Today was the annual Bluegrass Sunday! at Christ Community Church / McMinnville TN.

Located high on the Cumberland Plateau of the Tennessee hills the high lonesome sound of bluegrass resonates authentically here.  Our instrumentation was acoustic guitar, banjo, two fiddles, mandolin, piano and upright bass.

The challenge  is to keep the focus God-centered and not let the novelty be a distraction.

Towards that end the song selection was a mixture of genres played with a bluegrass feel.

Here’s how it played out:

  • Call to Worship:
    • I’ll Fly Away (Old-time Country)
  • Welcome – Pastor Paul Roberts
    • You’re Worthy of My Praise (Throwback Praise song)
    • Lord I Lift Your Name On High (Throwback Praise song)
  • Announcements / Meet & Greet
    • Will the Circle Be Unbroken (additional lyrics by Paul Roberts)
  • Praise & Worship
    • I’ve Got  A River of Life (Old-time Country/Bluegrass) 
    • Our God (Recent Modern Worship song)
    • Revelation Song (Recent Modern Worship song)
  • Message: “Hope” / Communion
  • Prayer of Blessing & Dismissal:
    • There’s Power in The Blood (Revival Era Hymn)
  • We even had a lot of fun at the end with “Awesome God” as outro music.

Unfortunately, my video camera didn’t work, I was gonna show you some excerpts. Bummer. Will post some pics when I get them.

The bridge of “Our God” was very cool. We did it as a breakdown, chopping time and playing the downbeat of the changes. It worked really well as a bluegrass song. I guess you had to be there….

Another highlight was “You’re Worthy of All My Praise (aka I Will Give You All My Worship)” It has a real nice lift in the chorus that combined with banjo and fiddle,  gives the vocals that high lonesome soaring sound.

Afterwards the whole church enjoyed fellowship together with an awesome barbeque lunch.

It just doesn’t get much better than that, except when I’m on a missions trip.

This post is part of the Worship Community Sunday Set list roundup. See what other communities are doing here: http://www.theworshipcommunity.com/sunday-setlists-168/

Question: Does your church ever have an unusual or ‘novelty” approach to worship? What’s it like? We love comments!

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