Setlist - 9 Oct 2016
Sunday morning at Kings

Tags: freshers

A huge meeting at the start of the new University year! Almost 400 people in the room.

I never normally feel any nerves before leading worship, but I was very conscious this morning that there would be dozens of people at Kings for the first time. I always want to give a good account of our vision for Sunday worship at these meetings. It takes quite a lot more preparation to succinctly and naturally explain our ethos even as we're putting it into practise.

My emphasis this morning came from Romans 8 - that the God who raised Christ from the dead gives life to our mortal bodies by his Spirit. I was seeking that Christ would be magnified amongst us and that we would be renewed in the Gospel of grace.

We started with 'In Christ Alone'. When there are lots of new people in the room, it's always good to sing the heart of our faith in the story of the Cross. Then we centred on the glory and grace of Christ in salvation. I don't usually use one of my own songs on this first Sunday, but 'Come and Worship Christ the King' so articulates what I was trying to emphasise that I gave it a pass this time. It lifted really well.

We left some space for spontaneous contributions after 'You Alone Can Rescue', and then into 'Man of Sorrows'. There was a nice opportunity to show that we're relaxed about mishaps when the lyrics for the wrong 'Man of Sorrows' appeared on the screen for the first verse. You show your culture in everything that happens. Part of our culture is that we are both very serious about worship and also very ready to laugh at ourselves.

We had one of our standard bonus songs 'Speak, O Lord' to introduce the sermon. Mark preached on Pentecost, and we responded celebrating the Gospel.

The band sounded fantastic today, and the room was alive.

It's always gratifying when greater preparation seems to result in a better meeting, but I had the opposite experience enough times not to take much credit for it. Thanks be to God that the Gospel of resurrection always offers the renewal of life in the power of the Spirit!

One meeting down. Another to go this evening...