For: The institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Red Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt.
In an effort to finally finish my BA in music, as well as the ongoing effort to become a more skilled “worship artisan”, I have enrolled in the class described above.
This first week, the main question we have been dealing with has been to consider how the Times and Places of our own worship experiences have helped to form who we are and what vantage point we have today.
I thought some of you, the readers of this blog, might enjoy reading a summary of my worship experiences so far, so you would understand a little more of where I come from. I would love to have some of you respond with your worship experiences so I could get to know you better too!
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My earliest memories, although quite vague, are of worship in a small Presbyterian Church in San Antonio where my Dad was youth pastor. Worship there was quite traditional with stain glass, pews, organ and hymns.
My next memories are of Pantego Christian Church and Park Springs Bible Church, two independent churches in Arlington Texas. I remember the feeling of Sunday school in a portable building. The worship was definitely younger, with some of those groundbreaking “praise choruses” added on a regular basis.
The next phases of our lives are connected to our call to be missionaries. From age nine to eleven, our family traveled around churches in the US to raise support. In order to introduce our little family, my Dad would play the guitar, my Mom would play the flute and the 3 of us older kids would stand up in front of every congregation and sing songs like the Messianic Jewish classic “Jehovah Jireh” and more contemporary songs like the Imperials “Lord of the harvest”. I got a good taste in those years of how different worship can be from place to place in America.
Our next step was a big leap over the pond to Belgium, Europe. The vast majority of Belgians considered themselves Roman Catholic. The worship in those Catholic churches, as I remember it was probably what you would expect: large, eerily lit, mostly empty sanctuaries with resonating pipe organs and ceilings that went up so high, it was mesmerizing. If you ever want to experience the essence of the truth that God is “transcendent”, this is definitely one of the best ways. You definitely feel insignificant and small. The problem was that the people around us really saw the church and even God as irrelevant. He may exist, but he doesn’t really interact with the world anymore.
We as missionaries with the tiny evangelical churches had the opposite in our services. We met in a local house, or school if the church got really big, and the services were as “imminent” as you can get. Imagine 30 adults in a large living room, a couple guitars and maybe a flute and a bunch of songbooks. The “Service Leader” would open with an impromptu prayer and then invite the church to pick a song out of the books they wanted to sing, or give a testimony, or share a verse, or whatever God was laying on their hearts. Everything was accessible and participatory. Very little was planned. Everything was about the here and now. Hymns were avoided, as was anything that even hinted of the Catholic church. Some little old lady would inevitably request “Shine, Jesus, Shine” (in Dutch of course) and everyone else would groan. It was a great song, but after 6 months of singing it every week, some of us needed a break! It was in this environment that the “song leader” in our church (the only guy who could sing and play the guitar at the same time) invited me to bring my guitar, which doubled the worship team.
Once I graduated, I studied music formally at Colorado Christian University and was able to audition into all the various ensembles, from choir to jazz vocal ensemble to the jazz band to the youth ministry “band” playing Whiteheart and Poor Old Lu and Michael W. Smith, as well as various worship teams and side bands. I remember being stressed out when I was trying to be in 5 music ensembles at the same time.
And now I work at a little Swedish Baptist Church where we’ve brought the music from campfire strum and piano to full band with drums, electric guitars, drum loops and in-ears.
I am thankful for the breadth of worship experiences in place, time and language, that I have been able to share with God and his family around the world. I think it allows me to think a little outside the typical box, because I have seen things done so radically differently that we are doing now, and have some healthy appreciation for “other” ways of doing things.
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What’s your story guys? Please respond below!
jason
