This Week's Friday Night Worship Set #1

I thought it would be good to write in blog-form my thoughts and preparations going into the worship set for this Friday night's service. I think I will try and do this weekly.

I believe that a worship leader is responsible for ministering to the congregation through music; that is they have a duty to be in touch with the heart of the ministry and preach to them as a pastor would through a sermon, except through music. They should use music to encourage members of the ministry during trials and struggles, and use music to remind members of the Good News of Jesus Christ, and use music to connect the ministry with God on a spiritual, emotional, and mental level.

With that said, I want to take a look at my ministry this week. What do they need?

Well, for sometime now I believe that my high school ministry in many ways has been lukewarm, lacking a burning love passion for Jesus, and simply put, spiritually asleep.

One thing that I generally like to do is to have a worship set that is in line with the bible study or sermon message. The general message/theme is usually much more powerful when songs and sermon come together in synergy. Given that we are going through a book titled Crazy Love (by Francis Chan) and we are reading through and reflecting on Chapter 5 this week (which is about being lukewarm, serving leftovers to God, and giving all of your life to God), I want to pick songs that share that message.

So with that, here are the songs that I am singing this Friday, to and with my ministry:

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1) My Redeemer Lives
I think it would be good to open up with some a little upbeat to get them nice and ready to really open up their hearts for the slower, more convicting, emotional songs. It would not be a Friday Night worship without at least one great upbeat praise song! This one is one of my favorites as it talks about how our Redeemer is alive and working!

2) Unashamed by Starfield
Although it's a bit of a sudden transition to go into this song, I still think it would be a good song to go to next. This song really embodies one of the main message of the evening since it talks a lot about our inadequacies and how God has loved us and made us worthy through his grace. It conveys the idea of how we fall short but God shows us grace with an unexplainable kind of love. It's a good set-up for the message of the next song.

3) Surrender
This song is obviously about surrendering to God. I think that since the message of the night is about not being lukewarm but passionate for God and being in love with God, this song really communicates what our response should be in light of God's grace: surrender.

4) Home by Phil Wickham
Though this song isn't necessarily about giving and surrendering all to God explicitly, it is definitely a song about coming back to the waiting arms of a tearfully happy Lord. This is a new song to our ministry and I think that it has the power to bless them in a great way. Hopefully they will find that the song is refreshing and emotionally stirring. I believe that ending with this song is perfect since we have gone through three songs prior to it about who our living God is, the grace He has shown us, and a song about our response.
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The order is pretty chronological and I think the dynamics are going to work well with this order. Should have a good flow and I hope that the words to the songs really hit their minds on a deep level and they receive a great blessing from this set.

My prayer to God is that He would bless not only me and the worship band in our preparation, but that He would truly place a heavy and strong conviction on the hearts of the ministry to put aside their lukewarm habits and come back to Him and surrender. I hope that this worship set blesses them in a big way and that the Spirit would be present and working in their hearts and mine.