Setlist - 7 Oct 2012
Sunday evening at Kings

We launched our new format for Evening Worship this evening.

We're leading worship from 10 minutes before the official start, then half an hour of opening worship, then half an hour of worship responding to the sermon, so it's a lot of singing and a lot of preparation.

Leading worship before the meeting starts is going to be a good thing. It's great to set that tone. And it will be a useful slot for playing less familiar songs.

It's also great to have a longer main block of worship. Half an hour gives a lot more time to develop a theme.

Unfortunately I broke another string right at the beginning of 'Here for you'. It was only a G and I was playing G, so I tried just retuning and carrying on. It was fine, but I was quite exposed when leading the quieter songs that followed.

Ruth started our preaching series on the book of Acts.

After the sermon I got my wires pretty badly crossed. I thought Ruth had said we were to have a time of quiet, then she would pray, then I should lead response. In fact she had already prayed and it was over to me to lead out of the silence. As the minutes passed, we both thought the other was keen for the silence to go on for an unusual length of time. It was only after 8 minutes that I discovered that I was in charge. Oops!

But as it goes, there were some good things about the mistake. First of all, it's no bad thing to give some time to silence. Secondly, the slightly confusing wait led into lively songs which reflected the disciples' wait for Pentecost quite neatly. And most significantly, several people mentioned to us afterwards that they had found the time of silence profound.

I'm tired after a long weekend, and the evening felt pretty chaotic from where I was standing, but the grace of God is in it all.