Sing to the King – Billy Foote & Charles Silvester Horne

You Said – Reuben Morgan

Be Thou My Vision – Mary E. Byrne & Eleanor H. Hull

Oh Jesus I have Promised – John E. Bode & Arthur H. Mann

For more, see Sunday Setlists @ FredMcKinnnon.com

“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes: our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth. Tradition objects to their being disqualified by their accident of death.”

How does your church value tradition?

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain in to joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

ht: profbaugh

Hope of the Nations – Brian Doerksen

Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord – Michael W. Smith

My Jesus I Love Thee – William Ralph Featherston & Adoniram Judson Gordon

Before the Throne of God Above – Charitie Bancroft & William Bradbury

This post is in a submission to Sunday Setlists @ fredmckinnon.com.

what came of it was the story of how i fell in love with worship music.

you can read it here.

and then continue through some other amazing posts that he’s sharing this week!

i think he raises some amazing points.

you might wanna go read it.

For more setlists, go to fredmckinnon.com.

we also have a large contingency of college students at our church.

in planning worship, we do a mix of hymns and contemporary songs. our church is not quite yet ready to give up the hymns. these historic songs have a place in the souls of half of our members.

to be quite honest, i’m not ready to give up the hymns yet. not at this church.

as a worship leader, my job is to serve the people before me. help them worship God, help them pour out their hearts to Him in song, give them the words to sing when they can’t find them.

in doing so, i set my preferences, my musical tastes, and my “favorite” songs aside and lead THEM. serve THEM. help THEM. while some of the songs may not best suit my style, i consciously put my heart in the songs, in the words, in the message.

this older generation can better express their heart to God by singing “How Great Thou Art” rather than “How Great is Our God”… and, i don’t want to take that opportunity away from them.

although i’d be the first to admit that a more contemporized worship service would do wonders for church growth, i’m not willing to stretch the music so far that we leave half of the congregation behind. these old hymns mean so much to them, they are mile-markers of their faith.

they’re not dead yet. they are still around, and they are more than welcome to stay.

i’m sorry to interrupt everyone’s problem-free summer with a problem.

here’s the deal. we have a church that’s half geriatric and half collegiate. how do we combine the two musically? um. well. we just do both.

we do hymns. out of the hymnal.

and we do worship sets. three/four contemporized songs strung together.

but, sometimes we will do a hymn at the beginning or end of the worship set. and those moments get a little tricky.

ie: after singing “How Great is Our God” i will say, please grab your hymnal and turn to number so-and-so. we’ll be singing all four verses of “Great is Thy Faithfulness”.

my question is this: how can i make that “smoother” – less bumpy? less choppy?

and my other question is this: how can i transition from a starting hymn, grab my guitar, and cue the next song (which will be contemporary)?

what would you do? (canning the hymnal is not an option)