(darin rihanek on bass // josh barton on guitar // photo by danieljohn)
Earlier this week I sent out an email to our local church asking if they would like to participate in a little worship experiment. . The “experiment” was this – I asked them to participate by watching this video from worship leader/artist Gary Durbin and learning it before we came together for our Sunday service. I was not really sure what the response would be, but I thought we needed to try something different and here’s why.
For us, it normally takes about 3 weeks before our church really begins enjoying a newly introduced song. So lately I have been thinking about interactive ways to help our church get past the newness of these songs we are introducing and into the nougaty center of what the song is really saying.
So, I emailed everyone and did not know what the responses would be, but evidently everyone loved it. I have posted a few of their emails below.
from one of our church school teachers:
from a secretary in our front office:
from a friend on the move:
and lastly, from one of the Spanish translators at our church:
When it came time to sing the song in service, it seemed as if we had all been singing it for weeks. To me this was success because people already knew the song and were able to enjoy worshipping with it, rather than learning it. Definitely a good first experiment/experience for us.
So now, I’d love to hear your thoughts – what creative things are you doing that have helped your local church have better times of worship? Or what have you done to serve your local church, to engage and interact with them? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts. See below for the rest of our setlists from the day.
1. (Ab) Filled With Your Glory
2. (Ab) Radiance
3. (C#) Holy, Holy, Holy
4. (E) Consume Me [we will be teaching this song in our video section soon. it was written by one of our worship leaders, Jordan Palmer]
5. (E) You Are My All In All
1. (B) Let God Arise
2. (B) Counting On God
3. (D) Here I Am To Worship
4. (D) Revelation Song
5. (E) How Deep The Father’s Love For Us
If you would like to see what other churches and worship leaders are doing each week, stay on the internet for a few miles, and then take your first left down to Fred McKinnon’s site. Have a great week!