It’s been a whirlwind of a week with getting everything ready for services for two weeks, Christmas Eve services, travelling to Minnesota to be with family for Christmas and the festivities of Christmas week! But, I finally have a second to look back and recap our services from Christmas Eve and Sunday, December 26th. I hope you all had a wonderful time celebrating Christ’s birth with your church family and your own family and friends. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

 

Christmas Eve Services

I always enjoy our Christmas Eve services, and this year seems to have gone exceptionally well.  We try to come up with some creative way to present the story each year, and this year we had four of our pastors each give  a little monologue dressed as a different character from the story: Joseph, a shepherd, a wiseman, and Simeon. They all did a great job bringing out the different parts of the story from some unique perspectives. We interspersed music between each story, and ended with our traditional candlelight singing of  “Silent Night”. We started the service with the popular “Social Network Christmas” video that’s been going around. It was one of the most unique and creative presentations of the story I’ve seen in a long time, and very relevant to those visiting. Thanks to everyone on the team who made this such a great service!!

Countdown Video (“What Child is This” by Centerline)

Opening Video (Social Network Christmas)

“Joy To The World (Unspeakable Joy)” (Chris Tomlin)
“Angels We Have Heard on High” (Chris Tomlin version)
– These two songs we used as opening songs of Christmas praise.

“Joseph’s Lullaby” (Brown Bannister and Bart Millard)
– This is an older Mercy Me song, but fit perfectly after Joseph’s monologue, as he sat by the manger holding his (real-life) newborn baby boy.

“Offering (Christmas Version)” (Paul Baloche)
– This is one of my favorite songs to do at Christmas, and we even added the sleigh bells this year, played by one of our middle schoolers.

“Adore Him” (Traditional and Don Poythress)
– Another contemporary arrangement that fit perfectly after our wise man gave his monologue. Beautiful song, especially when we added in the flute part on the solos.

“O Holy Night” (Chris Tomlin’s version)
– We used this song as the candles were being lit across the sanctuary. Chris’s new version seemed to work great as we built up to this big part of our service.

“Silent Night! Holy Night”
– Probably my favorite part of the service – candles lit across the room, and we sing “Silent Night” with no instruments, just the voices. Beautiful!

You can see the Planning Center details and watch this service on our Livestream.

 

Sunday, December 26th

Contemporary Services

I wan’t in church this Sunday, since I’m up here in Minnesota on vacation, so Adam led the team this week.  I was able to watch part of the service, though, on the Livestream, and from what I saw the team did a great job! Thanks to the band – Adam, Dennis, Elias, Zack, Adam and Janet; vocals – Brenda, Georgine and Eric; Tech – Sue, Bruce and Dave for doing such a great job!

“Hark The Herald Angels Sing” (Praise Carols)

“The First Noel” (Praise Carols)

“How Many Kings” (Jason Germain and Marc Martel)
– This is a great song by the group Downhere.  Adam and Zack did a great job on the duet, and the the band rocked – Janet on piano, Elias on drums, Dennis on bass, and Adam on keys.

“Joy To The World (Unspeakable Joy)” (Chris Tomlin)

You can see the Planning Center details for this service. We also used the same songs in our Cafe Connection service this week.

 

Traditional  Service

A big thanks to Janet for leading the team this week while I was gone. It was a small team, with just Janet and Cherry singing and Dee on the piano. But, from watching the Livestream, they sounded great!

“O Come All Ye Faithful”
“We Three Kings”
“It Came Upon the Midnight Clear”
“While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks”
“O Little Town of Bethlehem”
“Good Christian Men, Rejoice”
“The Birthday of a King”
“Go Tell It On The Mountain”

You can see the Planning Center details and the Livestream for this service.

This post is part of the Sunday Setlists blog sharing at The Worship Community, where you can read other recaps from around the country.