After yesterday’s discussion on Twitter prompted by Traci Rhoades, I thought you’d like to see what my wife did when she inherited a hymn board at the church where she now serves.
For Advent it got more complicated! The second line in this board is replaced each week…
…with the lines shown on the right in this picture. And the candle flames on the left…
…end up on the hymn board on the other side of the church.
hymnophobia \ hɪm-noʊ-‘foʊb-iə \ – (adj) – having or possessing the fear of hymns or (n) the fear of hymns
I think many contemporary churches suffer from Hymnophobia.
By hymns, I don’t mean the classic hymns that have been adapted by contemporary songwriters, sometimes with the addition of a bridge. That works sometimes.
By hymns, I don’t mean some of the ‘gospel’ hymns that came in the period of around 1940 and following. That’s the period that the present period is a reaction to, and it’s okay to set those aside. It’s many of those pieces which drove us to a more modern church in the first place.
I’m talking about the real, absolute classic hymns: All Hail the Power and A Might Fortress and other songs of that ilk.
Hymnophobia is really a fear of doing something that’s outside the only homogeneous, modern style that’s the trademark of today’s churches, especially megachurches.
There’s no variety.
I’d have no problem with a church doing a classic like Our Great Savior if they did it in the style in which it was originally presented.
In other words, not with “an organ” but with a high-church pipe organ sound, played in the manner that an organist would have played a pipe organ. Something that mentally transports you to one of the great 19th century cathedrals.
And let’s not forget that today’s modern keyboards have that sound built in.
Or for that matter:
Not every Sunday, not every month, just not being afraid to try something different every once in awhile.
With the condition that it’s done so well, nobody considers it a caricature or a mockery of those forms, but actually finds the form works to communicate a particular set of lyrics.
Honestly, what are we afraid of?
Furthermore, why do we exclude people whose rest-of-the-week involves participation in a musical forms that are so removed from what we do at church on the weekend?
Why does every church service now have to 100% resemble what we hear on the local Christian radio station?
I rest my case.
I write a lot about the worship part of our church services because that is the area where I have served most frequently and consistently. If I had spent a lifetime serving in the church nursery, perhaps that would be the focus!
Years ago, when my wife was putting together worship sets, she encountered people who saw her work has very specialized and perhaps a bit mysterious. They viewed her adeptness at this with awe, often saying things like, “I don’t know how you do that each week;” or “I could never do that.”
The point is, at the basic level, they could do it. They could pick 5 songs and put together a worship set just as easily as anyone reading this could.
But in the modern worship environment, if you’re having to supply chord charts for band members, prepare presentation files for projection, deal with sound volunteers, and organize rehearsals; the job can get quite complex.
There are certain songs which just don’t follow other songs, usually for reasons of the pitch or key of each, but often for rhythmic or lyrical reasons. There are songs some churches don’t know and others that used far too frequently. A handful of popular ones today would go against the grain of the doctrinal position of certain churches.
Trying to be helpful to my wife, and as an occasional member of her team (I play keyboards, bass, incidental percussion and occasional guitar) I created the above document. It was a recognition of several things we were dealing with at the time.
First, it’s easy in rehearsals to under-communicate introductions and endings. Second, we sometimes feel instrumentalist on stage needs to be playing on every song, when in fact, the instrumentation would work better if some people took a song out to just sing. Third, it helped me personally visualize where some of the spoken readings fit into the larger set list, especially if I was only given a song set list, and the readings weren’t actually introduced until the actual service. Lastly, she was often run off her feet and I thought she’d appreciate the use of an organizing tool where churches didn’t have a budget for anything more sophisticated or personnel were still dependent on print resources.
Feel free to borrow it.
Yes, there is some complexity to all this, but again, if the demands are less complicated, this is something anyone can learn how to do.
When we’re asked to lead worship at another church, I try to get as much information as I can about the congregation and which songs they have been singing and what a typical service looks like. However, on a more practical level, we also need to know what type of piano/keyboard they have and which presentation software they use for worship songs (PowerPoint, EasyWorship, etc.).
The church we’ve been asked to assist this coming weekend introduced us to something new in terms of software, and my wife was impressed with some of its features. Furthermore, it’s free. I asked her if she’d be willing to share this discovery with readers here…
by Ruth Wilkinson
As a worship leader in my home congregation and occasional “guest worship leader” here and there, I enjoy writing, arranging, creating and sharing music and images that help people engage with Scripture and the God who gave it to us.
Over the years I’ve found no shortage of people wanting to sell me stuff to help the process. And fair enough. A workman is worthy of his wages, after all.
But as a volunteer, I must say it’s lovely when, now and then, I come across a freeware or open source piece of software that has a lot to offer. Most of the programs I use week to week fall into this category.
Most recently, we were introduced to VideoPsalm, a presentation program that describes itself as “missionware.” As with many freeware programs, this seems to be a labour of love (I didn’t even see a ‘donate’ button on the website). The terms of use simply ask the user to support a missionary/organization financially or in prayer and to “take a little more at heart the evangelical Christian mission.”
The functionalities are comprehensive — images, text, video, PowerPoint, scripture, announcements, countdowns… — with one particular addition I really like: It’s ChordPro friendly. Which means that, with some editing, chord charts can be projected along with lyrics. (Now if only someone will develop a ‘lead line’ option to make teaching new songs easier. (Dear Santa…)) But this is definitely a nice feature.
As with any program, there is learning to do (for example, how to import a particular song from CCLI.) Video tutorials are available through the website.
For smaller churches or home groups, VideoPsalm could be a real God-send, considering the cost of the commercial presentation software.
…And for what it’s worth, a few other budget friendly (ie free) programs:
OpenOffice – Word processing, spreadsheets, “PowerPoint” with thorough format compatibility
MuseScore – Music notation software with pdf, midi and mp3 exporting
SoftChord – ChordPro editor
Gimp – Image editing (like photoshop) with a lot of tools and options
OpenShot – Video editing software. I haven’t used this one myself, but I’ve heard good things
StudioOne Prime – Nice audio editing program. This is the free version, fully functional but lacking some fancier features
Audacity – A more basic editing audio suite, but quite user friendly and good for recording sermons and whatnot
About a decade ago, Ruth and I were part of a small group that met monthly in a city about 40 minutes away, which was chosen as a central location for a number of people who came from several different directions. We were all involved in some type of church planting or community building and I believe all of us had been influenced greatly by Michael Frost.
The group itself was part of a national network of similar groups that was (in theory at least) sponsored by the church planting initiatives department of a major denomination; though I don’t recall much in the way of networking with those other groups, aside from a few meeting reports that were shared.
Yes…this is an article about music…be patient, okay?
We still keep in touch with a few of those people — ain’t social media great? — including Rick who posed an interesting question about modern worship in the middle of one of the meetings. Have you ever had that feeling where the songs sung in church just don’t do it for you as they once did? Ruth emailed some answers to Rick’s question to our group members, but in the intervening decade, it’s never been shared online…
•••by Ruth Wilkinson
At our last meeting, Rick asked a question that I've been thinking about, namely, "Why don't these songs work for us?" Here's what I've come up with so far... 1. We're not spiritual enough. (Ok, that one's dumb, but it had to be said.) 2. We're producers, not re-producers. We know what creativity looks like and, boyhowdy, that ain't it. 3. We're human. We're connected to the world we live in, as God made us to be, and these songs have nothing to do with life and the world. Except for the occasional ocean or mountain, which don't figure largely in our everyday lives. 4. We're artists or performers and we know what good execution looks like. We get distracted by inexplicable chords, inept tech support, spelling mistakes and missing lyrics projected over overwrought nature shots. 5. We have enough experience of God already to have some idea that he is more complex and incomprehensible than what these songs express. We've had enough of simplistic theology. 6. We work hard all week and standing for 20 minutes interests us not at all. 7. We're individuals and don't want to be told how to 'worship' or what music to like. 8. We've spent too much time listening to Santana to be impressed by strum-a strum-a strum-a, or a drummer who only knows one rhythm. Bumpa chicka Bumpa chicka Bumpa chicka Bumpa chicka. 9. We can't quite get past the woman playing percussion in 4/4 when everybody else is in 3/4 (yes, really). 10. We just don't live in a singing culture. People don't sing. Except in church. Which we tend to treat as some kind of wonderful distinctive, but is probably just an anachronism. (My church is an exception to that, one, however. These guys sing and sing and sing, but they choose the songs as we go, so it's a bit different.) 11. That said, we don't get to choose the songs. We are told, in effect, what to feel regardless of where we're at. I think karaoke church would be awesome. All that without considering the 'worship industry' that we are bombarded with on what passes for Christian radio.
Who’s up for some adventure?
Your mission Jim, should you decide to accept it, is to get at least 30 churches of varying size to grant you access to their budgets for the last 30 years. Your job is to pinpoint how much churches are spending on tech-related equipment for the worship center, sanctuary, main auditorium or whatever you call the place where people now are led in worship by bands using the latest in-ear monitoring systems, the loudest amplification and the brightest spotlighting and back-lighting that money can buy; all while lyrics, sermon theme teaser videos and message slides project on one or more screens. Don’t forget those broadcast-quality cameras, the licenses to show video clips and words to songs, and the software that allows parishioners to stream the service live or watch later on-demand.
Then, if those churches will allow you, dig deeper than the budgeted amounts and percentage increases over the years, and find out what equipment was purchased, how long it lasted, and how much of it was, by the mutual agreement of all concerned, trashed prematurely because something better came along. Or how much of that gear is still sitting in back rooms and storage closets without even so much as a yard sale or eBay offering that would at least contribute an offset to present spending.
Churches are spending a whole lot of money these days on technology-related stuff, and we haven’t begun to touch what’s being spent on word processing and communications in the church office, or tech spending on the place where children and teens gather. (Fortunately, except for parent paging systems, the nursery has been spared the hi-tech assault, at least I think so, my kids are well past that stage.)
As in government or charity work, everyone’s money is no-one’s money, and waste and inefficiencies abound. My point is that churches are quite capable of screwing up the stewardship process from within, so they don’t need problems coming from outside.
But that’s just what is happening.
For the second time, churches now face a round of having to replace cordless microphones and monitoring system because, for the second time, the FCC is proposing to auction off a section of the UHF spectrum in 2016 in which those devices operate. This would render more equipment useless; a situation that some churches are still recovering from financially, not to mention community arts groups and private clubs and concert venues.
Are not landfills in the United States already overflowing with television sets rendered obsolete by the conversion to digital TV?
A petition asking the FCC to reconsider this has only two weeks — until November 12th — left to collect signatures. You can sign the petition, and then forward this, or the article below, to the tech people in your church, your church finance and budget committee, and the musicians on your worship teams.
Read more about this at Technologies for Worship website.
Ethics question: Should the winners of the frequency auction, if it happens, be forced to compensate microphone and wireless equipment owners.
Graphic image: From a recent article at Church Stage Design website.
Thinking Out Loud 