Kings Church Worship Blog

Hi everyone – sorry it’s been such a long gap since I posted anything – basically we have just launched a new site at lee and that has somewhat exploded my diary! Anyway here goes;

Well we seem to have quite a lot of feedback on the whole thing of songs – so here are a few more things that I think we have learnt.

Basically music and worship can be very controversial in church – everyone has an opinion. Probably more than anything, people have a strong view on style – the style of music. Actually having a strong opinion is fine, it can be a really good thing, the problem in church is when we dress it up as something spiritual. All of us like different types of music and often therefore different worship music styles – that is totally fine. The key however is that we remember that these are simply preferences. I don’t believe that any one style of music is more spiritual than another – I think God created all of it. Like all things it can be turned and used in the wrong way – but fundamentally all styles are a gift and reflect something of God’s remarkable creativity.

Ok – so the big question is what style of music should we use in worship in a church? I have thought a lot about this over the last 15 years or so, and have a view which I want to share with you.  Basically I believe that there should be 2 main things which influence the style issue.

Firstly – if the worship team are here to serve the people in the church (rather than themselves and fulfilling all their own musical ambitions) we need to look at who is in the church. Our church is extremely diverse in age, background and ethnicity – that means I believe that our style of music needs to reflect this. Now we are still growing in this one and have definitely not arrived – but our aim is to try and pitch it somewhere, so that everyone can relate and connect to the music we use in some way. To a degree it means everyone needs to compromise. One of the things this has meant for us is a leaning towards learning to play more gospel songs – this is often more musically challenging, but it’s good. It doesn’t mean that we end up playing straight ahead gospel all the time – it means we need to broaden and incorporate that more and more. What’s really interesting is that a lot of the new material we are writing is a real blend of styles – I know it sounds a little cliché, but I am believing that we will find something of a new sound which fits our church.

Ok – that’s the first big influence, however its not the only one – I will tell you about the other one in the next post

Cheers

Phil

When I was about 13 I went to a bible week called the Dales bible week – I’d come from a traditional church background and was only just beginning to become aware of someone called the Holy Spirit. What I experienced that week as a 13 year old I realise now looking back has shaped my life ever since – the main thing I remember from that week was just the dawning realisation that God was in the room. God was not far away and distant, but alive and active – it came full in to focus for me! I realise that that experience left a residue in me, a longing for worship to always be about presence and encounter. Now I know that we have to be careful – worship approached wrongly can become just about an “experience” which can be very subjective and more about consuming than honouring. I know that, and we need to be cautious that we do this right. That said however, if we’re honest, it’s moments when you sense that God is there, that he is listening, speaking, close, which change our lives – for me a least, that’s what this is about.

Have a good week

Phil

One of the things that we have come to value highly is simply the value of “team”.  Now when I say that I don’t mean by that the idea that creating a team is a better and more effective way of getting things done – although I do think that is true! What I mean is I really enjoy just being a part of this team – I like the people, I love their hearts and really enjoy their gifting – they are good to be around!

Now this kind of thing doesn’t happen just by chance – I think you have to build team. It means that we try to do things which encourage not only just good musicianship, but real connection. I’ve always believed that when you are involved in a “task” together (whatever it is)just be default you will produce a degree of community together – it just happens naturally. What we try to do is take advantage of that and encourage it.

What does that mean? It means that when we rehearse its really important that there are moments when we stop what we are doing and simply have some time to catch up, ask around the circle how things are and  hopefully pray together. It means that on a Sunday morning the team arrive earlier so we can take some time out to get breakfast together (when I asked the team what they thought were some of the things we do well together – breakfast was right up there!) It means that we talk with the team about the value of belonging to one another, of looking out for and taking responsibility for each other.

I remember talking to a friend of mine who used to be in our worship team who then moved to another part of the country – his comment to me when they had left was how much he missed “the team”. The worship team was where he had friends, where he felt at home, and where he got the buzz of doing something together which served people and pleased God – that’s what we are after!

Phil

Well here you go our first ever post on the worship blog – we’ve talked about this for quite a while and finally we’ve got here!

Basically the idea of the blog is that we wanted a way of just journaling some of things we have learnt and are still learning about being worship team together in a growing multicultural church. We are going to be posting some very basic recordings of some of the new songs we are writing, pointing you towards some worship resources that we have found helpful, and generally putting anything up here that we think might be helpful if you are involved in worship in your local church.

Over the next few weeks and months myself along with Nathan Prime (worship and vocal team leader at Kings) will be writing about different aspects of building a worship team that we have come to value highly. At the same time we are unleashing Neal Glanville and Sean Nelson to journal some of the things they are learning about worship as they do a year of training with us.

Ok,  I think that’s about it – if you haven’t heard it yet please have a listen to Justin’s song “Worthy Is The Lamb” – its very strong!

We hope you find the blog helpful and it brings Glory to Him!

Cheers.

Phil

(Phil Varley is amongst other things the Worship pastor at Kings Church)