The COS Guitarchestra led worship on Sunday. It was a fairly typical service in many ways, but one of those that added up to more than a sum of its parts. I thought I’d post some substantial musical/liturgical portions of the service recording to give you a sense of how we roll:
Come Thou Fount, Confession, What the Lord Has Done in Me
The members of Gstra are nothing if not pop music connoisseurs. Starting a service with the opening chords of a famous pop song (name that riff!) and then going straight into “Come Thou Fount” counts as high humor for music geeks like us. More importantly, this clip gives an idea of the interweaving of music and liturgy in a COS service, and shows that “liturgical” doesn’t mean “musty.” Liturgical worship can use any musical style that works for congregation.
There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy
We’re singing various versions of “There’s a Wideness” throughout at Lent. This is one I wrote.
Just because you have a massive assembly of folk guitars doesn’t mean that you can’t do global music! This is just a short offertory song written by my friend, Jorge Lockward, but when you add the accordion and harmonies, it’s chock full of Latin goodness.
Communion: Come Ye Sinners, God Be Merciful, There Is a Fountain
Gstra does “Come, Ye Sinners” like the call-and-response come-to-Jesus revival song that it was meant to be when it premiered on the American frontier. And we keep the line “In the arms of my dear Savior, O, there are ten thousand charms” because, well, because that’s how we roll. Next is one of the most loved “retuned” hymns, “God Be Merciful to Me,” a setting of Psalm 51. I chose this for its connection to the sermon on adultery/lust from the Sermon on the Mount preaching series. We ended with “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood.” We were supposed to segue right into “Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed,” which led to quips that we should name the service “Sunday, Bloody Sunday,” but communion had already ended. I understand that blood images can come across more as gruesome than redemptive, but I also don’t want us to forget the centrality of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, especially during Lent.
This wasn’t part of Sunday’s service–it premiered on Ash Wednesday–but I thought I’d include it because composer Chad Engbers is a member of the Guitarchestra. COS has a long tradition of in-house songwriters, and this song is a beautiful addition to that tradition.
And finally, a “Coffee with Jesus” comic that I doctored and pasted into Sunday’s leader’s roadmap for the amusement of Guitarchestra members.
Liturgy, a potpourri of music styles, come-to-Jesus songs, world premieres, and comic strips. That, my friends, is how we roll.