Setlist - 24 Jan 2016
Sunday morning at Kings

A strong morning. I love this Isaiah series!

At the end of the first block we repeated the line "Praise the Lord, O my soul, praise the Lord" quite a few times. Between each repeat I sang an exhortation like "Standing with those who are mourning..." or "Joining with those who rejoice...". It worked very well. A way of giving a different liturgical colour to a very familiar song.

Mark preached a stirring sermon on Isaiah 9. We responded with "His name, his name shall be called wonderful" set to Finlandia. The band really nailed a brooding, majestic arrangement. We've tried that a couple of times before at Christmases in the past, but that's the first time I've been really happy with how it's gone.

'Great Are You, Lord' is almost too useful a song. I can already feel the temptation to overplay it.

Something I've been thinking about today is that the better we get musically, and the better I am at singing, playing guitar and arranging, the more restraint I need to show in order not to just override the congregation's voice. I'm no great artist, but I have enough skill and experience now that I can drive the meeting with the music we're making and my own lead vocal. But that's not the same thing as leading the congregation at all! The congregation's voice should be primary in the meeting. It was almost easier to allow that when I was mediocre in skill because I couldn't ever rely on my own performance.

But as always, praise the Lord, O my soul, praise the Lord.