Monday, December 22, 2008

Sunday Setlist 12-14-08

This entry is a part of “Sunday Setlists

Here's the set list for the 14th, then some notes...
Orchestra Prelude: O Come All Ye Faithful (Hymn)
Announcements
Lighting of The Advent Candle: Student Minister's Family
Joy To The World (Hymn)
O Come, O Come Emmanuel (Hymn) - See Notes Below!
Welcome / Fellowship
The First Noel (Hymn)
You Are My King/Amazing Love (Chorus)
Offertory Prayer
Choir Special: “Christmas Angels" (From Christmas Musical Joy Joy Joy)
Transitional Chorus: O Come All Ye Faithful (Hymn)
Message: Bro. Steve - The Gift of Joy (Matthew 2:1-12).
Invitation:I Have Decided To Follow Jesus (Hymn)
Closing Chorus: Go, Tell It On The Mountain (Hymn)

Now the notes..
As you can see it was very heavy with Christmas music that morning.
I was also very distracted that morning. That evening we were presenting our CHristmas musical for this year "Joy Joy Joy". It was the largest production I'd directed in a couple years. 50 voice choir, 30 piece orchstra, drama, ballet , narrators, theatrical lighting. That morning I was definately more focused on that evening and I'm afraid the service suffered in some ways because of it.

First, O Come, O Come Emmnuel.. Where do I begin. In almost 5 years of leading worship at Westwood I don't recall ever having such a train wreck in a song. I was so looking forward to singing this one. It's such a well written and worshipful song. I knew something was wrong when I intro'd it. I had planned to say something moving and inspriing about what it's like to have no hope, then to find out that hope is here. Much like this song does. In the verse, praying for God to rescue Israel ( or us to make it more personal) then rejoicing in the Chorus because Christ has come and is available to all. Instead I think I sounded like a drunk monkey and said something that barely made any sense and definately didn't lead anyone to have any greater understanding of the song or the Savior. It probably would have been just as worshipful if I'd have said "Let's all turn in our hymnals to page # so and so and sing ..." (The worst transition ever used in worship.)
Sadly, it only got worse from there.
We had a powerpoint glitch. We run two different media presentations in our service. The choir and stage folks see the powerpoint which has notes about repeats and key changes etc. While the congregation sees "media shout" with video backgrounds. Unfortunately my miscommunication caused the different presentations to show two different verses on the last verse. As we started the verSE I realized quickly that the stage and congregation were singing two different verses. So I did what I hate doing... I turned around to look at the screens behind me. My folks running the media presentations realized the problem too and both went to black screens. That just left everyone looking at each other and going "huh?". I started laughing as did many others so we just brought the song to a halt. I shared with everyone that I didn't mind when things like that happen because it puts a smile on everyone's face. While that is not an untrue statement, I really do mind when that happens. I hate to be the cause of someone being distracted during worship. (and, Jamie, it was my fault, not yours, but thanks.) We recovered later in the service, but it was definately not pretty for a minute there. I did find it funny that one of may favorite worship blogs had on entry on this "train wreck" topic that same week. It's worth checking out here.

The only other note I have about the service was the transition from The First Noel into You Are My King. We did them in the same key so we jumped right from "Born is the King of Israel" to the bridge "You Are my King". It was a nice transition that led well into us singing the entire song "I'm forgiven because you were forsaken..." .

Definately a low and high point to this service.

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