G’day everyone,

Thanks to those who came along to the music team night last night. We had a great night! We’ll try to run these nights every 3 months or so, so there’ll be another early next year.

LT started the night with some teaching on “Why We Sing” — I’ve attached his notes, please have a look at them. Afterwoods we paryed for a while, and then sang a couple of songs.

Then we had a couple of good discussions about music/worship issues. The first was about the reality that we are a visual example of worship to the congregation every time we are on stage. Some of the helpful thoughts were that A. We don’t want to put on a pretense, we want to be authentic and be ourselves, B. However, we know that we will be on stage in advance, so we have time to prepare ourselves (both musically and spiritually), which helps us worship God from our heart and thus be a helpful example to others.

The 2nd thing we talked about was the times when the leader changes the order of a song. Mostly we have a pre-prepared order, but sometimes (usually at the end of a song) the leader makes a change — perhaps repeating a chorus softly to lead into communion, perhaps repeating it loudly when everyone is really getting into it. We discussed that it’s difficult for Bill and Kieran (being guitarists) to use hand signals, so often we have to use vocal cues, obvious body language, or sometimes it is a hand signal. The main thing is for everyone to be carefully paying attention as we come to the end of a song, so that we all pick up if the usual order is going to be changed.

Finally, we practiced a couple of new songs in the energetic category that we will begin playing over the next few months at church. I have posted youtube videos (so tht you can listen to them) again, and I’ve also posted in our members only area chord charts for both songs, which will help you follow along and begin to get to know them.

Thanks again for your service through music! Please let me know at any time if you have any questions, issues or suggestions.