RE: [Worship] Getting Comfortable

["Tim Miller" <tim@wriimage.com>]

Good comments on this post.

We also have to get a feel for the way in which a congregation embraces
the new song. Sometimes they grab onto a new song and wham-bang, it's
become an expression really giving voice to what their hears want to
say. Occasionally a song just doesn't cut it for one reason or another. 

Then sometimes the congregation embraces a song, but to fill a different
slot than I intended it to. We recently introduced Jami Smith's "Only
You Satisfy." My intent was to kick it some and use it as a medium to
upbeat song as more of a call to worship or as a transition into a more
intimate worship time. The team really did a nice job with it, though by
the time we'd made it ours, it had lost its drive and turned into a
medium song for sure. We've done it now 3-4 times. The congregation has
embraced it, but when we do it, they just quiet down and prayerfully
listen. They hardly sing. We didn't intend it to be a "sing over the
congregation" type song, but that's how they embraced it.

I have three choices.

1) Drop the song because it isn't doing what I had intended

2) Keep trying to get the congregation to match up to my expectations,
but goading them and reworking the song until we all "get it right"

3) Use the song in the way the congregation resonates with it

I'll take number three and match the tool to its use.

-Tim Miller
Zion Chapel
Goshen, IN


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