Today was grand.

1. He Reigns (Peter Furler/Stave Taylor): Key of D. CCLI Song #4026635. We introduced this older song last month and it was well received. We do more rocked out version than the radio version of this Newsboys song. All in all, I’d say the simple repetition of the chorus makes this a great song to sing congregationally.
2. Today Is The Day (Lincoln Brewster/Paul Baloche): Key of Bb. CCLI Song #5200924. One of our new favorites. We’ve done it 3 or 4 times. This one is a little tougher to sing congregationally, though we do it anyways, in the key of Bb, the verses and prechorus are pretty low, but since the chorus goes up pretty high you don’t have much choice if you want to invite the congregation to sing along with you during the chorus. So to create that “everyone join in on the chorus” feel, one person sings the verses by themself and then all vocals join in on the chorus.
3. Rhythm (Russ Hutto, Hey that’s me!): Key of Bm/D. We did this a while back as part of a series. It went over very well. It also worked well as a 3rd song in this week’s set, so we tightened up the arrangement and rocked it out. This is a song that I wrote with critique help from The Worship Community songwriting section. Check it out. Here’s a rough version of it recorded at practice Wednesday night [Be warned somebody just snagged it with their mp3 recorder so it's not mixed well, and the drums are killer loud, but it will give you the feel of the song].

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4. God Of This City (Andrew McCann/Boyd Aaron/Ian Jordan/Peter Comfort/Peter Kernaghan/Richard Bleakley): Key of A. CCLI Song #5037070. We rocked this at the end of the service. One of our females led the verses and prechoruses and I came in on the chorus. This is one of those GREAT songs to sing in a church setting, but at the same time has a pretty crazy range, so we split the leading duties between a male and a female. This was the first time we’ve done this at HOJ and it rocked both services. We stuck pretty closely to the Chris Tomlin Hello Love version.

Part of Sunday Setlists at Fred’s hacienda.