Monday 19 November 2007

a bit of musicality, please

Sunday was quite good. I had been dreading it, as due to a scheduling conflict, we had a double baptism at church - one family was a church family, and the others were not. I'm always torn about this; I really hate the whole concept of people who have no Christian faith getting their kids baptised during a church service, and standing up there making promises they have no intention of keeping. I suppose its like non-Christians having church weddings in that regard.

But then another part of me thinks, well, if this is the only chance these people are ever going to have of hearing the gospel, then it's worth it that they come. Maybe something they hear, or a conversation they have will prompt them to start thinking seriously about what they believe. Sadly, I think most of the time that's not the case and the family and friends all look impatient and bored while the rest of the church service happens, but perhaps I'm just being cynical.

Anyway, I was doing the music for yesterday's service. There were specific requests from the families, including Amazing Grace and that the sister of the non-Christian mother would sing Shout To the Lord as an item (odd perhaps, but I'm figuring that although the parents of the child being baptised weren't Christian, some of the extended family probably were).

Now, STTL isn't a bad song, but it's in the 'my Jesus, my boyfriend' category, is a Hillsong mainstay, and has been done so many times that it can have a bit of a deadening effect. Now I had never met this woman, we had not had any rehearsals and I didn't even know her name, so I wasn't exactly looking forward to this 'item'. Well it turns out I needn't have worried, as she didn't turn up to sing anyway (she may well have been there, but didn't present herself for active duty), and it was decided we'd do it as a congregational song.

One wonderful thing that did happen was that a bunch of students from New College (where the Christian family lives and works) came to help out with the music. So instead of it being just me, Danielle and Bethany, we had guitar, bass guitar, cello, and violin. And even though we didn't rehearse it sounded fantastic! So instead of being a ploddy shemozzle, Shout to the Lord and Amazing Grace actually ended up being really uplifting and joyous, as they are supposed to be. I had so much fun playing with a band, with people who didn't need too much instruction, but we just all fit together and the resulting sound was wonderful, and hopefully edifying to the people who had to sing to it.

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