Sunday, March 18 Recap

We run two services on Sunday morning at OBC and generally both are identical in content. We sometimes will end up running things a little different – an extra chorus here, longer intro there, etc – but normally things seem to flow pretty much the same during both the 9:00 & 11:00 services.

This was not the case on Sunday morning.

After our first service we thought we needed to add an additional song before Earl came to speak. We had a package of two songs and then had planned to do another closing song (“Hear Our Praises”) at the end of the service. We decided to move that song and join it in with the pre-message packge.

I’m not sure why or how or what even happened but at a point during “Lord I Give You My Heart” I opened my eyes and people everywhere – from the front to the back, as they say – had their hands raised, eyes closed and were genuinely engaged in worship. I had one of those little “oh, this is going to be fun” giggly moments and kept going through the song. The last bit of that chorus is so powerful – “Every breath that I take/Every moment I’m awake/Lord, have Your way in me” – great lyric! so powerful! so scary to sing it and actually mean it!

And then we began slowly in to “Hear Our Praises” and as we went from the verse to the chorus and then back to the top again, the place just erupted. It was incredible. In my time at OBC I have never heard people sing so loud. I backed away from the mic (which I often do – it’s good for people to hear each other singing) and just let the congregation carry the song. We did the chorus at the end a couple of times and all of a sudden the congregation broke out in applause. I got chills. The song was over and I just sort of stood there, a little bit stunned. I wasn’t sure what to say – but that’s fine, cause we had already just said it. We had entered in to the presence of God and had sung and spoken words of praise and honour to Him. And I got to be there to witness it. What a moment!

Sunday, March 18, 2007 – “Generous Living”
2 Corinthians 8&9
Ancient of Days – Jamie Harvill & Gary Sadler
Forever – Chris Tomlin
Doxology & additional chorus – Traditional & Chris Vacher

You’re Worthy Of My Praise – David Ruis
Lord I Give You My Heart – Reuben Morgan
Hear Our Praises – Reuben Morgan