Yesterday was Sunday, and I had the privilege of singing on the worship team. Here are some of my experiences from the service. Note: there isn't a lot of spiritual commentary on the following. Hopefully this won't disillusion either of you two.
I was really dragging when practice started at 8:30am - tired, and needing coffee. I hadn't really warmed up my voice a lot, so I took it easy at the beginning of practice and, fortunately, never felt like I was straining. We started learning a gorgeous new song that just begs for harmony. I've been thinking about other music to write this entry, though, and I can't remember the song right now. After practice I got some coffee, which helped wake me up. Unfortunately I forgot that the coffee at church is really hot and it burned the tip of my tongue - not good for a singer. I had to cut it with water to cool it down.
After coffee I went to the prayer room before the meeting, and, seeing that it was empty, started to sing in tongues. I was startled thirty seconds later to see someone curled up behind one of the chairs in the room. They were either praying or sleeping, I couldn't tell. Whatever they were doing I didn't want to disturb them, so I went outside into the hot sun to continue singing. Singing in tongues helps get my mind and spirit straight. Leading worship is work and I don't know that I will be able to do the worship that I need to do personally during the corporate worship, so setting a baseline of honoring God myself before the meeting really helps me. If nothing else, I have said to Him what I need to say: He is Lord, and I honor Him.
Before worship, the worship team had a typically hurried pre-game prayer. I usually don't pray out loud during this prayer; I'm either not into it, have nothing original to add, or am too far into worship myself to want to speak (though I sometimes sing in tongues - that's a prayer, right?). But yesterday I prayed that we would do something
real during the meeting - that we would forget about the week and lay ourselves down and acknowledge that God is our Master. That we would get some real work done. I got some amens to that, so I concluded that it resonated with other people.
We started with a song that we have done several times: "Give You Glory" by Jeremy Camp. This song was a little awkward to sing. See, when Paul pulls chord music off the web, he prints them as-is, which usually means small, thin fonts on the page. This makes it hard for us old guys to read, so I take them and gussy them up with larger, bolder fonts. Well, for this song, I ran out of vertical space, so I opted to move the second verse up beside the first verse. The lines of the verses are really short, so the verses fit fine with lots of white space in between. However, it is an odd place to find a second verse, so I had a few seconds of my eyes fumbling around on the page trying to find the words that I was supposed to be singing. Not so good.
We did a new song today - "In You", written by Joyce. We've been chewing on it in practice for a couple of months now and finally brought it out yesterday. I've had problems finding my part during the bridge (which I guess isn't technically a bridge but is more like a "Chorus 2", but what the heck), but yesterday during practice I finally found a counter-melody during the bridge that I was satisfied with. Yay for the Spirit of last minute things!
Usually, when we start a song I sing melody for the first verse. It's mostly to "hold something back" musically. When we do a new song I try to sing melody more because I figure people need to learn the melody. In addition, usually when Joyce sings I will let her have the first verse to herself, because she has such a pretty voice. However, I really wanted to harmonize with Joyce on this song, so I came in half-way through the first verse - but I couldn't find my harmony. I started on the melody and just couldn't seem to find the harmony line. I could have backed off from the mic and worked it out, but I opted to keep singing melody. It wasn't until the end of the chorus that I finally found my harmonic line. Very weird.
I eventually got it together, though, and did my part during the bridge. It felt like I should sing my part really strongly during the the last run through of the bridge, and I think it worked. I actually listened to a recording of this part yesterday afternoon, and had the odd experience of getting goosebumps at hearing my own singing. That has never happened before - like most people, I generally hate to hear recordings of my own voice.
I also remember a few instances of singing some basic patterns in between songs, including one with Joyce. I think it added and didn't distract. At one point someone started some free-form singing after a song, which I was glad to join. I don't think I sang in tongues at all during the meeting, which is kind of unusual for me.
Our last song was "Let the Weak Say", and I got to sing/hum/ooh a little bluesy descant to the keyboard intro while Neil was talking at the mic. I enjoyed that. Because of this descant I tend to think of this song as a more gentle-type song, though it is really very declarative. We had a little miscommunication with this song, though - one team member was adding in an extra measure after the end of the chorus before repeating, which was a little disconcerting.
Externally, worship appeared to go well - I heard some nice comments, and even apart from the free-form worship I mentioned earlier I heard some things that led me to believe that people in the congregation were getting into worship. Also, a cool guy that I know went up to the mic to deliver a word. I don't think he's ever been at the mic before.
Christian taught on James 5 and did his usual excellent job. After the meeting I wandered around a bit, trying to see which of the wonderful people there that I should spend my time with. I ended up hanging out with Rebekah, who was unable to escape because of a sleeping child ;-). We ended up praying together for someone who was looking for prophetic prayer, which was cool.
Then I went home and fell asleep.
2.5 - 35 - 4.3
Today I woke up to a sore throat and a sore back. I considered cutting it short today, but I got through the first lap OK and so I continued. No spider webs today, and I remembered to low-five the evil branch on both laps today. However, today was the first day of public school, and as I live near a school I got to pass all manner of young people that looked like they think they will never be 44 years old. I'm glad I started this six weeks ago, otherwise the prospect of having such an audience would have put me off. I guess I'm pretty vain.
