Worship Update | Musical Breadth: Pipe Organ to Electric Guitars & Gospel

musicalbreadth

If you attend our church (FPC Augusta, GA) you may wonder what Mike’s favorite style is. (And you will probably never hear him verbally claim one…the older he gets I’m not sure he even has one, he truly loves them all.) You may also wonder what style of music our church seeks to do, and spend any time in either the a.m. or evening service and you may not be able to grasp it. When they hired Mike on as assistant music and arts director, little did they know how many styles constantly swim in his head. Nor did they realize he’d be willing to pull out both electric guitars in the evening but also play classical in the morning, or arrange for the organ.

I (Allie) have sometimes struggled with lack of decision on this front. It sometimes makes my head spin when Mike will pull of a gospel night right on the heels of a celtic night or a modern worship set. Don’t get me wrong I LOVE it all, but as the pianist asked to attempt all these styles, sometimes I am a little less than willing. But all styles matter and it all holds an important place in our congregation.

As the body of Christ, we are hardly one singular thing, and by diversifying the music in our worship services, we mirror God and get to experience his different attributes.

Confession: I am shamefully the first to roll my eyes when Mike says hey honey you’re playing Gospel piano this week and honestly in my own insecurities I say: “What? could you not get someone else?!” This probably says something about my willingness or lack there of to serve, which perhaps is a whole different topic/blog post.

I digress…Truth is the Lord is teaching me so much about how amazing it is when I step out of my comfort zone and let the Lord work through my feeble attempts. In fact, he constantly surprises me and frankly I’ve had the most fun on those services when I’m dragging myself to the plate and saying WOW do something Lord, because I don’t have it!

Recently we stumbled upon this video and it is worth a watch. It explains everything we personally stand for. All music styles speak to the different aspects of God and we should be accomplishing them all, not for the sake of appeasing the squeaky wheels in our congregations, but to honor every aspect of the God we worship!

Enjoy and to God be the glory in whatever style we play in whatever way we sing!

Thoughts on being a jar lid loosener

jar

We have all had that moment. You try and try to open a jar. Some jar’s are just stubborn.

You twist with all your might. You soak the jar in hot water. You beat it against the counter (does that even work?). You use a rubber glove. Despite your best efforts, the Jar is stuck.

Grrr.

Maybe your in the middle of a recipe, and you’ve been humming along, and this moment of frustration just brings everything to a halt.

You sheepishly hand it over to the next person who walks into the kitchen, and…

>POP<

It’s open. Isn’t it frustrating when you have worked SO hard, and someone else swoops in and gets the glorious moment?

“I opened it!” Your jar opener announces.

“Hmm…well I loosened it for you, I guess.”

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Music We Like | Indelible Grace

If you have heard of the name Indelible Grace points to you. If you have googled them double points. If you have geeked out on their documentary then you know this group is worth knowing and following. If you are a PCAer and you have not done these things listed, seriously shameful. I mean that from the bottom of my non-southern, say it like it is heart.

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Basically Indelible Grace re-awakened hymns for a modern generation. Creating a conversation and new context where hymns could be re-loved. From their website: “Our hope is to help the church recover the tradition of putting old hymns to new music for each generation, and to enrich our worship with a huge view of God and His indelible grace.”

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Enter: Molly.

She came in a whirl wind. Really. Much to the labor and delivery nurses’ dismay, I delivered her before the doctor could even get there.

But it wasn’t just her arrival into this world that came with fierceness. In many ways she was like the grumbling thunder in the storm. A strong force felt and heard, but not seen. The whole time I was pregnant with Molly it was like she wasn’t coming at all.

Mentally I could not grasp it.

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We had only been in our new town for a year. A new city that I was just acclimating to. A new life that I am only now adjusting to. I am a SLOW processor.

Her middle name is Grace. Which is more about a lesson for myself than about her. I realized at the time that it was a word I most needed in my life. It was something I realized I had never learned to give to myself, and the thought of having a daughter before grasping the concept was a scary one.

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