Well, this is a big week for the family (I’ll be blogging about that later) so I’m just going to put up a short one this week.

Today was our first Sunday with the new sanctuary computer.  I also had the opportunity to train someone new on MediaShout.  Ben did a fantastic job and it’s great to see people latching on to the new technology.  The recordings are working really well and I was able to get the sermon up and on-line within about 15 minutes of the service ending.   It was nice as we’ve already had a few people that missed a few Sundays comment on how nice it is to be able to listen on-line.

Pastor Chuck did a nice job with his message today.  One of the scriptures he talked about was in 2 Cor 5:17 (ESV)

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

I love this passage and the idea of us being a new creation – how we can leave the past behind, that we are washed clean by the blood of the Lamb.

We tried to have an altar call at the end of the sermon – it ended up being a nice time of extended prayer.  While no one came forward I am glad that Pastor Chuck did it.  I am praying that people will be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit during the service and that we stay open to new things as we continue to grow into who it is that God is calling us to be.

We ended the service with a Hymn Sing.  This is where things got fun for me.  I took over the MediaShout for this and was determined to have the words for the songs on the screen for people.  I know they could have used their hymnals, but I wanted to see how easy it would be.  The challenge – we have almost NONE of the hymnal in MediaShout.

So, people called out their hymn choices by number rather than title.  Ben had to quickly flip through the hymnal to give me the title and I had to see if it was in the computer.   If not, I was able to quickly pull it up in SongSelect and import it in and have the words up.   It worked amazingly well!  A true testament to the ease of use and great integration that MediaShout has with the CCLI site.   Most wereThe only hymn that I was unsuccessful with was one called Saranam, Saranam.  I’d never heard of it and neither had anyone else (besides the person that requested it).  We attempted to sing the refrain and that was it.

I’m off next week but there will a LOT Of worshpping going on this week…stay tuned.

You can see other “Sunday Setlists and Recaps over at  FreddmcKinnon.com.