A Rock Band…In The Sanctuary?
This is part six in what will become a series of posts following the creation and evolution of SHINE, a contemporary worship service at Glenwood Presbyterian Church. You can find the table of contents here.
After our debut performance at the Glenwood Presbyterian Church July 4th Cookout (which actually took place on Sunday, July 2nd, 2006 – so not only was the name of the event unbearably long, it was also inaccurate, but I digress) Christian Endeavor was giddy with their newfound fame. Ideas started coming out of the woodwork for what goals we could accomplish next…
To: Brian
From: Kevin
July 3, 2006Hey Brian,
Let’s start planning for the October outdoors event – what kind of set(s) would we like to do? What will serve as a stage platform? Who could help us design a portable “riser” with a few pieces of lumber and plywood from Lowes? I know what we could do for lighting, should this become an evening event (some portable floodlights I have access to).
Let’s start planning for a Sanctuary number; first a quiet performance number to dampen the shock value of a rock band in church; and later an actual group number. How about the last hymn of the morning, with the congregation standing, so everyone will truly understand that they are supposed to sing along. What if we were to come up with a projection screen somehow (I could put together the powerpoint). On a more basic level, we will need some longer cables if we would like to set the board up in the back left corner. But moving a couple of pews should be no problem, of course.
I was really pleased with the turn-out yesterday. This proves there is indeed a lot of life and vitality in that neighborhood that can be attracted to Glenwood. It occurs to me that we should have more events like that – maybe begin blending in a devotion to accompany the free food, games and entertainment (noting that yesterday’s event went off without so much as a prayer, I don’t think). Could all of this evolve into a contemporary service or Bible Study at some point? – lure a crowd in with free food, gradually convert mere “attendees” into actual “participants” and “members”
Christian Endeavor was practicing fairly regularly (usually once a week) now and we decided the best plan would be to learn a few songs that could be done in a Sunday Morning worship setting without knocking some of our older members out of the pews. We did have other requests to play, however…
To: Kevin
From: Brian
July 17, 2006We are having an “Invite-a-Friend” Sunday at church on August 20th. We have had a request that CE play at the luncheon to follow the worship service. I don’t really feel like we would be ready quite that soon with new songs, but I wanted to pass it along as an option and I took it as a compliment that some folks were eager to hear us again. Or maybe they were thinking, “Surely that can’t be that bad a second time!” Just kidding – we have certainly generated a “buzz” which was one of our goals.
We ended up not playing at the Invite-A-Friend event, but continued practicing towards playing on a Sunday morning. Kevin had the suggestion that we could rent an AV projector and project our lyrics on a big screen above the stage. And our bass player problem was solved – Josh graciously agreed to play bass while Sammie Jo would continue to play acoustic rhythm guitar.
To: Kevin
From: Josh
July 19, 2006Hey Kev, listen, this is my thought toward the bass, if it’s music it’s ok with me, if it’s an instrument it’s great with me. The bass is just as great as the guitar and I would be honored to play it. It was the instrument I started playing first when I was a kid, THEN I turned my
attention to guitar. Bass is great and I’m down for it, I look forward to practice on Thursday…besides this completes all the requirements for a Webster’s definition of a band– band (n)-ensemble of musicians joined together to make music; traditionally guitar, bass, drums, vocals and/or piano.
Call us a fully functional band as of….now.
Within a couple of weeks, Josh would disappear and I would never see him again. I am not making this up.
Actually, he left the band to go back to college at Appalachian State. But I really never saw him again. And we didn’t have a bass player again.
We did end up performing three or four songs as part of Glenwood’s morning worship service on September 10, 2006. We set up the band on the left front side of the sanctuary and our performance went well. We didn’t get around to renting the projector for the powerpoint lyrics, but we had at least cracked into the legitimate worship of the church. The biggest compliment that I heard was that our music was “upbeat but reverent.” I thought about starting a petition to get our band’s name changed to this, but decided I wouldn’t have the votes.
In any event, Christian Endeavor was about to receive a daunting assignment from the church which would require all of our energies…
