"Church-Led" Worship

This week was my rotation week for the Sunday night worship teams. It has been a few months now since we first started playing together, and we have gotten more comfortable together as musicians and people. This week, we were asked if we could meet with our worship leader early to have an extended practice. This year, the leaders of Rock Harbor's worship community have set goals to begin training their musicians to experiment with worship music on a deeper level.

Trevor, our worship leader for the night, explained that the leaders of the church want to foster a stronger vision of "church-led" worship. The idea was sparked after the head worship pastor, Caleb, visited a church movement in Redding, CA, at Bethel Church. The leaders there felt that God was calling them to teach their church how to worship through songs in a new way, and out if this was born what they call "Jesus Culture." In essence, this movement reflects a free-flowing worship style in which the worship team plays a prepared song but then transitions into an extended flow of refrains, following wherever the Spirit may lead. What impressed the leaders at Rock Harbor the most was the attitude of the church congregants. They had fully embraced the idea of leading worship as a church and many times played an active role in what direction the songs were going.

The leadership at Rock Harbor wants to facilitate that same essence into its own congregation, encouraging them to take a more active role in worship. The main purpose of this extended band rehearsal was to help us experiment with how that attitude would pan out musically. We practiced two of the songs that we were playing that night, but we intentionally prolonged them and swelled in and out of refrains, choruses, verses, and bridges multiple times.

I personally felt that this idea is a very creative step in the right direction for Rock Harbor's worship ministry. The church has well-established and high-quality method of ministry, which is excellent; however, it is nonetheless a system and sometimes runs the risk of feeling too controlled or produced. The fact that the leadership is willing to rethink their format and encourage those serving in ministry to push beyond their own boundaries is impressive to me. I also absolutely agree with the idea that the church body should be encouraged to have an attitude of active worship during the entire services. The shift in thinking from "being led" to "leading" is a significant and will take time to be rooted in the congregation; however, I believe that it is a bold and spiritually beneficial move, and I am a supporter of it.

Mixing More Intentionally

Recently, I had the privilege of being added onto Rock Harbor's sound ministry roster as a regular member. To me, this was a big step of recognition from "intern" to a "sound man" in training. I was extremely excited to say the least. Having been given such a privilege, I was inspired to improve in my abilities and begin seriously tune my ear for the main sanctuary (or "Centre"). The past few times I had mixed in the Centre, I was hindered by not being accustomed to the acoustics of the room. Because of this, I did not have a good handle on the EQ's of the sound board.

To help myself improve on my ear, I set aside time to record my bass and acoustic guitars as a simple, flat EQ'd mp3 file. I then put these tracks on my iPod and hooked it up to the main sound board. This gave me the freedom to experiment with the EQ's in a controlled environment outside of sound check. I was also fortunate enough to be given a handout by my mentor that mapped out all frequency levels with musical descriptions next to them. Before the band came, I spent an hour and a half experimenting with my two tracks. By listening and walking around the room, I was able to hear the differences between the adjustments I made.

By the time the band came to practice, I felt that I had a much better grasp on the room and how to EQ it. I was proven right when I started sound checking the band. I felt much more comfortable setting a solid mix than I had ever felt before. The only problems I experienced were sometimes getting the vocal levels under control and remembering to un-mute all the channels at the correct time. However, I feel much more confident in my mixing abilities and am excited to mix again in three weeks.

More Lighting Experience

This Sunday I had another opportunity to run the light board for the evening services. It had been a while since I last sat in on this position, so it was a good memory refresher. As I had mentioned in a previous post, the lighting operator does more than just hit a button that changes the light cues. I am also in charge of remotely changing the lights in the overflow room, operating the camera switcher, setting and starting the countdown clock, and logging time marks throughout the service. The responsibility of this position is not as simple as it seems to be; however, it is still the easiest out of all the other positions.

Each time I have ran the lights, I have been reminded of the beauty of art through colors. Lighting has the power to influence the mood and reinforce the attitude of the service, and Rock Harbor does not shy away from utilizing this to their advantage. Although some may see this as being emotionally manipulative, I see it as an extension of the attitude of worship that has already been established by the leaders of the church. The lighting schemes aren't necessarily "running the show" but rather reinforcing the experience. Once again, I understand that the idea of catering to "experience" raises many theological questions in some people's minds; however, I personally do not see a problem in finding a place for the beauty of art (especially colors) to interact with with how we worship as a Church.

Passing the Test

This week was a very simple week. Because of the choir concert on Sunday night, I could only work during my Saturday hours. Last, week the church drums set needed to be torn down because of a special mid-week concert that was happening. My job was to set it back up and properly mic each piece of the kit. Setting up a drum kit is nothing short of a daunting task - especially to one who is not a drummer himself. It is like fitting a puzzle together. Each piece of hardware has a certain spot where it fits comfortably within the sphere of the drum kit. If you place the high hat too close to the snare or angle it too obtuse from the kick pedal, it just feels silly. The same idea goes for the toms and overhead cymbals. If they aren't place just right, the entire kit just feels uncomfortable. Needless to say, it took me a great amount of time to finally reach a setup that I was somewhat satisfied with. Along with setting up the kit itself, I also had to re-place every mic (snare, hi-hat, kick, toms, and 2 overhead) and plug them into the snake. I also had to place the plexi-glass shield back in front of the drums and position the appropriate sound pads around the bottom of the shield.

This entire experience challenged my memory in correctly setting up and mic-ing a drum set. Last month I had visited a class in which this entire process was explained, so this experience was the perfect "test" to see if I had remembered what I learned. I experienced a lot of troubleshooting and took a lot steps backwards. However, my reward came when we finally started sound checking the kit. All the mics worked and everything sounded right. Thank goodness! Obviously, I still have a lot to learn about mic placement for drum, but for this instance I was satisfied that I got everything to work the way it should. Consider the test passed...