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Started by Your Firelight Heart on 14 November 2008 - 10:30pm
| 14 November 2008 - 10:30pm | |
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It can be very powerful in a song if the worshipper singing it gets a chance to actually do what the song is saying. We wrote a song called "Listen," which went along with a sermon series that our pastor was preaching, and the song (written from Ecc. 5) talks about how we should understand the value of the words of God as compared to us talking all the time in prayer. Sometimes we need to quietly listen to Him. The song is very short lyrically, to punctuate the listening and not talking, and has 1-5 minutes of a repeated chord progression to allow the congregation to listen to God (sort of the same idea as Selah). It helped that my pastor taught on it just before we introduced the song. It also worked well with a sermon we recently did, called Engaging With God in the Scriptures, where we had some people read scripture during the listening time. I love the idea that someone has not sung something they weren't going to do and that, many times, we learn by doing rather than saying so it may spark a transformation in their lives to continue to do it. We can obviously use raising hands, and bowing down, but are there any other creative ideas you might have?? |
Cool concept for a song; really innovative.
I don’t have anything amazingly original to add. It’s a hard thing to figure out (how to inspire participation in musical worship). It is also hard to find appropriate ways to bring something unique and fresh in an effective way.
As a novice songwriter I hope to learn how to write choruses which themselves might be used to inspire. I see how leading musical worship could easily become a full time job. There is so much you could do! Lighting, movie clips between songs, arrangements of classical music juxtaposed under a scripture reading, I’ve always thought it would be cool to have the band facing the front with the congregation for 1 song or 1 set (to make a statement, everyone facing/worshiping Christ), or how about trying to arrange a immense buildup in a song to die down to complete silence coordinated with dimmed lights, then a child comes out and reads a simple but related scripture upon the childs exit the band picks back up full force... But all these things would take time to prepare/orchestrate! Something I’m short on at the moment…
I think we're approaching the question of how can people participate in unconventional non-musical ways? It's common practice for those who can sing or harmonise to join in when they know the song. Some people are really self-conscious and reticent to sing out loud. Personally speaking, I love people who don't have a note in their head who sing at the top of their voices, but that's an aside.
It would be good if our songs had a more "multimedia" approach to involving the congregation - not just in audiovisuals but in allowing different talents and charisms to be used during our worship. Is there room for flags? Does the rhythm encourage people to participate using their own percussion (tambourine territory!) Is there freedom for people to dance? If someone felt inspired to start drawing/painting/stencilling would they be able to create something there and then? How can a group of people interact with each other as opposed to gazing uniformly at a projection screen - why not join hands or start a congo or place a hand on the shoulder in front?
Too often we think merely of a worship team consisting of a drummer, bassist, key, guitars and vocals. That is simply a band line-up to me...I hope our daily worship can stretch beyond the musical trademark and truly encompass EVERYTHING that we do when we "do church".
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John 3.16 --> 1 Jn 3.16 Here is love.