Sun 18 Jan 2009, 10.00am

I'll be honest...the upbeat, fast, "get-everyone-dancing-and-praising" songs felt a little flat this morning. There were people enthusiastically praising, but there were probably more who weren't.

Then I noticed lots of very red faces.

Ahh. Summer. Days at the beach. Sunburn. Not good for ramping people up when they come into a cool dark space... ;-)

So by the time we got to the more relaxed, slower, "soak-in-God's-presence" music, some of these people had woken up a bit more oddly enough, and the last song was quite simply an amazing sacrifice of praise. I know it blessed God at least as much as it blessed me.

Technically and practically, the morning was unremarkable. The team was on time, rehearsal was smooth except for me fluffing a few thousand words as I tried to give direction to 4 people at the same time without stopping singing, our teen drummer was back, so we had to remind him not to hit quite so hard again ;-), our pre-service prayer time was full of faith and power. All systems normal then.

Our pastor continued his great preparation for 2009 series with a message on success and the Biblical keys to a successful life before he and his wife jetted off to Queensland to preach up there in the evening and meet with a big US ministry about us hosting a conference in May; an exciting opportunity for our church.

The songs:
Your Name High (Hillsong)
Run (Hillsong)
How Great Is Our God (Chris Tomlin - hadn't done this in ages, so beautifully simple)
The Anthem (Planetshakers - and the planet was indeed shaken)

Don't forget to check out all the other setlists and reviews on the “Sunday Setlists” blog carnival at FredMcKinnon.com.

and see what else is on my mind as I share how I'm going with Shaping The Space.