A Year in Review

With the beginning of a new year, I thought it might be nice to look back at this past year (2017) and see a few of the ways that God moved within the Music/Worship Ministry here at MPBC.  

To start the year off, we decided to take a break from the Passion Play to instead focus on recording a worship album.  And in March of 2017 the Worship Ministry released it's 3rd

worship album ("For All You've Done").  It was a collaboration between the Praise Team, the Praise Band, the Children's Choir, and the Worship Choir.  It was a lot of hard work to accomplish, but it was also a lot of fun to put together.  Justin Gourley did a great job of arranging the original songs we wrote and everyone did a wonderful job recording their parts. I still have people tell me every week how much they have enjoyed it and that they listen to it every day.  EVERY DAY!!! Unbelievable!

I think that the next big event for the year was the worship

choir kick-off in August.  After taking the summer off, I wasn't

sure who come back to choir and if we would get any new members.  Boy, was I surprised!  I actually ran out of music packs for those visiting for the 1st time.  The choir room was packed and it was an exciting time as we kicked off the new year!  

I believe that one of the things that made it so powerful was how we changed the way we were doing choir practice.  We had always done choir practice the same way that everyone else does it.  Come together, work on parts, then go home.  Well, we decided to do something different.  While we still worked on learning new music, we also spent more concerted time in prayer and devotion.  We also started going over the worship songs for Sunday with a small acoustic setting (2 acoustic guitars, djembe, piano, and a singer or two).  And it was amazing to see how God would move during these times of preparation and worship.    Check out this post from Justin to see a short video clip of choir practice:  
http://mpbcworship.blogspot.com/2017/08/this-is-choir.html

Another cool thing that we started last year was having the choir do a special at our Worship Wednesday Services.  It had been a couple of years since the choir had done a song by themselves and I believe that people have really enjoyed it.  Here are links to 2 of the songs they have done:

http://mpbcworship.blogspot.com/2017/10/your-mercy.html

http://mpbcworship.blogspot.com/2017/11/ever-be.html

Finally, I believe the event that people will remember the most from 2017 was our 1st ever Christmas Candlelight

Celebration in December.  It was awesome!  We sang Christmas songs, put on a light show, and lit candles.  We even made it snow inside!  But I think the thing that people will remember the most is experiencing the presence of Jesus and being reminded of the true meaning of Christmas.  I'm still hearing from people about how much they enjoyed it and how much it touched their hearts and lives.

So, with 2018 upon us, it's exciting to look forward to all of the ways that God is going to move and use us in this new year.  We'll be doing the Passion Play again in March, the Christmas Candlelight Celebration in December, and as always, doing our best to lead and encourage people to worship and set their hearts on Him each and every week!

Worship Big!

Brad