This weekend, Pastor Joe continued our series on worship with a message about God's steadfast love. He called the church to comprehend the unfailing love of God and to reciprocate that kind of love in our relationships on this earth. It was a beautiful reminder of God's incredible love for us. You can listen to or watch the message and service here.
Here's the order from this weekend:
Pre-Service - "Sweetness of Freedom" (C) [Zach Bolen, Brian Eichelberger]
Call to Worship - Corporate Reading - Psalm 107:1-2 ESV
"In Tenderness" (G) [W. Spencer Walton, Adoniram J. Gordon, Nate Garvey]
"Name Above All Names" (A) [Bill Horn]
Greeting Time/Announcements
Message - "Worship: Steadfast Love" [Joe Hishmeh]
"Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)" (F) [John Newton, Edwin O. Excell, Louie Giglio, Chris Tomlin, John P. Rees]
"One Thing Remains" (Bb) [Christa Black, Brian Johnson, Jeremy Riddle]
"This is Amazing Grace" (Bb) [Phil Wickham, Josh Farro, Jeremy Riddle]
This was one of my favorite weekends in recent memory for our church. Our team did an amazing and creative job, and everything connected well throughout the service. It was a powerful and encouraging time of worship together. I am really excited about what is happening in our congregation lately. I love my church!
For the songs this weekend, we focused on God's faithful love for us in Christ. In the pre-service time, Kip led us as we sang "Sweetness of Freedom," which is a new one for our congregation. I love this song, and the celebration of the freedom we have because of Christ–freedom to follow Him completely, not in fear, but in love and worship. We then opened the services up after reading Psalm 107:12 together with singing "In Tenderness," which is one of our church's favorites. It was a great way to begin celebrating the faithful, steadfast love of God, which pursued us even when we were enemies and far from Him. We then continued teaching "Name Above All Names" to the church. After the message, we responded with "Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)." We hadn't sung this song in a while, and it felt refreshing to sing it again and celebrate how God had removed every chain from us in His perfect grace and mercy for us, so that we could be free to love Him and worship Him. We continued from there to "One Thing Remains," where we took some liberties with the playing of the song. I loved how the team came together with a bunch of ideas and made something fresh out of something that had become pretty familiar to us. It was definitely one of the high points of the service and weekend to me. To end our time together, we sang "This Is Amazing Grace," which has quickly become one of my favorite songs. The chorus beautifully sums up our response of worship because of the gospel: "This is amazing grace/ This is unfailing love/ That You would take my place/ That You would bear my cross/ You would lay down Your life/ That I would be set free/ Jesus, I sing for/ All that You've done for me." Amen.
Hope you had a great weekend of worship wherever you were!