before Him. (Break)
The Psalm continues with these words:
Now I am deeply discouraged, but I will remember you—each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me and through each night I sing his songs, praying to God who gives me life. – vs 6,8
Let’s continue to sing out to our Faithful God who hears our praise and our frustration
Song: Satisfied In You written by Brian Eichelberger. This song hearkens back to the scripture we had just read, Psalm 42:
As a deer pants for water, so my soul longs for you
And when I survey Your splendor, You so faithfully renew
Like a bed of rest for my fainting flesh
I am satisfied in You.
Passing of Peace: We joined with one another in prayer and song, now let’s take some time to meet a new face or two as we greet each other today.
Giving:
SPECIAL MUSIC: Compel My Heart to Sing by Rebecca Elliott and Brooks Ritter, based on Isaac Watts’s Hymn 126, Book 2. During the “passing of the plate” portion of the service, we sang this song for the first time at Sojourn Gathered. Haven’t heard it yet? Well, you’ll have the chance soon because this song will be on Volume Two of the Isaac Watts project, which the band recorded this past week at Paul Mahern’s White Arc Studios in Bloomington, IN. Mahern was worked on over 300 albums, including artists like John Mellencamp, Over The Rhine and Neil Young.
Then Pastor Daniel Montgomery preached the first of a two-week mini-sermon series on our identity as worshipers, which is part of our larger Faithmapping series. You can hear Sojourn sermons from the Resource page of sojournchurch.com or by subscribing to the free Sojourn Church iTunes podcast.
Song: Praise to the Lord The Almighty our communion hymn of the week, written by Joachim Neander and Lobe den Herren, with an additional chorus by Page CXVI.
Praise to the Lord the Almighty, the king of creation
O my soul praise Him, for He is thy health and salvation!
All ye who hear, now to His temple draw near;
Praise Him in glad adoration.
Reading: (as song starts)
You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land where there is no water.
I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.
Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.
I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.
I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. – Psalm 63:1-5
Let us continue to praise God in song and lift up our hands to worship Him
Song: Great & Mighty written by Aaron Senseman, Joshua Moore and Cliff Young of Caedmon’s Call. We’ve enjoyed singing this one for the last few years at Sojourn Gathered. It’s a good celebration of God’s power and mercy.
Song: Our Great God written by Fernando Ortega and Mac Powell of Third Day. We’ve sung this one since the early years of Sojourn, often in the spot of the service in which we sang it this week — a final “song for the sending” before we depart:
Hallelujah! Glory be to our great God!
Benediction: May the God who sings over you with joy fill your hearts with songs of praise and thankfulness. Go in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Peace be with you.
Pingback: Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs: Sojourn's Worship Music Set List For Sunday, 2/15/09 | Sojourn Music
good afternoon a friend from chruch who i play music with e-mailed me the words to this song. i can,t wait to get the c.d. i hope you don,t mind if we worship god with your music at chruch one sunday. i live in j-town ky what store carries the c.d. so i can purchase.
lead us back to life in you
god bless gary
We sang “Lead Us Back” for the first time corporately this past Sunday. The lyrical truths made good use of new imagery that helped us collectively turn in repentance back to Christ. I had person after person ask about this hymn, saying how blessed they were. Thank you for writing this hymn…we will be dipping in to this imagery for years to come.
We are a young church plant in Austin, Tx. (www.austincitylife.org) with a wellspring of talented artists…Sojourn has been a great resource to us. We’d like to know more. If there is an avenue… like a conference that you put on or recommend we’d be interested in learning. Thanks again!
Thanks Miranda!
We don’t have any conferences scheduled this year but we put out a lot of info about worship here at sojournmusic.com, and we’ve got a lot of resources for church plants and young churches at churchplanting.sojournchurch.com.
We’ve also got resources on our main site, sojournchurch.com.
I’m glad you found the song useful, and I’ll be sure to tell my writing partner Brooks about it!
Pingback: Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs: Worship Music Set List, Baptism Photos - 3.14.2010 | Sojourn Music
I had heard “Lead Us Back” when I was searching for, well the best way to say it is “reformed” worship music on Itunes. I have to say that I was shocked. I didn’t expect to find anything that was modern, yet not post-modern if you catch my drift. To find a song that cut to the heart of modern day trials and tribulations, while maintaining the theo-centric attitude that belongs in any worship was not only a joy but a bittersweet one as well. It was great to have a song that brought me to the Throne, but the problem was the conviction once I got there.
The part of the song that most cut to me was -
You have caused the blind to see
We have blinded him again
With our man-made laws and creeds
Eager, ready to condemn
Now we plead before Your throne
Power sings a siren tune
We’ve been throwing heavy stones
Lead us back to life in You
Having only been a recipient of God’s grace for a couple years now, and not very long after being saved having been shown the wisdom of men like Charles Spurgeon, Calvin, Luther, R.C. Sproul, Piper, Paul Washer….the list is long and familiar… I went from being a Christian who just wanted Jesus to love me, to being a “sword” like Peter’s. It’s true that there are problems in modern evangelism, and modern church times overall, but what we must remember is that we ourselves are not the answer to those problems. It will only be when God’s doctrine comes through us by way of our hearts, and our personal walks that others will see the truth and be amazed! I was blinded by the creeds, and I blinded others by them – all in the name of “making better Christians” while forgetting Christ makes Christians, I make brothers and sisters.
God bless you for this song sir.
Bobby, et. al.,
God is doing some things in my life as a worship leader and in doing lots of reading and praying about my own sinful condition and my need for repentance, I keep coming back to this song over and over again lately. Thanks for writing a lyric that kicks my spiritual rear-end!
But my question for you is about how to introduce it to our worship gathering.
I have systematically been introducing more and more lyrically substantive songs for our set each Sunday. I work hard to ask God to show me songs that help us adore and glorify God as our creator and king. We are learning to love songs that help us express our thankfulness for Christ’s work on the cross. But the confessional songs would be a next step and somehow seem missing.
How do you do that? How do you adjust the liturgy to incorporate confession without it feeling forced, artificial or uncomfortable? I think the lyrics to this song do a great job and once our congregation would get to know it, I think they it would be a helpful and important part of our time. But it’s a big hump. Obviously, I’m chatting with my pastor about it, but would appreciate your perspective! (PS a Newkirk is my pastor, brother of a former intern at Sojourn- just making that connection)
Thanks so much for being faithful musically and lyrically. Your website and content is a helpful resource for me as a leader and as most importantly for my daily worship and relationship with our Savior!
Roger
Pingback: November 4 « Night of Anticipation