This weekend, Pastor Joe continued our series on worship with a message about Refuge. He called us all to turn to the Lord for refuge instead the things most of us often turn to. Only the Lord can deliver and restore us. You can listen to or watch the message and service here.
Here's the order from this weekend:
Call to Worship - Corporate Reading - Psalm 27:1 ESV
"Name Above All Names" (A) [Bill Horn]
"Before The Throne" (A) [Charitie Lees Bancroft]
Greeting Time/Announcements/ Send-off for The Catlin Family
Message - "Worship: Refuge" [Joe Hishmeh]
"Your Name" (Bb) [Glenn Packiam, Paul Baloche]
"Your Great Name" (Bb) [Michael Neale, Krissy Nordhoff]
"Everlasting God" (Bb) [Brenton Brown, Ken Riley]
Thoughts: this weekend was great, yet bittersweet. The Catlin family has answered God's call to serve the Lord as missionaries to East Asia, and we took opportunity this weekend to pray for them and send them off well. They are family friends, so my family is both excited and sad to see them go. As they sat in the service in front of me, I had a hard time holding my emotions in check as we sang about the greatness of Jesus and His gospel and how all the world will praise His name one day, because I had a beautiful example of someone laying down their lives in obedience to God's call on their lives to help make that very thing happen. They will be fantastic ambassadors for Christ where they are headed.
For the service this weekend, we focused on the Lord's sovereignty, sacrifice, atonement, faithfulness, and how He is our perfect refuge and shelter as a result. We began each service after the call to worship by introducing "Name Above All Names," which is an older song of mine (written in 2009). I am usually pretty reluctant to teach my own songs, but several team members who helped record some vocals on the song asked when we would be singing it in our services, so I went ahead and got it on the schedule. I've thought about it for a while, but it was finally time. The point of the song is that Jesus is above all, and everything in all creation will bow down to Him because He is worthy. Some themes in this song are the Lord's sovereignty, power, authority, and eternal reign. I will post specifically about this song later this week, so look for that. After "Name Above All Names," we moved on to "Before The Throne." This song remains one of my favorites and one of our church's, as well (I think I say that every time we sing it...). I love this song because it gives such a clear portrait of Jesus as both our atoning sacrifice and as our Advocate. It is definitely something we need to be reminding one another of as the body of Christ.
After the message, we responded with several songs to help us declare the truth that the Lord is trustworthy and faithful; our strong fortress, shelter, and refuge; and the One who restores and redeems us: "Your Name," "Your Great Name," and "Everlasting God."
Our team did a great job throughout the weekend, and it was one of those weekends where everything came together well in a unique and beautiful way. It was also "lose an hour of sleep" weekend, aka the beginning Daylight Saving Time (yes, I just learned that it is officially "saving" without the "s"), which always creates some interesting dynamics with our church's energy level on Sunday morning... Regardless, it was another great weekend with my church family!
Hope you had a great weekend of worship wherever you were!