You may recognize the pink fingernails. I’ve posted videos from this lady before. She made chocolate Gobble Berries (turkeys) for Thanksgiving and spiders and ghosts for Halloween. Her level of patience is astounding.
Let me just state. My children will never eat bunnies such as these. This is way too close to crafting for me.
Besides, is it just me or do these bunnies look a little like rats? Their noses are way too pointy. Easter rats. No, that won’t catch on. Easter mice?
Rehearsal last night wasn’t as bad as I expected. The music is definitely repetitive, and the lyrics sometimes mean abso-flippin-lutely NOTHING, but thankfully, this group didn’t repeat stuff more than 3 or 4 times. That said, there’s a new unexpected problem I have with the music now.
Tone and pace.
The tone is LOUD and the pace is FAST.
And I’m not saying that because I’m old and I just don’t like the music. I listen to a contemporary Christian radio station (Z88.3). I actually like punk rock to some extent. And our vehicles both have a preset to the classic rock station. One of my favorite walking songs is Dude Looks Like a Lady by Aerosmith. (GREAT walking beat). I’m not saying LOUD and FAST because I like soft and slow. Anne Murray is not on my mp3 player.
So, that established. The tone and pace of the music is LOUD and FAST. What does that do for a church service? It’s choppy. There’s no time for reflection. There’s no transition from the hectic world they just drove through to get there and the inside of the sanctuary. The walk through the narthex is too short for that. It needs to happen DURING the service. Is there a reason they call it the “Praise” team at this church and not the “Worship” team? Because those two words are not interchangeable.
FirstHusband was a music minister for over a decade in the first part of our marriage and he’s participated in planning more than a few worship services. One of the pastors taught him about tone and pace. Personally, my focus has always been on matching the music with the message as much as possible. I’ve taught speech, so the emphasis for me is supporting the message. “Supporting materials” as we call it in speech. So every time I’m asked to sing, I look for songs that enhance the message.
But FirstHusband is more about tone and pace. Flow. A warming up, a building up, a peak, a cool down. For example, throwing the announcements in the middle of the service always screeches the pace to a halt. I get it a little. I’m learning. And last night was a big data point for me. This music is so fast it’s sometimes difficult for me to keep up – if I want to breathe correctly. I breathe using my diaphragm when I sing and after two hours of rehearsal, I’m physically tired. Singing is almost like exercise when you do it properly. I was working extra hard last night.
Will the congregation keep up? I’m going to be watching to see if they do. Because another thing FirstHusband said was that the music has to be “accessible” to the congregation. I TOTALLY get that. Last Sunday, I sang the first verse of “I Can Only Imagine” by Mercy Me. (That one wasn’t too fast.) It was a praise team song, leading the congregation, but the congregation wasn’t singing. They were just watching, like I was singing a solo. After the first few words, I actually had to SAY, “Join Me.” to get them to sing.
Tone and pace. Accessibility. This is making a lot of sense.
I have to keep telling myself that. Over and over and over again. The repetition is important.
I’ve been singing with our church’s praise team. This Sunday, Palm Sunday, will by my fourth week. This is a big deal. I have a big HUGE problem with much of today’s worship team music. Often – VERY often, the music either says NOTHING or it says the same thing over and over and over and over and over (how many is that?) and over again. Six. This Sunday (and rehearsal tonight), that’s how many times I have to sing:
“Open the eyes of my heart, Lord.
Open the eyes of my heart.
I want to see you.
I want to see you.”
Six. times. With the chorus after four and then this verse again twice. Oh, yes. THIS is the verse. Just because it’s the SAME verse over and over and. okay. I’ll stop. But seriously. It’s actually more than six all together because it repeats AGAIN. I Googled the lyrics and THIS actually appears at the end:
“Forever God is faithful
Forever God is strong
Forever God is with us
Forever
Forever
Forever God is faithful
Forever God is strong
Forever God is with us
Forever
Forever
Forever
His love endures forever
His love endures forever
His love endures forever
Forever
Sing praise, sing praise
Sing praise, sing praise”
and mix up and repeat ad nauseam.
again. ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!
Why am I singing with the praise team if the music makes me this crazy? It started with a phone call from someone who usually begins with, “Hey, Julie, How are you?!” This phone call began instead with “WE NEED YOU. Can you sing with the praise team for the next two weeks?” I didn’t have a reason to say no. So I said yes. We’ve been going to church at the 9:30 a.m. contemporary service instead of the 11:00 a.m. traditional service. Kinda nice to get out so early. Not so easy to skip church either. My daughter loves having mom sing “up there.” My son isn’t embarrassed. (Hey, I’ll take it.) My husband tells me the music is better with me up there. But. The music.
It’s not just Thursday night rehearsal and Sunday morning performance for me. I sing it all week in the car because I rehearse more than enough to be able to sing it without sheet music in front of me on Sunday morning. Because if I’m going to do this, I’m going to give it my best. And because for as much as these songs repeat, they repeat in a certain order. I’ve downloaded them from Amazon and made a playlist on my mp3 player for the praise team so I can just listen whenever I’m in the car. And I’m a mom. I can spend some serious time in the car. I’ve been singing this music for one to two hours a day. I can’t listen to it any more today. I just can’t. It’s a praise sucker for me at this point.
I shared my problem with the person who asked me to help in the first place. She understands. She didn’t pick the music. A few days later she offered me this: “I may not like every song we do, but someone in the congregation might really love it. So I give that to them as a gift.”
Well.
A gift.
I suppose I can do that.
But can’t we just limit the gift to one a week? (yes. that was my whining voice.)
So again. Why am I still singing with the praise team? I was asked to sing for two weeks. This week makes four.
I’ve decided to stick it out until the end of April because the church is in musical transition. They just hired a new worship leader. He starts in May. My surgery is on April 30th and I’ll miss church for at least two weeks.
So.
I’m praying for direction. And I’m waiting. Serving. Giving a gift.
Busy, Busy, Busy. The only thing I like better than eating Cream Cheese Chicken is MAKING it. Soooooo easy! Dump everything in a crockpot and come back later. That’s what I’m doing today.
But earlier this week I needed something ready in 10 or 15 minutes start to finish. That’s where these come in:
We like these and they are fast, easy and fairly cheap. (We first got them BOGO.) They usually don’t have this many broccoli stems (from the Garlic Shrimp). I pulled them out and supplemented it with some frozen broccoli florets.
One bag is supposed to be a meal, but seriously. This kid can eat. So we cook two bags. Unfortunately, we didn’t have two of the same kind, so we just had shrimp and more shrimp. PinkGirl liked the Garlic Shrimp on the left. FavoriteSon preferred the Shrimp Scampi on the right. I added some more peas to the Shrimp Scampi on the right.
