Mark Hilbelink

Hey Steve...

Sorry, I didn't see you'd replied to this thread. I was mostly just talking semantics of the word choice, but I think this is a great conversation.

I see a real interesting chicken-and-egg question here. Does a passion for local mission bloom into a passion for overseas missions in our people? I'm fairly certain, at least historically, that that was not the case. Or, put more directly, if you had a metaphorical gun to your head, and could only choose community impact or global missions financing for your congregation, which would you pick?

In our increasingly-congregational denomination, I think that paradigm is shifting.....but I'm not sure people really know what that means yet! I just finished a message series on missional living only to get asked 100 times, "I want to impact my community, but what does that look like?" I think we can resource THAT by showing examples of ongoing community impact ministries (like churches/small groups that do monthly service projects, etc.). I found it telling (about the CRC) that you didn't list viewing local missions as an alternative to global missions as an option above, but I think we may see that reality within my lifetime as this thing swings.

Joyce....

First of all, thank you for your willingness to engage us on this topic. Honestly, I think that's the first step towards "tapping in". I perceive a fairly big chasm and maybe even some animosity between the CICW/Faith Alive and modern worship practictioners in the CRC/RCA which will not be solved over night, but we need to bridge that gap for the sake of this denomination's future. We need to have an active discussion and pull people in who have actually run a modern worship program or a transitioning program in churches. If we're going to have a worship-resourcing organization for the denomination, it either needs to be a catalyst for ALL or actively encourage the creation of a second entity that actually resources transitioning and transitioned congregations. To that end, please see my compliment on your article this morning.

In regards to the "Contemporary Songs for Worship" book, I echo some of what Allen said. For what its worth, I have a few issues with it, all of which lead to larger, more philosophical conversations we can have another time:

1. There's lots of issues with the production of a hymnal in 2010 in general, but I think the biggest one is that most modern worship songs are just not compatible with a hymnal book publication. Besides their length, they're not written for piano (after around 1995) and are much more useful if you can transpose them for differently-keyed instruments, a common-keyed set or capo-ing.

2. I'm worried that this book actually does more to hurt the development of worship teams at churches who are transitioning because it makes the songs LOOK like all the other songs, which, at a very practical level, makes churches think they should PLAY them the same way. Let me repeat: MOST songs written after 1995 were written for guitar & rhythm, not piano. If we don't show churches that difference blatantly, we're just fueling the war at their churches. (See my blog on Piano as the Golden Calf: http://bit.ly/aq48PX)

3. I'm also very concerned about the selection of the songs that were included. I'm assuming a stated rationale would be "finding worship songs that jive with Reformed teachings". Unfortunately, this book discredits itself by using so many songs/verses/adaptations from CICW-affiliated people. For those of us who know who is "in" and "out" in CRC worship resourcing, its obvious WHO put this book together....and that doesn't win it many points in some of our books, given the "chasm/animosity" discussed above.

4. Also, in terms of selection, what better resource could we have for what is currently being played than the CCLI Top 25? However, those songs were very poorly represented in this book, which, again, seems to discredit its relevance.

I really desire that we resource churches for what THEY want to do and not what CICW or the denomination WANTS them to do. The local church is the hope of the world - resource the momentum!

Between Allen and I, it appears that the beta testing for "The Network" is heavily weighted in favor of Classis Rocky Mountain. Represent!

Allen brings up a good point here, especially with respect to the topic of worship. There are, of course, divergent preferences for worship style within the CRC from traditional to contemporary to modern to post-modern to what I like to call "CRC neo-traditionalism", which is the seeming desire of folks in our camp to let the worship revolution "fad" pass over. I agree (with lament) that the CICW & Worship Symposium seems to cling to the latter style. This has, in effect, alienated those of us in the CRC who want to do modern worship in a way that is both theologically reflective and culturally relevant. Unfortunately, we've been forced to look to other places for resources and support. What's really sad is that a fantastic network of CRC-modern-worship-practitioners already exists under the radar and is not being tapped as a knowledge base for the betterment of the CRC as a whole.

For instance, I spent this past weekend coaching CRC churches in Iowa and Michigan on moving towards contemporary worship. They called me, some hack guitar player in Texas, because they don't know where else to go. Its amazing how basic the questions are and how easy they would be to answer!

To the point of this "Network", however, it seems to me that the type of people who will use this sort of technology are also the type of people that are probably involved in modern styles of worship. So, if we're going to make this useful, we need to start getting real about nuts and bolts and real about the fact that modern worship is not a "fad". It is, in fact, an evolution in music and we seem to be choosing extinction over adaptation.

I say we do this - lets encourage our cronies to get on here and lets get some information available for the churches that are pining for it. Let's give them a reason to log on!

Hey Dan.....

Have you considered bundling a few free internet resources to try collaboration? We use a combo of Google Docs (for the order itself), Google Calendar for scheduling, Imeem.com (now bought out by MySpace) for the free mp3's and CCLI's SongSelect for the chord/lead sheets. You can also print the chord/lead sheets onto PDF's and make them downloadable/emailable. That is essentially most of what PlanningCenterOnline does.

I have to say, CCLI SongSelect is BY FAR the best thing available for worship team development if you can't afford anything else, in my opinion.

Well, indeed I do!

Allen is right on when he says SongSelect is intended for modern music. The hymns that are there are basically a bonus. The main reason is that most well-known hymns (at least in their original form) are free in public domain so there's no reason to make people pay to access them. There's two sites I use: hymnary.org (huge site, sometimes pretty slow) and www.timelesstruths.org. For both, you'll need a web plug-in called Scorch, which is free. You can also get about any chordsheet you need off www.iwillworship.com and various other sites. Just type your song plus "chords" into Google. Finding hymn sheets online is pretty difficult, other than the three sites already mentioned. I do really hope that the upcoming hymnal will have PDF capabilities, but my guess is that it won't be transposable, so those websites will have to do. Have your folks contact Allen or I if they really can't figure that stuff out.

I probably differ a little from you two in that I think playing organ only for hymns and band only for worship songs only drives home the stereotypical thoughts of people about music (ie, playing some hymns with the band helps show unity....I can't say much for the organ though.....just don't try Hillsong on the organ.....ouch).

As far as our Google Docs, we don't use them....I just know it works because we used it in Seminary. You can see part of our Google Calendar usage on our website - www.sunriseaustin.org.

One more word about using keyboards in bands: the one "fault line" that seperates churches who do modern worship well and those who don't often comes down to how they use keyboards/pianos. I encourage you to read my latest blog post so I don't have to proliferate it here :) http://hibbles.blogspot.com.

Good luck Dan.....keep those questions coming and don't be afraid to have your worship people call or email us directly.

peace,
~mark

The number one rule in worship is: if you try to make everyone happy, you'll make no one happy. Some people think concert atmosphere is idolatry while others, like this emerging generation has grown up with it and thinks it odd when the lights are up full blast. Its really all a matter of perspective! As long as we all do what we do to the glory of God and the furtherance of the Kingdom, I believe we're on the right track. People forget: worship is not about us, its about God. In fact, I would say "we" are the third-most important people in the equation - its God first, then those on the outside (seekers, or whatever you're comfortable with) and then us. Too many people get that mixed up, especially in relationship to worship. But really, its the Great Commandment - 1. Love God. 2. Love others. Why don't we think this applies to our music? Tangent.

The "I can't hear the melody line with guitars" line is a fairly common response in transitioning churches. But, the reality is that most recording artists and thousands of churches pull it off every Sunday with relative ease. Honestly, I think its mostly psychological. In the rock/pop genre that most modern music is written in, the melody is carried only by the vocalists (its important to have 1 "worship leader" that everyone else builds around that always sings melody for this precise reason).

Greg Scheer's book "The Art of Worship" is a great resource on this. The goal of the worship band is to not double.....don't have the keyboard and bass play the same thing. Don't have the guitar and the piano play in the same range. Don't have 15 vocalists singing melody (I've seen that!). Doubling is not only unproductive, it often makes the band sound worse. The same logic applies to your situation - don't have the keyboard play melody if the singers are singing melody - its doubling! But, you need to be honest about how good your band really is. People DO have trouble singing with bad bands, but rarely have trouble singing with good bands. As the band's quality develops, the singability for the congregation will also improve.

Given that....if your band is good and your vocalists are well-rehearsed, no one will notice the absence of the melody. Try it out. I double-dog dare you :)

Thanks for the link, Joyce. I wonder if we shouldn't get a whole "Lift Up Your Hearts" thread going here. I'm hearing lots of mumblings about the new hymnal and I'm wondering if that might be helpful place to process those thoughts.....and probably more legit coming from someone who is in on the creation of it.