Message: “You Belong”

Song / Version / Key / Leader
“This is Amazing Grace” – Phil Wickham – Key of E – Female 1 Lead
“God Is Able” – Hillsong – Key of B – Male 1 Lead
“Holy Spirit” – Jesus Culture – Key of E – Female 2 Lead
“Lord I Need You” – Chris Tomlin/Passion – Key of E – Female 1 Lead

To kick off the year, we introduced “This is Amazing Grace” to our church. There is no better message to lead with, especially with visitors and the new year, than the story of Salvation and the Cross. Plus, the Phil Wickham version has a catchy lead line that works great for an opener and is fun to play as a team.

Following the new song, we kept it pretty simple and transitioned to the key of B via pad for “God Is Able,” which our main male leader led. Actually, the remainder of our set ended up being the same songs we did on Launch Sunday, which wasn’t planned. I just thought we needed to do more staple songs at the beginning of the year to ensure the people really entered in as well as felt comfortable singing. Also, if there were many visitors, which there normally are on the first Sunday of the year because of New Year’s Resolutions, they are more likely to engage if the people around them are engaging. This just so happened to lead us to selecting the same set.

So, following “God Is Able,” we transitioned to the key of E, where we stayed for both “Holy Spirit” and “Lord I Need You.” We ended “Holy Spirit” with a down chorus, let it breathe with just the pad for two measures and began the intro of “Lord I Need You,” and then ended that song with a down chorus as well, with just voices and pad. We absolutely love the worship pads we purchased via Loop Community. They help so much to carry those otherwise dead spaces that could become exit ramps for people. It just makes transitions so much simpler and creates a fuller bed for songs, so the musicians aren’t having to play unnecessarily to fill in the sound.