let my words be few

I sort of had a day off today.  Kelly Graham, my trusty sidekick, was leading with the band at Exchange this week and his set for Thursday night worked really well for this morning with a few little tweaks.  He had already rehearsed the band, so I asked him on Thursday if he minded leading today.  I’m so grateful for Kelly and his heart to serve Jesus and the local church.  Kelly will be the worship leader for our north campus when it kicks off in January, so I’m trying to get as much use out of him now as I can before he goes.  

Since he was leading our worship band services, it freed me up to help out with our sanctuary services.  I always love playing with the choir and orchestra, and I particularly love leading beside Dean Henderson.  Dean asked if I would lead one song and play along on another since I was “off” today.  And I was more than happy to oblige.  Here are the songs I led in the sanctuary:

1. Hallelujah, What a Savior - the Bob Kauflin (Sovereign Grace arrangement), this is one of my all time favorite hymns.

2. Praise God - also a Bob Kauflin arrangement of the Doxology and Psalm 117

Kelly’s set for this morning was:

1. Everlasting God

2. Jesus Messiah

3. Here is Love

4. To You (Words Can’t Describe) - this song was written by Billy Foote.  Billy is the writer of songs like You Are My King and You are God Alone.  Billy is also Kelly’s brother-in-law.  Pretty cool, huh?  If you have any of Billy’s recordings, that amazing female voice is Kelly’s sister. 

5. In Christ Alone

6. Let Me Be - this is a Caedmon’s Call tune.  I love these lyrics:

Let me be open, let me be humble
Let me find the joy of my salvation in Your cross
Let me be broken, whenever I stumble
Let me remember the great mercy of my God

All I have needed is laid at Your table
All my achievements, I lay at Your feet
Alive in Your presence, I’m willing and able
You make my joy complete

I also had the opportunity tonight to play at the church I grew up in, Abner Baptist in Spartanburg, SC.  It was a special moment for me to play a song tonight I the spot where I first played guitar in front of people.  I’ll write more about tonight later this week.  I played a song I wrote a couple of years ago called On Your Kind Arms I Fall.

Earlier this year I was asked to lead our young adult ministry at ECBC.  For the past few years this ministry has been called Exchange.  But, like many names given to ministries, the meaning was forgotten.  So, we wanted to make sure there was an understanding of why we call our ministry Exchange.  Last night, I had the privilege of teaching about this.  

Exchange is about the Gospel.  Plain and simple.  The verse that drives this name and what we do is 2 Corinthians 5:21, “He made Him who knew to sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”  The great exchange is that in exchange for our sin, Christ gave us His righteousness.  What a grand and glorious truth.  Here’s my brief outline:

The Great Exchange - 2 Corinthians 5:21

1. The Plan of the Father - “He made…”

2. The Paradox of the Son - “…Him who knew no sin to be sin…”
     a. The Sinless One
     b. Becomes Sin in His Sight

3. The Position of Man - “…on our behalf, so that we might become…”
     a. The Sinful Ones
     b. Become Righteous in His Sight

4. The Promise of Hope - “…the righteousness of God in Him.”

Kelly Graham led the music last night and did a fabulous job in picking out songs that conveyed this great truth.  Here are the songs we sang:

1. Everlasting God
2. Marvelous Light
3. Fairest Lord Jesus
4. Let Me Be
5. To You (Words Can’t Describe)
6. Jesus Messiah
7. In Christ Alone

Here’s my attempt at being more consistent in blogging. Every Sunday evening or Monday morning, I’m going to post the songs we sang at church on Sunday morning and possibly give a little commentary on each song. I try to be very intentional about the songs we sing and not just sing songs that are cool or songs that I know will bring forth some emotional response. So here goes:

1. Praise the Lord (Psalm 150) - This was a new song we did for the first time today. It’s from the Sovereign Grace Psalms CD (which I think is their best ever). Our church anniversary was this weekend and Psalm 150 was our focus. It’s a very singable tune, so the congregation picked it up pretty quickly. My favorite line is:

Praise the Lord with instruments,
Praise the Lord with excellence
Look at what He’s done for us
Bore our sins upon the cross.

2. All Creatures of Our God and King - We use the David Crowder arrangement of this one. I love how the drums and the acoustic guitar complement each other. The lyrics are Trinitarian which is a big plus. Often we focus on the Father or the Son and occasionally the Holy Spirit, which is good, but singing about the Godhead is vital to biblical worship. More songs need to be written like this. Maybe that’s a challenge for me.

3. O Praise Him (Psalm 134) - The first song I wrote that I felt good about. The lyrics were written by Henry Francis Lyte a long time ago. I wrote a new melody to it and added a simple little chorus. Our church loves this one which is very humbling for me. I love the words of the third verse:

Praise the Lord, great mercies trace
Praise His providence and grace
All that God for us has done
All God sends us through His Son
All that breathe your Lord adore
Praise Him, praise Him evermore.

4. The Lord Is (Psalm 23) - Another Sovereign Grace tune for the Psalms CD. This is a fantastic song in 6/8. It’s a simple declaration of God’s love and faithfulness as our Shepherd. I first heard this song on the WorshipGod 08 conference a few weeks back and immediately knew this was a song our congregation should sing. I love how it takes an Old Testament passage and shows us Christ in it.

You gave Your own life for my ransom
So I could rejoice at Your side
You have shown Your faithfulness again and again
There’s nothing good that You will not provide

The Lord is, the Lord is my Shepherd
The Lord is, the Lord is my Shepherd
I shall not want.

5. Jesus Messiah - A new Chris Tomlin song. Very much like a lot of his tunes. Recorded way to high for congregational singing, but drop it down a step and a half and you have a highly singable song that exalts Jesus. This was another new one for our congregation today. I rarely do that. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I’ve ever done that before and probably won’t again. But, it went well. We sang this during the offering as we often do to teach a new song and invited everyone to join us on the chorus at the end. The first verse is the theme of our young adult ministry (from 2 Cor. 5:21), and I think this will become sort of an anthem for us.

He became sin, who knew no sin
That we might become His righteousness
He humbled Himself and carried the cross
Love so amazing, love so amazing.

6. Receive the Glory - Another Sovereign Grace song. This one has become a staple for our worship services with significant meaning in the life of our church. We’ve sung this song for the last 3 anniversary services, our pastor’s 25th anniversary, and a number of other occasions.

All that we’ve accomplished, You have done for us
And any fruit we harvest is a gift from Your hand

So we glory in the cross of Christ
That made us Yours forever
That joined our lives together to sing.

Today was a big day at church as well because we went to a new service format. We got rid of our 8:15 acoustic service and changed the times of our others. We are doing 9:00, 10:15, and 11:30 for our service times. The big component in this change was that we moved our worship band service to our sanctuary for the 11:30 hour to allow for more growth. Maybe I’ll explain more of what I mean by that it a future post. (Yeah, yeah, you’re all thinking March 2009.) Anyway, everything went better than we hoped and we had very high hopes. This is going to be great for the life of our church. Soli Deo Gloria!