This week the worship team led all of our services in a celebration of Christmas. It is a great privilege and responsibility to lead the entire service. If we are given the privilege to share then we must take the opportunity very seriously. For our team that means we don't just include songs we love and are standards of the season, but songs that are Christ-centered and re-tell the whole story of God. This is especially significant during this time of year. Sure guests are coming to hear the songs of the season, but many of those only tell part of the story of God and His pursuit of us. We did include plenty of traditional Christmas song, but as worship leaders we have a responsibility to share the Gospel...the whole story of God.

Since we have the whole service we are careful to make sure it is filled with God's word, including the text of the songs and direct readings from the Bible. (There is nothing stronger that we can add to a worship service than a reading of His words.)

Our plan this year was to create an outline around what we call God story words:

He was
He came
He gave
He lives
We receive
We live
We go
He is

Here is the outline of our service.

Opening Medley Christmas Praise (this was used to get the congregation involved from the start in the service.)

He Was - from the beginning the Trinity Genesis 1:1-2,31 I Kings 8:23 Colossians 1:15-18 Holy Is the Lord (a traditional choral piece, even our modern congregation loves) John 1:1-5

He Came O Little Town of Bethlehem traditional with congregation Isaiah 9:6-7, 11:1-2 And His Name He Came Luke 2:1-14 Silent Night traditional with congregation

He Is/He Gave Here With Us Ephesians 1:3-8 Spoken (here I had the opportunity to explain more of God's pursuit of us. In a post last week I give the outline.) Jesus Messiah we used a praisecharts.com arrangement Hallelujah What A Savior here we used an arrangement based on the Ascend the Hill version

We Receive/We Live Spoken Invitation Here With Us (reprise)

We Go Have You Seen That Child Dismissal

*this vocal team for this service was our worship choir, so the links for most of the songs are to Pine Lake Music where you can find samples of all of the arrangements.

**this post is my participation in the blog carnival Sunday Setlists which can be found at The Worship Community.