The worship team had met to rehearse and chat about how best to lead and support the congregation in the worship service, see previous blog here.
As would musical preparation in many churches on Sunday, we met an hour before the service to run through the songs. An exercise to “warm up” and “tune” ourselves to the theme of the service. This is much easier to do since our worship leader is also sharing the message – various traditions have this as homily, sermon or simply message. More about this later.
The worship team seeks to prepare congregation for worship and this includes where possible provide clear melody for people to sing, as well as harmony and rhythm. Sometimes it is these basic things to provide for, before anyone can sing. As simple as that. But the “feeling” or “atmosphere” of worship is something really difficult to grasp, let alone control. And it’s really not something you want to articulate by way of instructions – you can’t say I want you to sing this in a solemn way, because each person will have a different ‘feel’ to a worship item.
While the worship team might be able to detect the different “feelings” from individuals in the congregation, what the team can then do to steer the congregation towards the ‘feeling’ in the hymn / song is quite a different matter, and it’s also a question whether you should do anything about it. The key word there is “should”.
Following opening address, our first hymn was “I, the Lord of Sea and Sky”. However you take the emotional orientation of this song, it should be in the spectrum of “definiteness”. Worshippers might have feelings of uncertainty, or they feel they are lacking in faith, but the spirt of this song is that if God calls you and is sending you for his work, your response ought to be “Here I am”.
Musically, the feeling of the melody can be taken two ways (and any points in between) – if you sing it individually, it can be quiet and a bit like ‘searching’ for the faith that moves you to say “Here I am”. If you are singing in a large congregation, well, if the spirit is such that majority of the people are in a spirit of ‘searching’, more waiting on God for the call, rather than more on the response of “Here I am”, then you will find the congregation singing in a much more meditative way than vibrant. That is, that might sing it asking themselves individually but also aware of others around them perhaps asking the same question, whether God is calling them, and for what God is calling them.
However, the song can also be rendered in the other way – much more vibrant, determined, because God has called. Or that there is a vehement certainty that it’s more important that we will say “Here I am” now, and that what God calls us to do is not a ‘condition’ upon which my readiness to say “Here I am” rests.
What happened? At the service, the congregation sang in one voice. From the first “I”, there’s a vehement determination. And the music team felt that sung collective surety from the congregation, about 3 metres away, in the same way sometimes you feel the reverberation from the bass drum, or instrumental monitors (“floor speakers”). It’s not just loud volume, it’s the sense of oneness. God has prepared his people. We sang the same hymn the week before, and that was very much a sound of ‘pots’ of sincere searching – It didn’t feel like we sang in one voice even in a quiet way, but that in different groups or even individually we were sincerely asking what’s the nature of God calling us, individually and collectively.
It’s a great sense of relief that the music team could lead the singing from the start in the manner that we thought the song should go.
It creates more room for the musicians for playing musical interests and embellishment to enrich the feeling of singing, supporting the voices lowering and rising in feeling through the song.
“What can music team do?” God has done his work. The music team did what it sought to do, to set the intended atmosphere and feeling of this hymn that the team thought should be, and this confirmed by God. There isn’t much else the music team can or should do. But as above, we have much more room for embellishment to cultivate more musical interest to enhance the singing. God has prepared his people.
For those interested in other hymns / songs we in the service plan, these were:
- “Christ is My Reward (No turning back)”
- “Will You Come and Follow Me”
- “Only by Grace”
- “Be Thou My Vision”
Regarding the sermon, this was based on the baptism of Jesus, and focused on God calling us for his purpose. Having encouraged the congregation on how God calls us, the preacher said: “Hey listen!”, and the phone rang. The congregation got the point, God’s calling for us can be as clear as a phone ring. There is a time and place, there is a specific thing for which the call is for. The call is for you. Leaving it, it will ring for some time. It might call again. Picking it up, it might be a call towards something that you can do. It might be something that’s really challenging, but it will be something that God will prepare you for. It might take a week to prepare you (singing “I, the Lord of Sea and Sky” first in a searching way, and then a week later, in a clear sure way), might take longer and God will journey with you to reflect and prepare. There’s far more greatness that you respond positively to God’s calling. Have a look at your phone. If God rings, you can pick it up and answer. If yours is a mobile phone, it might show choices “Accept” and “Reject” (and something like “Send short text” to stop the ringing). It’s not a call from an unreasonable and uncaring boss. In the same way the music team experienced, he equipped us to do his work. Recall earlier – “there is a vehement certainty that it’s more important that we will say “Here I am” now, and that what God calls us to do is not a ‘condition’ upon which my readiness to say “Here I am” rests.”
Getting the phone to ring in the service was quite a task. The PA manager agreed in principle, and then arranged for a few sound files to test prior to the worship time. And the plan was for the projection manager to execute the selected sound file. The PA manager asked if there could be clarity on when the sound would be executed, this was satisfied with a copy of the sermon. With the appropriate places highlighted, we were all ready. The phone ringer waited some 7 minutes to call. It was executed in the most excellent way over the amplification, accompanied by an animated ringing phone on the projector screen. The most animated stunt took quite an amount of preparation. But the congregation got the message.
God’s calling for you could be the phone ringer. Press that at that particular time. Leave the rest to God.
