This past weekend was one of those odd first-sunday-of-advent weekends to me 'cause it was still November. We had just celebrated Thanksgiving, and we're not even in December yet, but we roll out the Christmas message series and start lacing the worship sets with Christmas tunes... good stuff, though. It was cold and a little bit snowy (not saturday, but it was on sunday) so it was, as they say, 'beginning to look a lot like Christmas.'
I've been working really hard on our transition game... that kinda sounds like something a hockey coach would say... anyway, I've been focusing on really making our worship sets feel like a continuous moment in the presence of God, you know? As far as we've come over nine years in our music ministry, I admittedly have not focused on that near enough. So now I'm really being intentional about that.
This weekend we did a bit more of this new 'bridge-swapping' thing I've been doing... where I'll take bridges and tags of different tunes and throw 'em in the middle of others... it's kinda cool. We only did one Christmas tune this week, although we sang one of my tunes 'The Least I Can Do' which discusses the birth of Jesus in the first verse. I led that song from piano and then went straight into 'O Come All Ye Faithful' ... after we'd done two verses and two choruses, we just vamped on the 'O come let us adore Him' tag several times and the drums entered as we ramped back up into the end of the song. Then we through the very last tag of 'The Least I Can Do' back at the end to wrap up the set. It worked pretty well. Here was our setlist:
You Are Good - (Israel Houghton)
Holy is the Lord - (Tomlin & co.)
The Least I Can Do - (M. Roach)
O Come All Ye Faithful - trad.
feature tune - How to Save a Life - The Fray
I Will Always Love Your Name - Paul Oakley
yeah... I had eluded to it last week on twitter, but that 'How to Save...' tune is all kinds of tough to play and sing at the same time. I love a good challenge, though, and I got through it pretty well all three services. Unfortunately, my best time through the whole song was in run-through on Sunday morning before first service. oh, well :)
Also, at the end of the service we sang 'I Will Always Love Your Name' again (it's a 'thank you' song, and we had it in our set last week) but after the Pastor gave the final blessing at the end, we inserted the 'O come let us adore Him' tag again--different tempo, different key--before we sang the final chorus out. Kinda threaded that tune and sentiment through the service a bit... at least that's what I was trying to do... well, three more ahead before Christmas! stay tuned :)
this post is also a part of Sunday Setlists
5 comments:
I know I wrote something over on fb already, but had to say it here, too. I totally LOVED the whole set list, transition, bridge swapping thing! :) It DID feel like one continuous worship session which is EXACTLY what made it so special. And just the right mix of traditional/non traditional that I/we love. Thanks for all the thought that went into making it all that it could be....
thanks for sharing the details of how you're trying to make things flow. Great ideas.
I totally forgot to mention this earlier but you reduced me to tears during the Fray song. BEAUTIFUL job! I have enjoyed the last two sets emensly, keep up the "flow"!
O Come All Ye Faithful was the 1st Christmas song I used on the 30th as well. And yes, it felt early, since I was eating Thanksgiving leftovers the day before. But it also felt good. I love incorporating Christmas songs. We did a cool linger on the "O come let us adore Him" into the "You Are My King" bridge...both in D. I love music!
This week we got to do one of mine, "Jesus of Christmas". I wrote this 2 years ago, and I wish the Lord would give me a new one. Christmas tunes are tough though...especially melodically.
please ignore my google name. I created that to post on my husband's blog. I'll try to change it. Sorry!
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