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Sunday Recap

It's not often that I have the opportunity to be a participant in a worship service. For any worship leader, it is a rare and treasured experience. I planned the service, scheduled the team, created the video elements..no surprises here. In light of that, I was truly attending my church yesterday as a worshiper...and I truly worshiped.

I discovered several things that happened yesterday that I needed to truly connect with God, with others, and to leave the service ready for the day and week.

1. I needed Time to get comfortable. The first 20 minutes as we were singing, I needed that time to get settled in. The music and welcome time gave me the opportunity to speak with several people, to sing, to get my focus on the reason I was there.

2. I needed Time to be quiet. There was an opportunity between two songs and at the end of the song before the video transition to the message. I was able to quiet my thoughts before the message began.

3. I needed to hear Biblical teaching that encouraged me evaluate where I am with God. Todd's message was something I truly needed to hear. Although I may be married to the Pastor, I do not know everything about his sermons each week. This was one of those weeks I had the general idea, but the Holy Spirit definitely spoke through Him in a very real way to me.

4. It was long enough. The service was about 68 minutes. I didn't get distracted. I didn't feel that it was rushed. I was actually wanting more, which is exactly how I wanted to leave...wanting more of God.

It goes without saying that as the Worship Director I listened to the mix, evaluated the screens, the flow of the service...yeah, it was awesome. I do believe that because those things were so excellent and God-focused, it gave such an open door to the worship experience being free of distraction. Thank you, team, for doing just that!

Sunday Recap

The Sunday after Easter can be a tough Sunday to plan.  If you plan services, you probably put it "all out on the field" the week before which leaves a lot less energy and creativity left for "the Sunday after." I've realized this about myself and this year, I made a strategic effort to creatively plan together the series before AND after Easter at the same time. This allowed me to not lose any steam from one week to the next.

Our new series, "Highly Unlikely" started off great last week! It's a four-week series on the life of Moses and how God used him despite everything in his life.

Here was our setlist...

Glory To God Forever

WELCOME/ANNOUNCEMENTS

Marvelous Light

God Is Able

Message Bumper

Message -Todd - "Desperate Beginnings"

Give Me Faith

Closing - Todd

"Give Me Faith" is our theme chorus for this series on Moses. I truly believe it could have been his own personal worship song throughout his life! Christine did an amazing job on it!

I'm so proud of our team. We have gone away from a weekly Thursday rehearsal due to scheduling issues and availability of our team with work and family. We are a volunteer-driven ministry and it is ALWAYS my desire that ministry complement every other aspect of my team's life and not be a burden or obligation that fights the other areas.  This is the first community that I have lived in that work schedules are not the typical 8-5 deal. To have a "required Thursday rehearsal" would eliminate most of my amazing musicians and singers.

However, everybody is really coming in knowing the material and executing at such a high level. There's no doubt that having everything clearly laid out in Planning Center for the team is the ONLY way this could happen. Sure, we have some weeks that we are not as tight as others, but I truly believe the team is doing such a great job and making every effort on the personal preparation side before Sunday. My drummer last week said it's the fear of NOT having the weekly rehearsal before Sunday morning that drives him to know his stuff!

Check out other great recaps of services all over the world here.

Sunday Recap - The Benefit of God's Character

We wrapped up our Splendor Series this week with "The Benefit of God's Character." We focused on how God's faithfulness through the ages is what guarantees His faithfulness for all time. I really felt that during this time that we are making this transition into becoming Hilton Head Island Community Church, I want our worship times to be familiar and epic. Big songs that remind us of God's faithfulness and familiar to us so that we can sing them without worry about words or chords. The band had a great time this week, I sensed, because they were familiar with the material and it gave us the opportunity to linger in different places like during "Sing Sing Sing" and "Agnus Dei." The congregation sang so well and really participated! We were at capacity in our Worship Center in the 2nd service. It was really hot, but exciting! Here was our setlist... (Click on the song to take you to a youtube video and more info on dowloading it for yourself - that was for my @hhichurch peeps!)

"Salvation is Here"

"Sing Sing Sing"

Welcome/Announcements

"Mighty to Save"

"Agnus Dei"

VIDEO: MESSAGE BUMPER - THE PROOF

Message

Spoken Word - Written and Performed by Gloria Moss

Dimiss

You can watch Gloria's piece here...

The Benefit of God's Character from HHI Community Church on Vimeo.

It was a wonderful experience to have someone like Gloria who is gifted in writing and performing to deliver this piece. The video doesn't do it justice (shot on my iPhone!) but it was truly a beautiful way to wrap up this series. I wish this series was two or three weeks longer. It has been SUCH a wonderful series to pray through and plan with our team.

Check out more recaps at the Worship Community!

Sunday Recap - Are we Listening?

  We are in week two of a three-week series called "Splendor." We are taking the massiveness of God and breaking it down into three specifics that we can connect with as Christ-followers. Week one was "The Beauty of God’s Creation." This week, it was "The Blessing of God’s Covenant" and Todd talked about how God communicated to His people under the Old Covenant and now how He speaks under the New Covenant. Our take-away was the importance of creating space in our lives for God to speak...for us to create margin and silence to hear from Him.

Here was our setlist:

"Friend of God" - Israel Houghton

Welcome/Announcements - We introduced our new Family Pastor. Rob Minton and his family!

"Chosen Generation" - Chris Tomlin

Scripture Reading - Psalm 116

"Here is our King" - David Crowder

VIDEO:MESSAGE BUMPER - God Speaks

MESSAGE

"Running" -  Gateway Worship - V, C,V, C, C

Time of Prayer - Todd gave everyone just a few moments of quiet to listen to God - not to talk to Him or request anything - just listen - I underscored on keys....

"Running" - Full version

Dimiss

I purposely made the last song very repetitive and longer than normal to give everyone time to not worry about words and to also be still and listen. It was very different, but I felt it really communicated the point.

Debbie and Daniel Cort led worship with me as well as Randy and Macy. We are so blessed with gifted artists at HHICC! Our tech team did a great a job and most of all, we just really have a WONDERFUL time together using our gifts and being in community.

Read more recaps at the Worship Community!

Holy Week Recap

What an amazing week in the life of LowCountry this year. We began with Palm Sunday and our Worship Community. It was an unusual Sunday in that I chose a couple of specials  - one before and one after the Message that really connected to our series. Here was our setlist:

"Marvelous Light"

"Salvation is Here"

Welcome

"Because of Love" - Natalie Grant

VIDEO:MESSAGE BUMPER

"Moving Forward" - Israel Houghton

We had a Maundy Thursday service from 11 am - 1 pm at both campuses. This is a drop-in service that guides you through four stations. It takes about 20 minutes. Attached here is the guide we provided for everyone that attended.

Download MaundyThursdayservice

Easter Weekend was awesome! We had record attendance at the HHI Campus - 300! We did one giant tent outside and the weather was gorgeous! We had Brandon and Kim Smith join our team to lead worship with me. Here was our setlist:

"All Because of Jesus"

Welcome

"No One Like" - New song from Tad Tatum at Newspring - AWESOME!

"Christ is Risen" - Matt Maher

VIDEO:MESSAGE BUMPER

"Jesus Paid it All"

VIDEO: NEW LOCATION PREVIEW

"Happy Day"

As only God would do, we were able to announce the location of a new facility that we believe is the future home of LCC-Hilton Head Island. CLICK HERE to watch the announcement.

BP, our tech director, and David Warren, lighting "guru," did an AMAZING job at both campuses with an install at the Bluffton Campus of new front fills and lighting (more lights are on the way! We are waiting on a slow boat from China...seriously!) and providing ALL the production for Easter at the Island Campus. They are THE BEST!

Of course, ProPresenter decided to crash right as we were about to start on the Island. It hasn't done that like...ever! Of course, it's Easter and this is just what happens. Thankfully, we got it back up and it worked great for our service!

Eric did a terrific job leading worship for all four services in Bluffton. Here's a stage shot from Saturday night during the countdown. He is SUCH an awesome part of our team and is doing a FABULOUS job leading worship and investing in our team! We had a little over 2000 at four services in Bluffton. Praise God! We had over 80 decisions made between both campuses for Christ!

What a tremendous week! I pray your Holy Week was a spirit-filled experience!

Click HERE To read more Easter service recaps!

Women in Worship Podcast

CLICK HERE to hear a podcast I was invited to be a part of with my friend Rich Kirkpatrick. We discuss "Women in Worship." It was awesome to be a part of this with two of my friends, Jan and Kim. I am so thankful for my recreate community where I was introduced to these amazing people.

Let me hear your thoughts here on it...

Sunday Recap - Hillsong NYC

  I had the privilege to be in Manhattan this past weekend visiting friends and doing the "tourist thing."I love NYC so much. I've always loved the city from visiting as a tourist since 1995. However, living there a couple of years as a part of The Gallery Church plant from 2005-2007 really gave me a sincere passion for NYC and its people to meet Jesus.

I got to attend Hillsong NYC on Sunday morning and...wow...what an awesome experience. It was so cool to attend a NYC church that has been recently planted and see the passion for the city just "ooze" out of the staff there. The service was so inspiring and the worship...yeah, it was like drinking from a fire hydrant for this worship leader!

Here was the service flow...

• Pre-service  - 5 MIN VIDEO - Great footage of the cities and communities that Hillsong has existing church plants. It was powerful!
• Worship - 25 minutes - Joel Houston
• Welcome - 5 minutes  - Lead Pastor, Carl Lentz
• Greet - "4 Minutes of Forced Fellowship" - This was fantastic! They used a countdown clock on the screen and served water and mini-muffins. It was terrific!
• Offering - Scripture Reading on Giving
• Song - reprise
• Message - this happened 50 minutes into the service - I really loved that!
• Invitation for Pre-Christians - hand-raised indication of accepting Christ
• Song reprise
• Invitation to Christ-followers - come forward invitation- I loved how Pastor Carl did it separately - it was so meaningful - he asked us to pray over these that were making decisions.
• Song reprise/Band played out - 90 Minute service total

It is such a powerful thing as a worship leader to attend a service and participate. I was inspired, encouraged, challenged, and spiritually refreshed. I know I have blogged about this before, but I honestly believe that attending services as a participant truly makes me a more authentic and inspired worship leader for my congregation. If you are a worship leader, I hope that you will take the opportunity to be a participant on a regular basis. You will experience things that you cannot experience when you are leading. Just do it!

Thanks to Joel, Carl, and the HillsongNYC team for such an amazing service. You guys are in my prayers. God bless your mission and your journey in NYC!

Join me here for more Sunday Recaps...

Sunday Recap - COLLIDE Message Series

We kicked off our Pre-Easter Message Series this week. We are looking at four people whose lives collided with Jesus while He was on this earth. We started with Pilate this week. Here was our setlist:

"Marvelous Light"

Welcome/Annoucements

"No One Like" (new song by Tad Tatum from NewSpring Church)

"Christ is Risen" - Matt Maher

VIDEO: MESSAGE BUMPER (CLICK ON IT TO WATCH IT!)

Message

"A Beautiful Collision" - Crowder

I've started leading the songs over the next few weeks that I want to do on Easter so that the Island Campus will know them really well by that Sunday morning. We are doing one service in a giant tent at the Island Campus. It's gonna be great!

Join me at the Worship Community for more Sunday Recaps...

Reflections from #unleash11

This was my third time attending Unleash and in my opinion, it was the best! I was able to take my WAM Staff with me and we had an unbelieveable 48 hours together - dreaming, sharing, and getting to know one another. Here were some highlights:

Five things to get our vision right - Perry Noble - from Matthew 25

1. We must make Jesus the END GOAL of all that we do.

2. We must be more concerned with the outsider than the insider.

My favorite statement of the day... 

"We must not organize ourselves around the preferences of the already convinced."

3. We must help people establish a new identity.

4. We must be patient with people.

5. We must make it our mission to proclaim freedom in Jesus Christ.

1 Samuel  14 - Every leader faces fear - Perry Noble

I loved this story of Jonathan and his armor bearer from 1 Sam 14:1-23. Go read it here. Perry started with John 14:12 and Christ's promise that we would do "greater things." He gave three stages of a leader being able to do greater things:

1.Preparation - vv. 1-4 -God has not called us to play it safe.

2. "Perhaps" - v.6- Perry said that everytime he reads the Bible, he sees that it is perfectly normal to not know what happens next. As Jonathan said, "Perhaps the Lord will act on our behalf..."

3. Partnershp - v.7 -You can always submit to godly authority and trust God for the outcome. As Jonathan's armor bearer said "Do all that you have in mind,” his armor-bearer said. “Go ahead; I am with you heart and soul."

Other thoughts...

Shane Duffey - Creative Arts Pastor - In his breakout session, I love what he said about creativity...

"We must be committed to process and product but married to the vision."

The worship was terrific...Lee and the team led with such authenticity and energy. I was so encouraged! It is such a treat to be led in worship. I just took it all in!

Thanks to ALL the team at NewSpring for their fabulous volunteers and a great day of encouragement!

Night of Vision & Celebration Recap

About three times a year, we plan a Sunday night service at our Bluffton Campus that gives us a longer time to worship, pray, celebrate stories of life change, and hear from our Lead Pastor, Jeff. It was an AMAZING time!

At Recreate this year, I participated in a worship time led by 1211. They did their entire worship set on the main floor with all of us in a semicircle. You can see part of it by CLICKING HERE. It was such a worshipful, non-performance-like time that I wanted to try it at LCC. So we did!

We set-up in a semi-circle in the center of our Worship Center and arranged the chairs around us in a semi-circle. We used the stage for the interviews and for Pastor Jeff's portion, but all the worship was on the floor. Here was our service order...

Countdown - 2 MIN VIDEO:Worship

"Come, Now is the Time to Worship" - Vineyard

"Friend of God" - Israel Houghton

"Sing My Love" - Jesus Culture

Welcome/Prayer of Blessing/Celebration of Discipleship Stories at LCC - Pastor Bob

"Jesus is the Answer" - Andre Crouch

VIDEO: LCC STORIES

Pastor Jeff - Letters of life change/Interviews/ Vision Casting

Time of Prayer

"Inside Out" - Hillsongs

"Hosanna" - Brook Fraser

"Glory to God" - Steve Fee/Vicky Beeching

Those of us who manage the tension of multiple services, parking, and all those WONDERFUL things a thriving church faces need opportunities like this to exhale. There was no service after this one and we were not in a hurry - it lasted about 90 minutes. It was SO refreshing and our team had a wonderful time just worshipping together in a relaxed, casual atmosphere.

Pastor Jeff did a wonderful job of sharing his heart and being vunerable with us. I was inspired by his honesty and at the same time so thankful to be a part of what God is doing at LCC!

Read other Sunday recaps here.