Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise from the ends of the earth

So, in our Harvest service this morning, we wrote some new verses to update the old song ‘Thank you Lord for this fine day’. We’ve put them on the internet so that people all over the world can see our ‘thank you’ to God.

Thank you Lord for this fine day
Thank you Lord for this fine day
Thank you Lord for this fine day
Right where we are.

Thank you Lord for birthdays…

Thank you Lord for food to eat…

Thank you Lord for water to drink…

Thank you Lord for the whole wide world…

Thank you Lord for chocolate milkshake…

Thank you Lord for strawberry icecream…

1. Be a worshipper

Above all else, to lead others in worship, you must first be a worshipper.

• Don’t neglect your personal worship: our worship on Sunday should flow out of a life lived for God Monday to Saturday.
• Prepare your heart before leading – what is your mood? Are you ready?

2. Be a facilitator

Your role as a worship leader is to facilitate – to help people worship, to enable people to engage and participate in the service.

• Give encouragement – don’t antagonise the congregation.
• Remove barriers.
• ‘Meet people where they’re at’.
• Be aware of social taboos.

3. Be prepared

Success on Sunday morning starts with good preparation.

• Prepare in enough detail for you. Practice. Pray.
• Send songs to the band before Saturday night!
• Lead the practice – show people how you want the service to flow.
• Find out what else is happening: what will the preacher speak about? What will the children be learning about? Is there a special event in the calendar?
• Make sure everyone involved has a copy of the order of service.

4. Be creative

Worship shouldn’t be the same every week – our creator God has made us all creative people.

• If you’re a musician – think about style, tempo, dynamics, structure and harmony.
• If you’re not a musician – talk with the band about how to use the music creatively.

5. Be a leader

People will feel more comfortable and relaxed if it is clear what is going on and that someone is ‘in control’.

• Take people with you: a leader without any followers is just someone taking a walk.

• Give people instructions – explain what’s going on at each point (think about how visitors will feel).
• Communicate with the worship team.
• Keep your eyes open – stay alert to what’s going on in the meeting.
• Use the microphone to make sure you are heard at all times.

6. Keep an eye on practicalities

The worship leader has practical responsibilities as well as spiritual ones.

• Start the meeting on time.
• Does it sound right?
• Is the projection operator ready?
• Keep an eye on the time: be prepared to adapt your plan if things are running on too long.

7. Give the service a structure

It helps to have a framework that holds the service together. Much of the structure comes from the common elements that we use every week. The elements that should be included every week will depend on your church tradition, but at Horndean we have:

• Welcome
• All-age talk
• Sermon
• Notices

…and these elements are scheduled for certain weeks in the calendar:

• Communion
• Prayer ministry
• These elements are optional:
• Sharing time
• Prayer for others

8. Give the service flow

The service is not just a list of things to get through. Think about how the parts of the service will flow together – how will you link each item?

• Don’t preach a sermon between each song!
• Avoid DJ links – you’re not on Radio 2!
• Sometimes a theme is a useful way of creating a flow between parts of the service.
• Aim to strike a balance:
  • Old and new songs
  • Quiet times and noisy times
  • Attitudes in songs (call to worship, proclamation, praise, thanksgiving, adoration, prayer, commitment, confession, outward facing songs)
  • Musical styles

9. Make the service accessible

Consider the needs of the whole congregation – young and old, new christians and old christians, those with special needs.

• Think of ways to engage all parts of the congregation, but especially the children.
• Consider how accessible the service will be for those with special needs, such as physical disability, partial hearing or partial sight.
• Consider how accessible the service will be for those who are not used to church services.
• How will visitors find the service?

10. Use non-musical worship

There’s more to worship than singing – God has given us a rich world of expression that we can use to worship him.

• Worship is not just about singing and worship leading is not just about picking your favourite songs.
• Think about using other forms of worship: liturgical readings, Bible readings, quotes, poetry, pictures, activities, prayer, silence, symbols.

1. Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen)

Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Lines 5 and 6 here are matched by the chord changes described in the lyrics.

2. Do-re-mi (from The Sound of Music, Rodgers and Hammerstein)

Let’s start at the very beginning
A very good place to start
When you read you begin with A-B-C
When you sing you begin with do-re-mi

…and the song continues to use the sol-fa scale throughout.

3. Every time we say goodbye (Cole Porter)

There’s no love song finer
But how strange the change
From major to minor
Every time we say goodbye

The third line here is matched by a major to minor chord change.

4. These words (Natasha Bedingfield)

Threw some chords together
The combination D-E-F
Is who I am, is what I do
And I was gonna lay it down for you

This one’s a stretch: D-E-F matches the bass line, but the harmony sounds more like Dm, Em, F.

5. CAGE DEAD (Simon Jeffes, Penguin Cafe Orchestra)

Not quite a song, but this tribute to composer John Cage uses the melodic progression of the title: C-A-G-E-D-E-A-D.

6. One flight down (Norah Jones)

In this place
Where your arms unfold
Here at last you see your ancient face
Now you know
Now you know

The cadence rolls in broken
Plays it over and then goes

In musical terminology, a harmonic cadence is a progression of two or more chords used to conclude a phrase. There are different classifications of cadences: perfect, imperfect, plagal and interrupted. Another name for the interrupted cadence is a broken cadence, which is used to describe the V (fifth) chord moving to anything but the I (first) chord. But when you listen to the song, what you hear is actually an imperfect cadence at this point!

7. Side (Travis)

We all try hard to live our lives in harmony
For fear of falling swiftly overboard
But life is both a major and minor key
Just open up the chord

This one looks promising on paper – the second verse from Side by Travis – but on closer inspection, we see a form of inverted self-reference: a minor chord accompanies the word major and then changes to a major chord for the word minor! Can any guitarists advise whether the last line is played on an open chord?

“Our support engineers have now isolated the cause of the problem”

We’ve no idea how to fix this.

“Some customers will be affected by this issue”

All customers will be affected, but we figure you won’t meet them and compare notes.

“Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this may have caused.”

Don’t blame us, you’re on your own.

“We believe…”

We don’t know…

“Upgrade to the latest version”

…and you’ll get issues that make your current bug look like a feature.

“A security update is available”

Bug fix so shameful we don’t want to admit what it is.

“Service pack”

Everything we forgot in the main release.

“Under certain conditions…”

We don’t know why this happens.

(Hover over image for solution)

rebus (rē’bəs)
1. a representation of a word or phrase by pictures, symbols, etc., that suggest that word or phrase or its syllables.

rebus (rē’bəs)
1. a representation of a word or phrase by pictures, symbols, etc., that suggest that word or phrase or its syllables. ]]> http://stonetable.org.uk/2007/04/15/rebus-i/feed/ 0