Here’s a recap of the service and the songs we chose this past weekend at Howick Baptist Church (You can find links to the set lists of this church and many other churches each week at theworshipcommunity.com). You can also read through previous HBC service recaps here.
Order of Service
(worship leader: Jon Scanlan)
1. Indescribable – Laura Story. Praising God as “all powerful, untamable” is normally a fantastic way to start the service. Funnily though the church seemed quite hesitant in their singing to begin with. Perhaps it was the lyric operator who was distracted and failed to put up the words in time through the first verse and chorus, maybe it was a bit of lingering “holiday singing”, or perhaps the instrumentation (solo acoustic guitar/piano and drums) was on the light side to accompany the majesty of the words.
2. Let Your Kingdom Come – Bob Kauflin. If the church were quiet on the previous song, they were LOUD on this one! Easy to sing and quite well-known and enthusiastically sung now. I think we introduced it midway through last year and it’s a great way to refocus our hearts on His glorious cause, that “Jesus Christ be known wherever we are”.
3. Be Unto Your Name (We Are A Moment) – Robin Mark. Played during the offering. There are some fantastic vocal harmonies that can be done on this song, so that was great to hear – appreciated the effort Kat and Ray put into those to expand the overall sound. With the key change it goes fairly high (too high for most men) but it’s one of those songs where you’ll give it a go anyways because you’re singing straight from scripture (Rev 4:8, Rev 5:12):
Holy, holy, Lord God Almighty
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain!
4. Give Thanks – Henry Smith. An old classic from the late 70’s – we’d probably need to work at the musical arrangement so it doesn’t also sound like it’s from the 70’s! But a simple and singable way to encourage thankfulness (which was one of the points in the message today).
5. Salvation’s Song (Loved Before the Dawn of Time) – Stuart Townend. We introduced it for the first time in October, and since then our worship leaders have loved the richness of the words and the beautiful music. I was very encouraged by the care Jon took with this song to space the music’s dynamics and instrumentation over the length of this song. By the time we got to the bridge, the whole church was ready to belt out:
Singing glory honour wisdom power
To the Lamb upon the throne
Hallelujah I will lift Him high!
Craig (one of our worship leaders) made a good suggestion that we could probably try it in a higher key next time. Most of the song is in quite a low range, though I guess the trouble is that in the bridge it goes well into the high reaches of a singer’s range too!
Sermon: Colossians 1:9-14. Our associate pastor Joe Fleener continued a preaching series through the book of Colossians, examining the question: “What is God’s will for my life?” The answer, thankfully, is found in the Bible!
You can listen or watch the entire message for free here.
6. Oh the Mercy of God – Geoff Bullock. The third verse of this song links quite closely with the next part of Colossians 1:15-20, which speaks of the deity of Christ:
Oh the glory of God expressed in His Son
His image and likeness revealed to us all
The plan of the ages completed in Christ
That we be presented perfected in Him
And it’s all “to the praise of His glorious grace”!
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– William
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