This week was my first week at our new church/ministry. You can read more about this new opportunity and our first steps.
The church has been going through the life of David on Sunday mornings. This week, we focused on when Nathan confronted David regarding the sin with Bathsheba as told in 2 Samuel 12. It was a great opportunity to focus on the aspects of confronting sin (only go when God leads and always go when God leads), the true thing that God was upset about (that He had given David everything and would have given more, but David instead chose not to be faithful to God’s charge of shepherding), and confession and repentence.
Read on for the service flow, and then some additional thoughts.
Welcome/Scripture
Opened with some verses from Ephesians 2 focused on how we were dead in sin, but have been made alive in Christ.
To God Be the Glory (Crosby/Doane arr. Chapman)
Your Grace Is Enough (Maher/Tomlin)
Greeting
Asked people to share how they’ve seen God’s grace this week.
Announcements and Welcoming of us to church
Dismiss Children
Hebrews 10:19-22
Nothing But the Blood (Redman)
Jesus Paid It All (Hall/Nifong/Grape)
This section was designed to focus on the blood of Christ and its sufficiency for the forgiveness of our sins.
Prayer/Offering
During offering, showed a video called “Nothing But the Blood” from Visual Reality.
Message
Reflection
Invited people to consider their own sin and the need to confess. Drew attention to 1 John 1:9-10, and the importance of recognizing and confession.
Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) (Tomlin/Newton/Giglio)
Used this song as an assurance and declaration of forgiveness.
Closing
Closed by doing a corporate declaration from a portion of the Heidelburg Catechism, Q&A 56, which says:
I believe that God,
because of Christ’s atonement,
will never hold against me
any of my sins nor my sinful nature,
which I need to struggle against all my life.
Rather, in his grace
God grants me the righteousness of Christ
to free me forever from judgment.
It was a good morning. There’s always that first Sunday hesitancy, both on the part of the leader and congregation, as we begin to get to know one another. But, once we got into the service, it seemed that we were connecting well.
We experienced some technical glitches early in the service. One was in regards to words on the screen and another was the absence of vocals in the house system. They resolved themselves, and I’ll be taking a look at that in the weeks to come.
I also used the OnSong app to lead from. It worked out pretty well. A few kinks to work out, but I think it will be a great tool to lead from. One reason I went with that was to avoid my music and papers curling when it is humid in the deep south.
The message was really good. The senior pastor used some great illustrations to help drive home some great points about sin and dealing with it.
Being a smaller church, right now the worship team is just Beck and I. I’ll be doing a post soon about some things I’m planning on doing to begin to develop a team. There have been some who have helped out in the past, but initially, I’m just going to leave it as the two of us.
Looking forward to getting into a rhythm here and building relationships with the congregation. This is important aspect of leading worship and pastoring. These initial weeks in a new ministry are always unique, but I know that things will settle in. We’re thankful for this new opportunity.
Thanks for stopping by. To check out how other congregations worshiped together this past week, be sure to visit Sunday Setlists at The Worship Community.
