Sunday Set List: Palm Sunday

Need a little inspiration for your Sunday Songs? Here's our list... feel free to share yours!

Opening Song: My Redeemer Lives (Hillsong) [Key of D]

This is an oldie for some, but it is a new song for us, and our style is a little bit folksy pop. So we are playing this on the 'cool' side, rather than driving. It's fun, uplifting, and pretty simple: Verse, chorus, verse, chorus chorus, bridge chorus, chorus.

Prayer, with keyboard pads in the background.

Revelation Song (Jennie Lee Riddle) [Key of D]

This song is a personal fav of mind because of the reference to heavenly worship and Revelation. This song needs movement, so we start soft, singing gently with awe and wonder, building into the chorus, and quiet again on the verses. Sometimes, we end with the last chorus fairly slow and soft, but this time we are continue to build, then letting the last chord linger.

Crown Him with Many Crowns (Bridges and Elvey) [Key of D]

This song originally had a plethora of verses - we sing just 4! No introduction, just starting right in on the verse, in unison, quietly with only keyboard accompanying and a bit rubato.
Instruments in on the 2nd verse and building to the end.

Because it's Palm Sunday, we are adding in a little bit of old tradition with Hosanna, Loud Hosanna after the children's message, accompanied by keyboard and little light perc, as well. All Glory Laud and Honor to close the service out, followed by God Be With You Till We Meet Again as sung by the worship team after the benediction.

What's cooking at your Easter worship service?

Easter Sunday will be here before you know it - what do you have cooking up for your Easter worship service(s)? Have your plans been simmering on the back burner for awhile or will you pop them in the microwave at the last second? Or will you just pull something out of the back freezer and defrost a few days before?

Whatever you planning style might be, let me ask you this question that I have wrestled with for awhile. Do you change worship styles for special Sundays like Easter? If your church has always used a traditional style of music or if it has always used a contemporary style, this may not even be a question for you. But if your church is in the process of transitioning from traditional to more modern, or if it uses a more blended style of music, do you change it for Easter?

I have been a part of churches that have been more contemporary in style on a regular basis, yet when it comes to Easter, they would throw open the organ and pull out all the stops, so to speak. They believed that people prefer to have a more traditional sound on special Sundays, especially those people that only visit on Christmas and Easter. I understand the point of that, of celebrating tradition  with something however, isn't it better, on a Sunday where a church is more likely to get visitors, to faithfully represent the normal identity of the church? Wouldn't a visitor be confused if they heard one thing on Easter, only to come back later and hear something completely and totally different? Or am I over analyzing a special way to celebrate a glorious Sunday?

That being said, how do we make special Sundays special while still being true to who we are as a church body? Are you enlisting the help of special music, a special choir, your best musicians, special songs? What's your plan, and just as importantly, why? Are you maintaining a musical status quo or are you proverbially pulling out all of the stops?