Setlist - 16 Dec 2018
Morning Carol Service at Kings

Tags: christmas, carols

Joyful chaos and profound reverence at our Morning Carol Service today. A very appropriate blend as we reflect on the Incarnation.

A number of the elements were repeated from least Sunday evening, but this was a very different service.

We added several sections to include children in the first part - a Christmas quiz, one of Dan N's wonderful half-improvised Nativity dramas, and a fun version of my 'Jesus Is With Us' including Nativity characters in costume and Bible readings to tell the Christmas story.

I hadn't originally planned to include 'O Holy Night' in this service, but it was so popular last week that I had to include it. Really, about twenty people have specifically told me how much they appreciated singing it. The arrangement we came up with was strong, but even so that's pretty extraordinary.

During the response this time I sang an acoustic version of Hillsong's 'Arrival'. Really excellent lyrics, but quite long and complicated as a song. (Kind of like the Christmas version of 'So Will I'.) I was planning on finishing 'Arrival' and then transitioning to the much more familiar 'Here I Am To Worship' in time for everyone to join in, but the response went faster than expected and the whole thing didn't feel as fluent as the rest of the service. It's always a shame to finish on a slightly flubbed note, but there we go.

And in fact of course we finished with the dizzy heights of 'Hark, the Herald'.

That's my last Sunday worship leading of 2018! Time to drop back and receive Christ once again.

Happy Christmas, all!