Prior to this weekend, I’d only led worship at church once before. That time it was Labor Day weekend, and I found out just three or four days in advance that I was gonna be the only one able to play, and thus was the coordinator by default. I wound up finding someone else to sing at the last minute (Suzanne), but I just picked all hymns that wouldn’t have needed someone to lead in singing, in case I couldn’t find anyone. So I was glad this time to have plenty of notice and be scheduled to be the coordinator well in advance.
I knew that the sermon text was going to be Psalm 4, and I wanted to pick some songs that would fit with it, but Psalm 4 proved to be a tough customer as far as that was concerned. (As it turned out, the songs I picked happened to fit with the sermon better than I could’ve ever planned!) So I just tried to go with a couple self-contained themes within the worship set, and here are the songs that I picked out for this week:
Your Grace Is Enough
Wonderful Grace of Jesus (an AWESOME hymn for piano)
Mission’s Flame
Shine, Jesus, Shine
The Love of God (a great old hymn that I was only recently introduced to)
Trust and Obey
Both Mission’s Flame and The Love of God were new to just about everyone, so I was hoping that wouldn’t be too many new songs to introduce at once. I’ve really been hoping to introduce Mission’s Flame at church for some time now, so I took advantage once I had control over what songs got picked. 🙂
I especially wanted to do this song after last week, when Pastor Tober’s old roommate from Bob Jones gave a message at church. He’s been a missionary to the Tatar people in Kazakhstan since 1997, and he and his wife decided to go there because the Gospel really hadn’t ever reached the Tatar people before. As a gifted musician, he learned all about traditional Tatar instruments and music (he’s working on his PhD at a conservatory there, and his dissertation will be the first one ever written about Tatar instruments), and began to compose Christian songs using those instruments and melodies. He even shared some of those songs at church, playing on violin and on the squeezebox (kind of like an accordion, except with old typewriter-style keys instead of piano-style keys). It was really cool. In any case, he also told stories of all the people who’ve come to know Christ as a result of those songs, and people realizing that they actually can worship God in their own language. That’s a sharp contrast to the Islamic culture of the Tatar people, in which true “worship” can only be conducted in Arabic, and the Koran is only in Arabic. As part of their ministry though, the Psalms, the New Testament, and the Pentateuch are now published in the Tatar language, with the rest of the Old Testament currently being translated. But everything about what that missionary has done really fits the words of Mission’s Flame by Matt Redman:
Let worship be the fuel for mission’s flame
We’re going with a passion for Your name
We’re going for we care about Your praise
Send us out!
Let worship be the heart of mission’s aim
To see the nations recognize Your fame
Till every tribe and tongue voices Your praise
Send us out!
You should be the praise of every tongue
You should be the joy of every heart
But until the fullness of Your Kingdom comes
Until that final revelation dawns
Send us out!
Let worship be the fuel for mission’s flame
We’re going with a passion for Your name
We’re going for we care about Your praise
Send us out!
Let worship be the heart of mission’s aim
To see the nations recognize Your fame
Till every tribe and tongue voices Your praise
Send us out!
You should be the praise of every tongue
You should be the joy of every heart
But until the fullness of Your Kingdom comes
Until that final revelation dawns
Send us out!
Every tribe, every tongue
Every creature in the heavens and the earth
Every heart, every soul
Will sing Your praise, will sing Your praise!
Every note, every strain
Every melody will be for You alone!
Every harmony that flows from every tongue
Will sing Your praise, will sing your praise!
We’ll sing Your praise, we’ll sing your praise!
You should be the praise of every tongue
You should be the joy of every heart
You should be the praise of every tongue
You should be the joy of every heart
But until the fullness of Your Kingdom comes
Until that final revelation dawns
Send us out!
Send us out!
Send us out!
Send us out!
Let worship be the fuel for mission’s flame
We’re going with a passion for Your name
We’re going for we care about Your praise
Send us out!
Send us out!
Send us out!
Earlier this week when Lance, our drummer, found out he had to work, it didn’t look like we’d be able to play it, though (if you play the video above, you’ll hear how critical drums are to it). Fortunately Blair was able to step in, and he did a wonderful job (as always, he’s a very talented musician), and made it possible for us to pull it off (he even sang while playing drums!). After about an hour of practicing it on Saturday evening, we finally got it to sound good. Then it went really well on Sunday too, and it seemed like it was well received by the congregation, even though it was a totally new song to them. I’ve been so pumped about this song, and it’s definitely become one of my favorite songs, period. It moves me every time I hear it, and I’m looking forward to playing and singing it again at church in the future.
But when we sing “Send us out!” that isn’t limited to asking to be sent out to some faraway land where the Gospel hasn’t ever been preached. There are plenty of places for us to be sent out that are closer to home, including our neighborhoods, our workplaces, our communities. We always need to be mindful of opportunities to share the Gospel with our friends and other people we meet in our daily lives. In that sense, all Christians should be missionaries and evangelists, spreading the Gospel wherever we live. Send us out!