Setlist - 16 Feb 2014
Sunday morning at Kings

Tags: baptismss

  • [E] Praise to the Lord, the Almighty - Joachim Neander, Catherine Winkworth
  • [G] To God be the glory - Fanny Crosby
  • [G] What can I do - Graham Kendrick, Paul Baloche
  • [F] Amazing grace - John Newton
  • [Bb] Happy Day - Tim Hughes
  • [D] The Lord's my shepherd - Stuart Townend
  • [D] In the silence of beginning - Chris Juby
  • [D] Let the weak say 'I am strong' - Rueben Morgan

Hmmm. I could see the meeting was going well this morning, but that was quite at odds with my own experience.

I had printer troubles before I got to the venue, I wasn't happy with some of my arrangements in the practise, and then we had some (now rare) PA troubles as we opened the meeting. I was at least 50% distracted by frustration at most points. It feels almost dishonest to lead worship in that state.

But we were singing about salvation and celebrating baptisms this morning. The Gospel of grace applies as much to worship leading as every other part of life. The congregation was in full voice and the songs pointed us to Christ. Several people commented afterwards that it had been a rich morning. Surely a success!

If worship leading is all grace, then why spend good time preparing my heart before I lead? Won't God be glorified anyway?

I suppose one reason is that over the long haul a lack of integrity in the leader would likely limit the free expression of the congregation. And another important one is that preparing my own heart is essential to my own worship.

On top of that, I guess honesty in worship will sometimes include frustration. That's a little more complicated when you're the leader, but there are plenty of psalms that model leadership of worship through frustration.

Perhaps I'm overanalysing. It was a good morning.

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