Here was our Sunday with some notes to follow....
Orchestral Prelude - It Is Well
Announcements - Shawn
Forever
Famous One
Prayer / Fellowship – Bro. Steve
At Calvary (Hymn) Very Southern Style
It Is Well (Hymn)
Who Can Satisfy (Chorus and bridge only from choir arrangement)
Offertory Prayer
Choir Special: Use Me, Send Me w/ Just As I Am (From the musical Experiencing God)
Transitional Chorus: Use Me, Send Me
Message: Bro. Steve – “The Parable Of The Missed Opportunity” (Luke 16:19-31)
Invitation: Wherever He Leads I’ll Go
Closing Chorus: Take Up Your Cross
This week, I purposefully stuck with some more traditional, more familiar songs. Even the "newer" songs (Tomlin's Forever & Famous One) are ones that we've been doing at Westwood for at least 5 years.
We've been doing a lot of new music lately, whether it's been through new songs or new arrangements of older songs. I decided a few weeks ago that it might be time to simply utilize some songs that more people would be more familiar with. I was very glad I did.
Sunday morning, we found out that my father in law was going to be at church with us. My family, with my wife's sister's family, and my Mother in law have been members of the same church for years. But my Father in law hasn't been in a church service for over 20 years. I gotta admit, I felt a real rush, a real feeling of the joy that only God can bring when I saw him sitting with my Mother in law in the sanctuary that morning. He is a man that I truly admire. He always puts his family's needs above his own. He's a very disciplined and hard working man. And he's very intelligent. I won't go into the whole history here, but I will say he knows a lot of scripture and always felt it was important for his family to be in church, but it's just something he hasn't done with them. Until this week.
As we sang through the two hymns that I had planned in a row (which normally doesn't happen on Sunday mornings) I remember him sitting in the audience and I realized that it was possible those might be the only two songs we were doing that he'd ever heard before.
I am so thankful that God led me to plan the service this way, not just because of my Father in law, but because of the many raised hands in worship that I saw during almost every song. But I will admit, it was interesting to see those expressions of worship from different age groups depending on the song.
Awesome!
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