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My brother is on some kind of media course. His current project is to make a music video and asked me if I wanted him to make a video of one of my songs. It was an opportunity I couldn’t turn down. I agreed, but could not think of which song to use.

::Picking a Song::

My initial thought was to use one of my own songs (as he suggested it first), but I’m not really comfortable with singing them anymore. I feel like I’ve grown out of them. Most of them are over 10 years old now and where applicable to that time in my life.

I moved on to Meant to Live by Switchfoot, but when I thought about it more, it wasn’t really a style that would suit me.

Then I found what I thought would be perfect - Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol. This song is so popular here that the end project would only end up being compared against the original song and video.

In the end we settled for Indescribable as performed by Chris Tomlin. I only found out a couple of days back that Chris didn’t actually write the song himself. A lady called Laura Story penned the song.

::The Right Sound::

The next stage was how to play it. I could play it on the guitar and sing, but that would sound a bit lonely and not get across the power of this song.

I could ask the some of the guys from church to get involved and put a band together, but that would be a lot of effort for everyone and time is running out.

So, it will have to be a backing track. I searched the internet for a couple of hours and only turned up one possibility. It was a online order for a backing trax cd that would take too long to come.

Eventually I threw up itunes and found a backing track for indescribable in a couple of minutes. There is several versions of it available in different keys. I was really surprised they would have it! I downloaded it immediately.

That’s the sound aspect of the video sorted now.

::Visual Ideas::

If you know the song, it is quite descriptive of nature around us, and my brother plans to capture this visually.

The first line of the song starts with “From the highest of heights to the depth of the sea…”. He first thought it would be a great idea to drag video equipment, guitars, and our bodies to the top of Slieve Donard for part of the video.

I was a bit worried by this “great” idea, especially since he wanted to be up there at night to capture the stars!! Also, the last time I climbed to the top, it was hard enough without carrying any gear!

I eventually talked him round to shooting some scenes at the Giant’s Causeway instead. There’s high cliffs there, and there’s the sea, and I’m sure we’ll find some stars. Oh, and it’s much more accessible too! Man I think of everything.

Still, I’m still worried about standing on a cliff edge with sea winds blowing in my face, holding my guitar and miming to a song like a complete wally!

(What happened next?)

In our church, the service would be lead by different people from week to week. This often means that the service structure could also be different.

This morning I arrived down early with the band to practice our set. Then just before the service I got a preview of the structure planned. The band was up and down three times…

So, I broke it up into 2 songs, 1 song and 3 songs. Not exactly the way I wanted to it work out.

I think it’s better if worship is done as a full uninterrupted set. This morning I felt people were “getting into it” and we had to “nip it in the bud”.

What do you guys think? What is your preferred structure when leading worship? What is your preferred structure when you are part of the congregation?

Should the worship team have influence over the service structure? Or should we simply work with what we get handed to us?

Overall, the service went well. Made a few blunders, but for the most part they went unnoticed.

Out of the set, I think the following songs worked best:

• What can wash away my sin
• We stand and lift up our hands
• Saviour
• You alone are God

Was just looking through Tim Hughes’ blog and found these two excellent posts:

Taking The Lead - I like the honesty Tim has shown in this post.  I can totally relate to it in that I wouldn’t describe myself as a forceful leader, and can neglect to say things that could help improve our worship time.

Writing Songs - There is some great tips in here relating to writing worship songs.  I’m glad to see someone else mention that some songs can be too sensal. I was at a conference recently and there was some song lines that I just could not sing without grinning like a school boy.

I’ve just finished preparing the song set for tomorrow’s service. We normally have Communion on the first Sunday of every month, so the songs have been selected with that in mind.

1) How deep the Father’s love for us
2) What can wash away my sin
3) We stand and lift up our hands
4) Saviour
5) You alone are God
6) God He reigns

*) Above all powers
*) For all You’ve done
*) The wonderful cross

This is going against my normal pattern of fast songs first…medium speed songs…slow songs. I don’t think I’ve ever played “How deep the Father’s love” in the first half of a set before. It actually flows very well into “What can wash away my sin”.

“We stand and lift up our hands” then flows very nicely into “Saviour”, but we’ll probably break in the middle to let the kids leave for activities.

I’m loving “You alone are God” at the moment and will enjoy playing it tomorrow with the band for the first time. “God He reigns” is an old favourite and hasn’t been played in a while.

The final three songs are what I label as this week’s “emergency” songs… the service is just coming to an end… I think I’ve made it through and just start to relax when I hear, “And the band will now close with a couple of songs….” AGGHHH! Fortunately I’m prepared!

If doing a one-song finish to the service, an upbeat song works best I think, but then it always depends!