SCEFC Set List (5 July 2009)

For quite some time on his blog, my friend Ben has put up a post whenever he’s been leading the music team at State College Evangelical Free Church (SCEFC), listing each song and a little bit of his rationale for choosing them. I’ve been meaning to start emulating him for awhile, but am only now finally getting around to actually doing it.
I wasn’t the originally scheduled worship team coordinator this week, but was a bit of an emergency fill-in. Mike was originally in charge this week, but was unable to find any pianists or guitarists who were available. It wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say that there weren’t any instrumentalists available, because Mike does play bass and Mark Kay plays flute. But I don’t think a bass-flute combo would be the most effective instrumentation to lead music at church. It’d be odd, at any rate. So when I realized that if I didn’t play this week they’d be doing it a capella (or with just flute or flute & bass), I decided to step up. As a result, on Wednesday night Mike put me in charge of picking out the songs this week, so that I could choose songs that I thought I could carry with the piano. But he also requested a bit of a “patriotic feel,” with this being July 4th weekend and all.
That really got me thinking, because I’ve long been uncomfortable with rah-rah-wave-the-flag stuff in church; I think church is entirely the wrong place for that. I looked through my hymnbook’s “National Life” section, and several of the songs that were included there I simply did not feel comfortable playing in church, for theological reasons (including America the Beautiful and The Star-Spangled Banner). Basically, I cringe anytime I hear a fellow Christian (or anyone, for that matter, but non-Christians don’t normally claim these things) claim that the United States was/is a Christian nation, or has some favored status in God’s eyes, or that we’re the new Israel or anything like that. It’s just bad theology to have that interpretation of Scripture, and there’s really nothing to support it (and yes, I know I’m not going into any depth on this issue, but that’s for another post perhaps). As for the notion of the USA being or having been a “Christian nation”… contrary to popular belief in evangelical circles, the vast majority of the Founding Fathers were not Christians, but Deists and Masons. I read somewhere (I forget exactly where) that only two signers of the Declaration of Independence were actually Christians. We may have been a Christianized nation, but we were never a Christian nation; our government has never been a theocracy. Also, history has borne out repeatedly that the church is at its healthiest when it’s not in bed with the government. While I think it’s fine for Christians to be involved in government, and for certain generic issues to be highlighted now and again in church (the right to life, ending human trafficking, etc), I think it’s easy for the church and for Christians to get distracted by political involvement. It’s easy to pin our hopes and dreams onto particular politicians or party platforms, and to forget that our hope is to be in the Lord Jesus Christ only, in Him and Him alone. So, in sum, it’s for a lot of those sorts of reasons that I’m uncomfortable playing many “patriotic” songs in church. I did decide to do a couple though, partly at Mike’s request. Anyway, those were some of my thoughts running through my head as I went about choosing the set list last night.
Prelude: God Bless America – by Irving Berlin
Mike specifically requested this song. I plan on doing only one verse of this song, and singing it a capella to open the service. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with praying for God’s guidance for our nation.
Song #1: My Country ’tis of Thee – by Samuel F. Smith
This song starts singing about our country and our freedom (the sermon title is “Living in Freedom,” on Galatians 5:12-26), but ends with singing praises about God. This is really the direction that I want to take the rest of the set.
Song #2: It Is God Who Holds the Nations – by Fred Pratt Green
This is another hymn, set to the tune of “Battle Hymn.” Rather than speaking directly of America, this song is about how “It is God Who holds the nations in the hollow of His hand.” God is in control, and whether things are going well or not in our nation, we should always honor Him.
Song #3: Sing Praise to the Father – by Margaret Clarkson and William H. Doane
Yet another hymn, this one to the tune of “To God Be the Glory.” God, being in control of all the nations, should be praised. Margaret Clarkson is also one of my favorite hymn-writers.
Song #4: Shine, Jesus, Shine – by Graham Kendrick
A call/prayer for God to fill all nations of the world with His grace, mercy and glory. The first true non-hymn of the set. I thought of following this up with Spirit of God! Descend, since the sermon will be about living in the Spirit, but adding that hymn would’ve made the set too long.
Communion Song #1: Lead Us To Calvary – by Jennie E. Hussey and William J. Kirkpatrick
I’ll be playing this song quietly while the bread is being passed out, purely as an instrumental piece (no singing).
Communion Song #2: Hallelujah! What a Savior! – by Philip P. Bliss
I’ll be playing this song while the cup is being passed out, and will have the lyrics on the screen so that the congregation can sing it if they wish. I actually teared up a bit while practicing this song last night.
Closing Song: From the Inside Out – by Joel Houston
One of my all-time favorite songs (as I’ve blogged about previously), I think this will be a very good song to go out on, considering that the sermon text in Galatians is about living a transformed life in the Spirit. In order for that to happen, the Holy Spirit truly must consume us from the inside out.
That’s the set list for this week. Mike & I are doing a quick run-through tonight (20 minutes from now, actually), in lieu of a rehearsal tomorrow. Nobody wants to do a rehearsal on Independence Day after all, not when there are grilled meats to eat and explosives to blow up. 🙂 Hopefully it’ll go smoothly enough tonight that we won’t need a rehearsal before the service on Sunday morning too.
For one of my next posts I hope to have some good photos and/or movies of this year’s Central PA 4th Fest fireworks display, which is tomorrow night here in State College. Carl is on his way down from Ithaca for the weekend, because he wants to check out the 3rd-best fireworks show in the nation. Today I bought VIP viewing passes for both of us too, so we’ll have a good spot for picture-taking and movie-making. 🙂
Happy Independence Day, everyone!