Very spirit led worship, team. I liked the scriptural leading and meshing from song to song--flow and blend was excellent.

Excellent piano-work Bethanie! What you were doing matched the ebb and flow of the emotion in the songs--really liked it.

Great job to all that were involved and were leading! I'm very encouraged (and actually surprised) that we have so many up and rising leaders that have this amazing heart for the Lord.

I'd agree about the enunciation thing, and maybe it was because your allergies were pretty bad this Sunday it seemed. As I tell the sound guys, you have to realize that if you were standing in the congregation, you can understand what's being sung because you know the song already.

You need to make sure when you're singing that someone who doesn't know the song at all is able to understand what is being sung--and the sound guys can help make that happen, but like I always say, we can only do as good as our source material allows.

Loved the arrangement and the feel of The Saving One. That box thing sounds really good Jason.

Kelsi, good job on your first time up. I know it might have been a bit unexpected, but you handled yourself well. Hope it wasn't too nerve wracking!

I feel like the lamest one up front, being tied to my keyboard. I must find a key-tar....

I know that you personally may understand this, but it's a point worth bringing up because I've heard from others too about the supposed lack of hymns.

Let's take a step back. We made passing at this point a few weeks ago, with the background of the congregational reading James led that was a hymn entitled "Phos Hilaron".

"Hymn" as a noun is a praise or worship song, and "hymn" as a verb means to praise and worship.

A traditional hymn that one would think about (like Great Is Thy Faithfulness, or It Is Well, or Come Thou Fount, etc) can actually be defined in more specific terms. It has a certain kind of overall song structure (AABA, ABAB, etc), where each line has a certain number of measures, and the lyrics are formed with a certain number of syllables per line, etc. There are other elements as well that I'm not learned enough to know, but these are the main things that make a traditional hymn what it is, and also very good for corporate worship because of how easy it is to follow.

One of the songs we chose this Sunday was "The Power Of The Cross", by Keith and Kristyn Getty, and Stuart Townend. If you look at the structure of the song, the way the lyrics are written, and the melodic form of each line, it is not an accident that they are so similar structurally and full of rich content similar to the old traditional hymns--and this is not an accident. The Gettys are very intentional about creating new songs that mimic the traditional hymns of old.

If you get down to the details of what traditional hymn structure is, "The Power Of The Cross" will fill all of those requirements of a traditional hymn.

We planned the combination of intentional choices of songs and scripture to strengthen the connection between song and Word. With that, we do the best we can and we pray that God will be glorified in it. There can't be a way to make sure on every single Sunday, every last person's personal needs and preferences for worship are met, but we do take note to make sure there are familiar songs throughout that everyone can use to worship God--so look at song selection as an average. This is why your feedback is important to us, because we serve *you*.

However, arranging and planning worship so that it can be *inclusive* of everyone is not an average--it is required, and it's in our job description as worship leaders.

But what would trouble me is if someone dwells on the fact that a traditional hymn by Isaac Watts isn't sung, or a particular traditional Easter hymn wasn't sung, or that there was no "hymn" at all, because that makes me question if we are effectively filling our role as worship leaders, but also question if the people are understanding the purpose of the worship service, the songs that are sung, and how it connects with the Gospel message and connecting worship with their life.

I am not, however, discounting the power of traditional hymns. Rather, I am trying to show that there is much more out there to use as tools for worship than just songs written pre-1900. Sure, there are contemporary songs that really don't go well once you pull the words apart from the music. But did you know there are bad hymns too?

I encourage everyone to look over the songs we sing. Become familiar with them. Use this site, or ask a worship team member for the title and/or lyrics. Ask for the lead sheets after worship service (I know one or two that regularly come up and ask us for the set afterwards!). Trust me, we don't do much with the paper except use it as scratch or recycle it. Study the lyrics, the melodies, the rhythm--I think you will find that overall, the worship leaders do not pick songs that are watered down or "theology lite". We probably can't stand the fluff and sugar songs even more than the average listener.

We definitely welcome more discussion on this topic. This is not a right or wrong type of thing, but can also easily descend into a my preference/your preference discussion, so let's be careful of that.

I suppose now we'll start going back and forth in some sort of infinite loop thanking each other...

Well, no we won't. Instead, we'll just thank God!

Amazing worship for an amazing God! Many thanks for the team for practicing hard.

Dr. Green, thanks for the message, and making an excellent transition in the second worship set between our songs. The flow of that was excellent!

I think we all need work on holding long notes... maybe we were all tired, haha. Just keep that in mind, notes don't hold themselves--we need the support and actual concentration to keep it in tune.

Most of our flubs either on entrances, transitions, or chords I'm willing to just pass over as not having enough prep time in the morning and therefore causing a lack of confidence in what our plan was.

Bethanie, I'm getting comments from all over--vocally, you've improved a lot in a relatively short amount of time...keep doing whatever it is you're doing! You and I have the same problem...keeping those long notes in tune. Don't "check out" of your brain when you're singing a long note.

Last thing that sticks out in my head: Hosanna for the first 2 minutes were amazing. Actually, don't get me wrong, the whole song was awesome, but the first 2 minutes were dead-on-nuts. We got a bit messy after that, and all that stuff that comes with not being able to prepare quite enough, but the Spirit was certainly moving us all to worship!

One electric is not enough...it must be two from now on ;-)

Thanks Keith, encouragement is always appreciated too!

I'll try to get them for you.

Well, I thought it was actually an excellent way to integrate and flow into the next element. Actually, I didn't know it was planned, but when Bruce did it last week--and now you--I think we should continue that. It allows for a much better transition.

You too? It's on my regular playlist now...I think it came up like 5 times yesterday while I was flying, heh...