Today our worship arts ministry team met with Rob our executive pastor. He went over some ideas and thoughts on how to help us within our ministry. With two venues and several of our lead volunteers stepping down recently we found ourselves in a bit of a mess. We found ourselves doing more to fill in the gaps. That may be okay for a short time, but it won't work for the long haul. And that's what we are in this for. We are all committed to making worship not only a priority for Mountain, but also making it the best we can.
Anyway, Rob showed us through the use of circles, boxes, arrows, lines of multi colored markers on a white board how we might be able to delegate our responsibilities. (Almost sounded like an old Arlo Guthrie song with all the circles, boxes, arrows, all we were missing were the black and white photo-graphs). Delegate is probably not the right word though. Through mentoring, teaching, modeling, taking someone along side us we can help them become a leader of a section of our ministry. Letting them take over one part of the ministry would also mean that they would 'own' that. Then in turn we would have more time to do the same with other people. not really working our selves out of a job though. Because with more venues and the possibility of other campuses, we will need more people running tech, media, band, vocal, lights, etc. that means more mentoring, more teaching, more modeling, taking more people along side of us.
After that meeting (2 hours) Bob and I had to go to a funeral where Bob was running sound and I was playing keys for a couple of songs during the service. Setting up for choir and going over the vocal music for Sunday and the choir music for tonight's rehearsal, I'm tired and I still have a meeting with the worship leader, band leader, me and Eric to go over this Sunday's music. Then vocal worship rehearsal, and finally choir. Busy night ahead of me.
Little boxes, little boxes, made of ticky tacky...it might have been a cute song by Malvina Reynolds, but using boxes like Rob did is a very important concept for us to implement.
john
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
3 inches of snow and everything stops
You have to understand, Marylanders don't do snow well. I came from Long Island and we have a good snow there (a couple of feet) most winters. Ben our preacher comes from Minnesota and he says unless there's three feet of snow, it's not really snow, it's just flurries.
Anyway we got a snow storm this past Thursday. It started in the early afternoon and by 5:00 there was about 3 good inches on the ground. Big, wet flakes of snow, great for making snowballs!
Thursday is also our worship rehearsal night. Schools let out early and cancelled evening activities. This was also the first night our choir was to be back from their winter break. It was also the Thursday that the choir gets ready to lead worship on Sunday.
Do we cancel everything? Do we cancel choir and have the rest of the musicians still show up?
Bob and I set up the stage, with risers for the choir and mic's, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboard, drums, percussion and the sound cart so everything would be ready for rehearsal.
The choir was leading all the congregational songs but they were not going to sing a special. Most of them took the music a couple of weeks ago, and had been listening and singing all the music. We make a music booklet of all the songs for that Sunday along with a cut sheet to guide them on how the song will be sung.
We first decided to cancel choir practice. The choir had the music, they were learning it on their own, so we thought we could cancel and just have them come at 7:26AM on Sunday morning to rehearse and we would be fine. We were still going to have the band members show up and go over the music. This way the band would know the music, and the choir would sing along. Real easy!
Well, then we decided that we should cancel all of the worship rehearsal including the band members and not have anyone come to the church.
So, NO REHEARSAL on Thursday for anyone.
I have to say, everyone was ready to go on Sunday morning. There were about 40 members, and all the band members ready to sing and play. I have to brag again! We have some great worship team people.
We had only an hour and 20 minutes to go over all the songs, get the tempo right, get the cuts and repeats right, get the words right. I was a bit nervous, but God was there all the time. As I look back now, I knew I was nervous, but not as much as I would have been in the past. I finally was relying more on the worship team (band and choir) knowing the music and letting the Holy Spirit work, and not so worried about how was I going to pull it all together.
God was there. It was a great service. The theme was on Koinonia and it really happened. We all banded together to lift our praises to the Lord.
I really can't wait for next week now. The theme is Proskuneo, Worship!!
John
Anyway we got a snow storm this past Thursday. It started in the early afternoon and by 5:00 there was about 3 good inches on the ground. Big, wet flakes of snow, great for making snowballs!
Thursday is also our worship rehearsal night. Schools let out early and cancelled evening activities. This was also the first night our choir was to be back from their winter break. It was also the Thursday that the choir gets ready to lead worship on Sunday.
Do we cancel everything? Do we cancel choir and have the rest of the musicians still show up?
Bob and I set up the stage, with risers for the choir and mic's, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboard, drums, percussion and the sound cart so everything would be ready for rehearsal.
The choir was leading all the congregational songs but they were not going to sing a special. Most of them took the music a couple of weeks ago, and had been listening and singing all the music. We make a music booklet of all the songs for that Sunday along with a cut sheet to guide them on how the song will be sung.
We first decided to cancel choir practice. The choir had the music, they were learning it on their own, so we thought we could cancel and just have them come at 7:26AM on Sunday morning to rehearse and we would be fine. We were still going to have the band members show up and go over the music. This way the band would know the music, and the choir would sing along. Real easy!
Well, then we decided that we should cancel all of the worship rehearsal including the band members and not have anyone come to the church.
So, NO REHEARSAL on Thursday for anyone.
I have to say, everyone was ready to go on Sunday morning. There were about 40 members, and all the band members ready to sing and play. I have to brag again! We have some great worship team people.
We had only an hour and 20 minutes to go over all the songs, get the tempo right, get the cuts and repeats right, get the words right. I was a bit nervous, but God was there all the time. As I look back now, I knew I was nervous, but not as much as I would have been in the past. I finally was relying more on the worship team (band and choir) knowing the music and letting the Holy Spirit work, and not so worried about how was I going to pull it all together.
God was there. It was a great service. The theme was on Koinonia and it really happened. We all banded together to lift our praises to the Lord.
I really can't wait for next week now. The theme is Proskuneo, Worship!!
John
Thursday, December 20, 2007
60th B-day
I know I haven’t mentioned this before, but this past Saturday I turned 60. A pretty big number. Pam surprised me with a party and a lot of people showed up. I guess they wanted to see if I was going to fall apart and keel over since I hit the big 60.
Funny, I don’t feel 60. If you’re close to my age think back for a second. Do you remember when your grandparents hit 60? They were old. Maybe it was because we were so old. But when I look at pictures of them, they looked old because they dressed old. I’m certainly not going to go around in a tee shirt and low cut jeans. Wow, there’s a site I really don’t want anyone to see. And I’m not wanting Pam to go around in a mini skirt and bear midriff. But the way we dress helps us feels either old or young. Dress age appropriate I guess would be the right way to say it.
Any way, here are some pic’s of the party. The food was very good food, but very good friends made the difference.
Funny, I don’t feel 60. If you’re close to my age think back for a second. Do you remember when your grandparents hit 60? They were old. Maybe it was because we were so old. But when I look at pictures of them, they looked old because they dressed old. I’m certainly not going to go around in a tee shirt and low cut jeans. Wow, there’s a site I really don’t want anyone to see. And I’m not wanting Pam to go around in a mini skirt and bear midriff. But the way we dress helps us feels either old or young. Dress age appropriate I guess would be the right way to say it.
Any way, here are some pic’s of the party. The food was very good food, but very good friends made the difference.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Okay, I was wrong
The choir lead worship yesterday. I also picked several people to sing with me on mic’s. Kristie, soprano, Christine, alto, and Don, tenor. At Thursday’s rehearsal Don was coming down with something and couldn’t sing, but was there for our rehearsal thinking that he would be better by Sunday morning. Pat our lead guitar didn’t make it. He had called me last week and said that he couldn’t make it, but did have the music and was practicing and I said that would be fine, “See you Sunday morning”. Of course I completely forgot that and wondered for most of the rehearsal where Pat was. I gave him a call and he called back explaining all that I had forgotten which I promptly remembered.
That wouldn’t be too bad except for the fact that I also had about 50 voices in the choir on risers waiting to sing all the congregational songs AND the Hallelujah Chorus. Yes, this was the Sunday that we traditionally sing the Hallelujah Chorus. And it’s not just the choir that sings, it, we also invite others from our congregation to sing with us (as long as they have sung it before). They can come to any of three rehearsals we have to practice with us, and then on Sunday morning come up and sing with us.
So let me recap Thursday night; Don’s sick, no guitar player and a lot of new people ready to sing, and I’m the leader of this group.
With no orchestra this year to back the Hallelujah Chorus up we had one piano and a synthesizer playing a string reduction part. It still sounded pretty full. But I did missed the low brass and the piccolo trumpet a lot though.
Sunday morning:
Pat’s there ready to play (yeah Pat), all the other instrumentalists show up, the choir is there, Kristie, Christine and …. and …. Don is not there. He’s still sick, and no Don means no tenor part. I get me, Kristie, Christine together and work out some parts for one of the songs and it sounds pretty good. For the other songs we will just go with melody and alto where there is an alto part.
How do I say this next part…. Let me see… bottom line, not everyone was prepared. We had a lot of people on stage which up’s the ratio of the probability of someone not being ready. During one song the modulation didn’t happen correctly. One song didn’t start correctly. In the Hallelujah Chorus we had an instrument drop out for a couple of measures. Only two instead of three parts, and that’s not Don’s fault. But I’m sure every worship leader can identify with this, that, this was not what we had in mind when we planned the service. In fact that was not in anyone’s mind. We all wanted to do our best. I truly love all our musicians, instrumental and vocal.
We want only the best for our Lord. What ever we do we want it to be the best we can. Excellence? Can you expect excellence when you have volunteer musicians who only have the music for one to two weeks, before time, practice with everyone (well almost everyone) once for about 3 hours? Excellence, probably not, but we want the best that can be done from everyone participating. I really do believe almost everyone in our worship arts ministry understands what it means to be a worship leader. And everyone in our ministry knows that they are all worship leaders.
So what do we do? You love, you talk to them, you encourage them. And you put this behind you. However, I think I might remember this for the future, to make sure that this happens less often.
This blog was going to be about me. No really, it was going to be about everything I had to do on Sunday. It was going to be about all the people I had to make sure were in the right spot at the right time. I was going to talk about how I had to make sure that while all this going on around me I still had to lead worship. I had to lead the musicians, lead the vocal team, lead the choir, lead the congregation, lead everyone…. Wow, was I ever wrong about that!
Sure we knew what mistake we made but God is still in control and hearts were touched by the Holy Spirit. He was there.
Thank you for being a forgiving and a merciful God.
That wouldn’t be too bad except for the fact that I also had about 50 voices in the choir on risers waiting to sing all the congregational songs AND the Hallelujah Chorus. Yes, this was the Sunday that we traditionally sing the Hallelujah Chorus. And it’s not just the choir that sings, it, we also invite others from our congregation to sing with us (as long as they have sung it before). They can come to any of three rehearsals we have to practice with us, and then on Sunday morning come up and sing with us.
So let me recap Thursday night; Don’s sick, no guitar player and a lot of new people ready to sing, and I’m the leader of this group.
With no orchestra this year to back the Hallelujah Chorus up we had one piano and a synthesizer playing a string reduction part. It still sounded pretty full. But I did missed the low brass and the piccolo trumpet a lot though.
Sunday morning:
Pat’s there ready to play (yeah Pat), all the other instrumentalists show up, the choir is there, Kristie, Christine and …. and …. Don is not there. He’s still sick, and no Don means no tenor part. I get me, Kristie, Christine together and work out some parts for one of the songs and it sounds pretty good. For the other songs we will just go with melody and alto where there is an alto part.
How do I say this next part…. Let me see… bottom line, not everyone was prepared. We had a lot of people on stage which up’s the ratio of the probability of someone not being ready. During one song the modulation didn’t happen correctly. One song didn’t start correctly. In the Hallelujah Chorus we had an instrument drop out for a couple of measures. Only two instead of three parts, and that’s not Don’s fault. But I’m sure every worship leader can identify with this, that, this was not what we had in mind when we planned the service. In fact that was not in anyone’s mind. We all wanted to do our best. I truly love all our musicians, instrumental and vocal.
We want only the best for our Lord. What ever we do we want it to be the best we can. Excellence? Can you expect excellence when you have volunteer musicians who only have the music for one to two weeks, before time, practice with everyone (well almost everyone) once for about 3 hours? Excellence, probably not, but we want the best that can be done from everyone participating. I really do believe almost everyone in our worship arts ministry understands what it means to be a worship leader. And everyone in our ministry knows that they are all worship leaders.
So what do we do? You love, you talk to them, you encourage them. And you put this behind you. However, I think I might remember this for the future, to make sure that this happens less often.
This blog was going to be about me. No really, it was going to be about everything I had to do on Sunday. It was going to be about all the people I had to make sure were in the right spot at the right time. I was going to talk about how I had to make sure that while all this going on around me I still had to lead worship. I had to lead the musicians, lead the vocal team, lead the choir, lead the congregation, lead everyone…. Wow, was I ever wrong about that!
Sure we knew what mistake we made but God is still in control and hearts were touched by the Holy Spirit. He was there.
Thank you for being a forgiving and a merciful God.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Ukrainian class
Finally I have up loaded the video (with a lot of help my Dan and Kristie Kenny!!! Thanks guys, I owe you big time.) that I have been wanting to put on this blog for months now.
Anyway, there are several things that you need to know about this video.
I'm from Mountain Christian Church.
The Kherson Christian Church.
The song, Change My Heart. I talked about the composer and this song in my class.
My heritage is Italian.
If you don't know me, I'm not really that tall (5'3").
We had a discussion about the use of banners in the church.
We talked about using 'greenery' to set the stage or the platform area.
I would say a sentence with 4 words in it, and my interpreter would then translate something that sounded like a novel. At least it took that long to translate what I said. By the way Yuri was an excellent interpreter/translator!
We talked about using video as a way of communicating announcements, sermon illustrations, drawing attention to a particular item or thought or idea. Using video as an attention getter.
The couple at the piano were from Uzbekistan. They traveled all the way to Kherson, Ukraine to take the class.
The students were just fantastic!!
Well, have fun watching it.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Presentational - Participational part 2
Thanks for sticking with me until I got this posting up.
Josh, I hear you man. I understand what you're saying about the cheerleader stuff. But here's another angle on that. Thinking that you have to be a cheerleader when you're leading worship is wrong. Thinking that you have to get the people all hyped up is not what worship is all about. There's nothing wrong with being energetic and celebrative in worship. In fact some churches could probably use a little more of both of those. Light a little fire underneath them I say. But to say that worship is happening just because those two emotions may be there isn't true either. Or that worship happened just because they were present is also wrong. The 'cheerleader' approach is definitely the wrong approach.
And I do like your, "Not being paid to be a Worship Leader doesn't stop me from being a Lead Worshiper." So true. You should look up Greg Allen's story. The really short version: While he was the worship leader at South East Christian Church he ran into some really bad vocal problems. He couldn't lead worship - He couldn't even talk for close to a year, yet he was still a Lead Worshipper. And I don't mean just getting paid as their worship leader, I mean he was still leading worship, as a Lead Worshipper even though he couldn't talk or sing.
Great question at the end of your comment. Yeah, what would happen if we practiced so much that we were able to give up the concentrating on playing all the right notes or singing all the right words and just solely focused on our personal participation as we lead worship?! We probably would have the best worship that we have ever had! Maybe even a II Chronicles 5: 11-15 experience would happen. I'm no theologian and I'm sure you won't read this in any commentaries, but here's my take on that passage, especially verse 15. God was so pleased that yes, He came down and filled the temple. But my take on this is that He was so pleased with the worship and all that the people did for and in the Temple that He actually worshipped with them. The Creator worshipping with the created. Now don't take this really far past just these few words, because how could God who is the only one deserving of our worship actually worship Himself?
I'm sure I'll get some feed back on that last thought. But that's my take on it. At least it's not a matter of salvation!
Ethan, Yes, I would certainly recommend Ken's book "Created To Worship" College Press, to anyone who is looking to help themselves improve of being a lead worshipper. It's a good book for anyone who is either a volunteer, part time or even full time worship leader. And I really like chapter 2. There are some valuable questions that need to be answered by the leaders of a church to help them move beyond where they are now and into a more focused idea of what worship should look like for them. And no I'm not getting kick-back for pushing the book. :)
My take on Anthropocentric in the context of worship would be anything that helps people grow closer to God. That could be worship that is directed towards God, and even more so, worship that helps them become a closer community or even help them understand that worship needs to happen outside of the building, in the community around them. I guess it would be anything that would help them be God to the people around them. So I guess that could be either presentational or participational.
My take on Theocentric in the context of worship would be anything that helps the worshipper direct his worship to God. Again that could be either presentational or participational. but with this one I would hesitate to say that presentational alone can get your there. If that's all that is there it probably has become entertainment and that probably won't bring people into the presence of God.
With that said, I know that there are some Arts out there, that as presentational events someone might feel that they are closer to God. We are coming into the season where the Messiah an oratorio by George Fredric Handel will be sung a lot. And the last piece of these Christmas concerts is usually the choral piece The Hallelujah Chorus. (Which by the way is really the end of the Easter section, not the Christmas section). I'm sure there will be people out there that after hearing it sung will have what they would call a God experience. However, I would ask them what have they gained, what have they learned, what have they discovered in this work, that has brought them closer to God? And not for just this experience, but also how will it help them continue to walk closer to the Lord. Obviously I can't speak for them, nor can I say that none of those things might not happen to them. But being in community, reading of Scripture, the prayers of the faithful, singing the hymns of the saints of the past and the new spiritual songs of the contemporary psalmist will have a better chance of doing that. And yes again these can be both presentational and participational.
I think I said this in my first post about this, but I do believe that a little of both is needed in our corporate worship experience. But we need to vigilant about making sure that God is worshipped, and that we as worshippers grow and experience God in a new way, both in corporate worship and in our private worship.
John
Josh, I hear you man. I understand what you're saying about the cheerleader stuff. But here's another angle on that. Thinking that you have to be a cheerleader when you're leading worship is wrong. Thinking that you have to get the people all hyped up is not what worship is all about. There's nothing wrong with being energetic and celebrative in worship. In fact some churches could probably use a little more of both of those. Light a little fire underneath them I say. But to say that worship is happening just because those two emotions may be there isn't true either. Or that worship happened just because they were present is also wrong. The 'cheerleader' approach is definitely the wrong approach.
And I do like your, "Not being paid to be a Worship Leader doesn't stop me from being a Lead Worshiper." So true. You should look up Greg Allen's story. The really short version: While he was the worship leader at South East Christian Church he ran into some really bad vocal problems. He couldn't lead worship - He couldn't even talk for close to a year, yet he was still a Lead Worshipper. And I don't mean just getting paid as their worship leader, I mean he was still leading worship, as a Lead Worshipper even though he couldn't talk or sing.
Great question at the end of your comment. Yeah, what would happen if we practiced so much that we were able to give up the concentrating on playing all the right notes or singing all the right words and just solely focused on our personal participation as we lead worship?! We probably would have the best worship that we have ever had! Maybe even a II Chronicles 5: 11-15 experience would happen. I'm no theologian and I'm sure you won't read this in any commentaries, but here's my take on that passage, especially verse 15. God was so pleased that yes, He came down and filled the temple. But my take on this is that He was so pleased with the worship and all that the people did for and in the Temple that He actually worshipped with them. The Creator worshipping with the created. Now don't take this really far past just these few words, because how could God who is the only one deserving of our worship actually worship Himself?
I'm sure I'll get some feed back on that last thought. But that's my take on it. At least it's not a matter of salvation!
Ethan, Yes, I would certainly recommend Ken's book "Created To Worship" College Press, to anyone who is looking to help themselves improve of being a lead worshipper. It's a good book for anyone who is either a volunteer, part time or even full time worship leader. And I really like chapter 2. There are some valuable questions that need to be answered by the leaders of a church to help them move beyond where they are now and into a more focused idea of what worship should look like for them. And no I'm not getting kick-back for pushing the book. :)
My take on Anthropocentric in the context of worship would be anything that helps people grow closer to God. That could be worship that is directed towards God, and even more so, worship that helps them become a closer community or even help them understand that worship needs to happen outside of the building, in the community around them. I guess it would be anything that would help them be God to the people around them. So I guess that could be either presentational or participational.
My take on Theocentric in the context of worship would be anything that helps the worshipper direct his worship to God. Again that could be either presentational or participational. but with this one I would hesitate to say that presentational alone can get your there. If that's all that is there it probably has become entertainment and that probably won't bring people into the presence of God.
With that said, I know that there are some Arts out there, that as presentational events someone might feel that they are closer to God. We are coming into the season where the Messiah an oratorio by George Fredric Handel will be sung a lot. And the last piece of these Christmas concerts is usually the choral piece The Hallelujah Chorus. (Which by the way is really the end of the Easter section, not the Christmas section). I'm sure there will be people out there that after hearing it sung will have what they would call a God experience. However, I would ask them what have they gained, what have they learned, what have they discovered in this work, that has brought them closer to God? And not for just this experience, but also how will it help them continue to walk closer to the Lord. Obviously I can't speak for them, nor can I say that none of those things might not happen to them. But being in community, reading of Scripture, the prayers of the faithful, singing the hymns of the saints of the past and the new spiritual songs of the contemporary psalmist will have a better chance of doing that. And yes again these can be both presentational and participational.
I think I said this in my first post about this, but I do believe that a little of both is needed in our corporate worship experience. But we need to vigilant about making sure that God is worshipped, and that we as worshippers grow and experience God in a new way, both in corporate worship and in our private worship.
John
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Deleted posting
I have to apologize. Josh, I had a response to your comment, and you too, Ethan. I was writing it in Word and then Iwas going to send it off in this posting. I saved it to my desk top. I just cleaned my desk top of all items that were not short-cuts to programs. It's gone.
I will be going back and rereading your comments and then send a new posting out.
I wanted to get this out to you both.
John
I will be going back and rereading your comments and then send a new posting out.
I wanted to get this out to you both.
John
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