Sunday Mornings and The Songs We Sing...
At New City Church, every Sunday morning we have the opportunity to rehearse and remember the gospel, God redeeming us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. As you may have noticed, Sunday mornings look a bit different. There’s more talking in between songs than what you’re probably used to. That is on purpose! From the start of our service to the ending benediction of, “You are sent,” we actively sing, read, and listen through the story of the gospel. Take a few minutes to read through this introduction to a blog post series that Keith Watson and I wrote when I first came on board at New City Church!!
**I’ll be reposting the subsequent blog posts in the following weeks.
“The Songs We Sing…”
[This is post 1 in a series of blogs about what we do on Sunday mornings at New City Church, Macon written by Keith Watson and Arthur Lin.]
Why does Arthur talk between songs?
What is this “confession” time?
Why don’t we do more ______________ (fill in the blank with your favorite band) songs?
If you’ve been around New City, Macon for very long, you have noticed changes to our music. To be fair, it isn’t just to our music but to the entire service. While the changes may seem “new” to you, they are changes that we have talked about for a couple of years. They are changes that we hope, will help us better communicate the gospel each week.
For a little over an hour each week, New City Church gathers for worship. We gather as a church to encourage one another and to be encouraged. We gather with one another to express our worship of God. We also gather as believers to be reminded of the gospel and how the life, death and resurrection of Jesus changes everything for us. Mixed into our church gathering are those who don’t yet know or believe the good news of Jesus. This gives us an excellent opportunity to introduce them to Jesus and help them see how good the good news really is! Each week, our time together is intentionally planned out to accomplish all of that – encourage those present, express our love and thankfulness to God and help followers of Jesus and not yet followers of Jesus see how amazing the good news is and how it transforms our lives.
To accomplish all of that we have chosen to build our service around the telling and re-telling of God’s great story – the story of creation, fall, redemption and restoration. Our liturgy (the things that we do, say, sing and preach) is put together each week to carefully proclaim the gospel from start to finish. Each song is chosen to help convey a crucial element of the gospel while what is said between songs helps to guide our hearts and minds through the gospel story. For those who have been with us for a while and are familiar with the story, pay particular attention this week to the words and songs. I think you will clearly hear the telling of God’s story!