Friday, April 30, 2010
Free music
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Sunday's Song Selection
I thought I'd post up some of the factors that go into choosing the music for a Sunday gathering.
For the core team launch on Sunday we sang Let Your Kingdom Come (Sovereign Grace, Valley of Vision), Holy Holy Holy (the old hymn, inspired by the arrangement by The BCG from Mars Hill), Rock of Ages (with the 1998 Ruth Buchanan arrangement) and Never Alone (Emu Music).
Some of the factors in choosing these songs were:
1. Size of band/size of congregation/size of room. We had just acoustic guitar + piano + 1 singer leading around 30 or so people in a room that didn’t have much space to spare, so we needed songs that would sound ok without the Hillsong stadium treatment.
2. Make-up of congregation. We have mostly people in 20s and 30s, with a sprinkling of 70 plus-ers. You can’t make everyone happy all the time, but the plan is to make everyone feel that they have been taken into consideration at least some of the time.
3. Flow. We lead off with Let Your Kingdom Come, which seems appropriate for a fresh church plant trying to reach lost people, and is also a bit more upbeat to get us going. We paired this with Holy Holy Holy in a 2-song bracket up front. HHH hits a more reflective vibe (which is why it needed to come 2nd), but builds to be quite anthemic. We finished with Never Alone after the sermon, which keyed in to the part of God’s word we were looking at (not as well as I’d like, but it’s something to work on), and then built up at the end to finish on a rousing and positive note.
4. Variety. I wanted to flag our major sources of songs up front, and to have a mix of recently written songs and older hymns (in various stages of contemporary re-arrangement).
Got any thoughts on choosing songs?
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Well, well… look who’s come crawling back
(Me.)
I was going to apologise for the long silence here on The Rules, but then I realised that I’m not really sorry – I just had other stuff to do.
Since we last spoke, faithful RSS application, things have changed a little for me. I am no longer at St. Dorcas’, sitting on the musical sidelines and complaining about things. I am co-ordinating the music at Erskineville Village Anglican Church (a freshly planted/re-potted church in Sydney’s Inner West), so from this point on The Rules will actually contain some reflections from practical experience, and at some point the facts may even get in the way of a good rant (perhaps).
Stay tuned.
(Or don’t, because you know what I’m like with posting.)
Monday, August 17, 2009
Rule #11. Order of service matters.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Rule #10: Be humane.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Final Top 20
There is a Redeemer
Servant King
Amazing love
Lord I Lift Your Name On High
My Hope is built
May the mind
How deep the father’s love
This Kingdom
Consider Christ
Jesus, your blood and righteousness
Before the throne of God above
Highest Place
Rock of ages
That’s Why We Praise Him
Hallelujah to the King of Kings
Nothing but the blood of Jesus
In Christ Alone
Let your Kingdom come
Never Alone
When I survey
Amazing Grace
You may note that I cheated - there are 21.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Top 20 Challenge
Servant King
The Heavens shall declare
Amazing love
There is a Redeemer
Consider Christ
Highest Place
Never Alone
Hallelujah to the King of Kings
Let your Kingdom come
In Christ Alone
Jesus, your blood and righteousness
May the mind
How deep the father’s love
My Hope is built
In His Image
Amazing Grace
Be thou my vision
Before the throne of God above
Rock of ages
When I survey