Loving the Hymns!

On Friday evening Carina and I went to a gospel concert by the Collingsworths - my folks introduced me to the music of this incredible musical family a while back, and took us to see them.  The event was in Kitchener and filled the 1,000-seat church auditorium to standing room only. 

http://www.thecollingsworthfamily.com/

I felt somewhat like a fish out of water, since I'm more in the vein of Paul Baloche, Hillsong United, and Starfield, BUT tonite was a very nice change from my typical experience.

In particular it was striking to be in a room dominated by folks in their 60's, 70's and even 80's - a LARGE group of them - and to hear them SINGING hymns was like being in a REALLY GOOD  time warp!

I have childhood memories of church services full of people singing loudly, passionately and WITH HARMONY the great hymns of the church, as well as the great gospel songs of the early 1900's - an entire body of songs that may go onto the endangered species list as the older generations pass on.  Throughout the concert, (which was fantastic!) we had opportunity to sing as a congregation songs like  "He Lives", and "Wonderful Grace of Jesus" among a host of other great gospel anthems. 

For a guy who leads the under-55 crowd in worship on a weekly basis, it was refreshing and moving to step back in time for an evening and allow myself to be carried along on the worship music that has nourished our grandparents in their faith.  In our contemporary worship setting, we often struggle with getting the mix and balance right, and with engaging people at a heart level so they will sing with abandon.  In our (post)modern complexity we have lost the simple art of congregational singing.  I wonder if we may get to a place where we need to look back and re-trace our steps to what's older, and what may initially seem outdated or irrelevant, but which still has power to resonate if you will let it.

The Collingsworth Family are the real deal - and world class musicians to boot - but their passion and love for Christ shines through every note, and it was a wonderful evening to share with Carina and my Mom and Dad, and a great way to rejoice again in the power of Good Friday.

The Chaos and the Joy of Easter Service Rehearsals

This being Easter week, we are running not just one, but TWO full church services, 3 services on Good Friday and 3 services as usual on Sunday. 

This year I've been able to set up two separate teams to run with each of the days, so that no one is doubled up and therefore completely exhausted at the end of the weekend.  Especially me !!!

So for the first time in my ministry career, I intend to help out in child care with our Lifegroup in one of the Good Friday services, and then to be in the other services with Carina.  I'm looking forward to being in the crowd this year for that service and am very excited about what we have planned.

We are having a choir this Easter Weekend, something of a tradition now, and a chance for us to do something that is not normally a part of our regular worship experience.  There are many reasons for this, but one of the key issues is the technical challenges of miking and mixing the choir along with our usual worship band configuration.  For those of you who are into sound, you know that stage volumes can't exceed the volume coming out of the house speakers, or you get what we affectionately call 'sonic mush'.  With all the mics on stage for the choir, singers, drums, and horns, you have the further issue of all those mics picking up everything else around them which adds to the challenge of isolating each source of sound and each mic.

We rent some extra gear to deal with it, and throughout the rehearsal process I frequently caution the choir that "This may get loud!"   and I also caution the worship team band members that "You may need to play quieter!"  Somehow we  managed to navigate between these last night and practice, although chaotic, was fun, (at least I think so!).  I came home with a bit of a sore throat (yikes!) but also a sense that it's going to be fine, and the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus will be celebrated with great joy this weekend at Creekside!

I am really looking forward to Easter weekend, and love that we have a great team of people working hard together to make it happen! 

Movies Worth Watching

Being a big fan of Gilbert & Sullivan, and having seen the 1994 Stratford production of Pirates of Penzance with Carina (on my 26th birthday!), I decided to sign out the movie version from the library.  I recall this coming out sometime while I was in high school and seeing previews on pay-tv channel ads, but I'd never seen it until tonight with Carina and the girls.

Kayleigh needed some help understanding the plot ("Is he bad?"  "Why is he crying?"  "Who is the old guy?") but we all enjoyed it immensely.  This movie is so well done, the acting, singing, dancing and especially the pratfalls are classic.  Seeing Angela Lansbury brandishing a sword and Kevin Kline doing all sorts of hilarious sight gags not to mention the machine-gun fast singing of songs like "I am the very model of a modern major general" was pure fun, and we were all in stitches again and again.

If you've never seen it, check it out!  Pirates will be on at Stratford again this year - maybe we'll plan to go.