Redemption Church, Stevenage, Herts, 09/09/2007

In this section I intend to publish reviews of our worship services (whether they be the regular Sunday morning services or other events). This will include the set list and also the highlights or any other points of interest. So, here goes the first one.

The planned set list for this week was as follows:

God of Wonders (Third Day version) Mike
Here is Our King (David Crowder Band) Mike
Love So Strong (Mike Ellis) Mike
Thousand Miles (Ali Loaker) Ali
Who is There Like You (Ali Loaker) Ali
Lord You Have My Heart (Delirious) Ali

I say "planned", because things changed part way through the service. The first two songs were amazing; by the second song, I could see some people in the congregation punching the air as they chanted "Here is our King, Here is our Love, Here is our God..." etc. There was a real sense of excitement & passion that filled the hall.

The next song we were due to sing (Love So Strong) is a more worshipful song, but it wasn't right to go into worship at that point. In fact, one of our senior pastors approached me and said, "I think we're supposed to praise some more". So, we quickly put in Ali's song, "It's A New Day" (which has a straight ahead rock feel, in the key of A) and Hillsong United's, "The Time Has Come" - minus the long guitar intro (we normally play the intro when we use this song, but it wasn't right for this occasion).

Now we were ready to worship, so we started with my song from the planned list, "Love So Strong" - which flew! We ended up spending a while around this song. The tag at the end of this song says, "I could sing for all my life of how you set me free", which we repeated for a while before going into a time of free worship (over the same progression). It was powerful!

We went from that into Ali's song from the planned list, "Who Is There Like You", which is a passionate, minor sounding song with an anthemic chorus of, "Holy, You are Holy, You are Holy Lord". Normally I'm on electric for this song (playing second guitar - adding riffs & melodies), but my B string broke during "The Time Has Come" and so I had to stay on my accoustic. The song still worked though.

We certainly had church this week! I like it when we hear God & follow His lead (even if it means messing with the set list) - especially if we've heard right. Blessed are the flexible for they shall not break (even if their guitar string does).