HBC Service Redux: 6 February 2011

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: William Chong)

1. Glorious and Mighty – Joe Sczebel, Todd Twining. We used this as a more restrained (musically) opening song, followed by two other songs on the theme of who God is and His story. From the first word, the church was singing very strongly (even though there were a lot of visitors, more on that later). We did have a time of prayer as the first item, which maybe helped to focus our attentions and minds on our time as the gathered church.
2. Everlasting – Brian Doerkson, Matt Unruh. Luke gave us a hand on trumpet this morning with some clear melody leads – appreciated those.
3. By Faith – Keith and Kristyn Getty, Stuart Townend.

Announcements, Pastoral Prayer – Our senior pastor Peter Somervell introduced our church’s missions focus for the month, HCJB Global, and led the church in a pastoral prayer for a number of folk in our church family. I know for the music team we’re thinking in particular of Mana who’s looking after her mum for the next couple of weeks.

Scripture reading – Psalms 5 and 6. I found it really helpful to meditate on these two Psalms this week. An unexpected blessing of using the systematic reading has been that I’ve considered and meditated on psalms which I normally wouldn’t have considered due to my own preferences and inclinations. This morning Francelle read them with a real motherly passion and sensitivity.

4. Blessed Be Your Name – Matt Redman. This modern classic is a great way to respond in praise to God even while reflecting on “the road marked with suffering, though there’s pain in the offering”. Christians don’t worship in a Pleasantville vacuum.

Sermon: Women in the Church Part 2: Dealing with the Difficulties (1 Tim 2:11-15) – Peter Somervell. Peter finished off a three-part series on women in the church, dealing with the application of this difficult text in various church ministries. There were some pertinent points on the role of the worship leader that we can hopefully flesh out in more detail over time. It’s worth noting that all of us up the front, male or female, to some degree need to model to the congregation passionate corporate worship. I’m heartened and encouraged by my sisters in Christ that serve faithfully each week in the music ministry and do a great job in edifying the HBC family.

5. O Great God – Bob Kauflin. We finished our time by reminding each other of God’s greatness, His work in rescuing us, and His ongoing work in refining us.

  • We had quite a difficult practice on Thursday – I had given Rob the night off on sound duties, but I think the rest of the team as a result found the lack of foldbacks hard to work with. I remember several times feeling that we couldn’t really hear each others’ beats that well (particularly in “Everlasting” where we were practising a change of tempo at the start). Oh yes and it was a pretty humid night too… but God is faithful even in the midst of difficulties as it helps remind us of our need to depend on His Spirit in all we plan and do.
  • Poor Rob didn’t have an easy job on Sunday either: some ongoing problems with sound issues on the bass amp and a host of little tweaks meant that by the time he was finally ready to check the band’s mix through the auditorium speakers… we’d already finished our practice! By God’s grace everything clicked together, pretty much from the first words onwards, but it would have been quite a nervous time leading up to it!
  • Even though we had about 15-20 families away for a weekend fishing/camping retreat, they were all replaced on Sunday morning by a large number of new visitors and families – the church auditorium was still full! I always appreciate the faithful ministry of the hospitality and welcome teams, especially on mornings like this. Praise the Lord for His work in building His church!

One reply on “HBC Service Redux: 6 February 2011”

  1. Strong songs, strong singing, strong leading – was particularly blessed and encouraged to praise and worship God yesterday. Thanks William!

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