Preparing for Sunday, 9/26.

Well tomorrow we have not one, but two opportunities to meet and worship corporately. I'm excited - it should be a great Sunday!

SUNDAY MORNING:
Pastor John is preaching out of 1 Kings 19:19-21, and our songs will be as follows:

1. Happy Day - An exultation in our salvation, that Christ has fully accomplished on the cross for us. "What a glorious day, what a glorious way that You have saved me."
2. There is a Fountain - A newer (but not too different) reworking of the hymn by William Cowper. We introduced this song early in the Summer because it is a great expression of the power of the blood of Christ, shed for us. His blood washes all our sin away, and will never lose its power to present the church sinless before God.
3. The Wonderful Cross - This song will come after announcements and the offering. The key point in this song, that we'll sing twice, will be that the saving love of God, that comes to us in and through Christ, demands our souls, and our lives. God will have it no other way for those whom He saves.
4. How Marvelous - A final song glorying in the cross. I love the last verse of this hymn, that says "When with the ransomed in glory, His face I at last shall see; twill be my joy through the ages to sing of His love for me!" The Gospel will be the theme of our worship of God, even throughout eternity.

SUNDAY EVENING - CELEBRATION OF GRACE
We'll close our time together in the evening with the following two songs.

1. O Worship the King - A reworking of an old hymn, that we starting singing at our church over the Summer. A great hymn about the glory of God, and His powerful majesty.
2. How Great is Our God - A very familiar song for us, and a great last song of response to how faithful God has been to our church over the past couple of years.

See you Sunday, hopefully morning and evening!

Reflecting on Sunday morning (yesterday, 9/5/10):

As I'm reflecting on yesterdays corporate worship at our church, I'm encouraged again, ultimately. A good friend called me last night, asking where he could find one of the songs we sang together in church. I know his love for, and commitment to good theology, and how good theology inspires his worship. That's partly what I long for with our time of singing on Sunday morning, and why I'm writing today, reflecting back on yesterday morning. I love it when the songs we sing affect individuals in the gathered church, and it would be my hope that they would go into their weeks (and individual stations in life) singing and thinking about the songs we sang together Sunday morning as the body of Christ. It would also be my hope that the theology in the songs would be fixed in all of our minds and hearts as we go from church into the week. Hopefully we can fight sin and temptation more intensely, and stand more unwaveringly in our faith because of the encouragement and equipping we find together at church on Sunday morning.

So go to iTunes or Amazon.com and buy versions you like of the songs we sing together. Or you can follow the links below to give them a listen.

All that to say, yesterday we sang the following songs. It was another good morning of preaching, singing and fellowship.

Preaching: sermon by Pastor John - Part 1 of "What is the experience of an unbeliever and believer when they die?" Text: Luke 16:19-31
1. Holy is the Lord
2. Glorious and Mighty
3. All I Have is Christ
4. My Hope is Built (We arranged this a little differently, but this was the version I found that was closest. This version has a cool bridge that we did not play. I'll try to post a video or track of our arrangement at some point.)