Know where you are

Yesterday's P&W, in my humble opinion, was pretty good. So why, oh, why did my uncle, one of the ministers at my church, have to get up and say that we were quiet?! We totally were NOT quiet. Then I thought about it, he must've forgotten what church he was attending.

My uncle and the rest of my family grew up in a church whose name I will change to 1st Church of All Day Long Worship Center. 1st Church was a loud, lively, and therefore long-winded church. At any given point, a prayer, song, even the announcements could inspire spontaneous outbursts of praise. That's just how they rolled at 1st Church. Fast forward today, our church is a watering hole for newbies to Christ. There isn't a lot of shouting - mostly a lot of teaching/learning.

So the moral of this story is to know where you are. Is your church full of seniors? Don't expect them to run around the church (or stay awake until the end of service). Do you have lots of kids? Don't expect them to sit still for more than 15 minutes without entertainment. Not saying you can't get seniors to stay awake or kids to sit still, but that's your audience and it is what it is.

We may not be loud at End Times Ministries, but yesterday there was definitely participation. I say that's a win.

I know nothing (except that I named this blog appropriately)

Yesterday for P&W, we were down one praise leader, but I knew this would be the case in advance. When I know someone will be missing, I make sure I sing songs that the audience knows well. So I picked the easy, most popular songs and I'm thinking "Hey, we (the Praise team and audience) sound pretty good today, all things considered!"

After we sing the offering was collected, the announcements were read, remarks were had and then the pastor (my mom) gets ready to introduce the speaker and said we (the entire church) were dead. REALLY?! I thought we were pretty alive yesterday! I could actually hear people singing from all parts of audience. That's a rarity.

And this is why this blog is call "What I think I Know About Worship," because clearly I have no clue what's going on from the audience's perspective!

Changing my focus

I could use this post to complain about the person who ended up being our DJ (we sing to tracks so I need to have someone run audio). Or about how most of the audience, who were kids by the way, did not stand when we ask them to stand during P&W. Or how my dad, who is also on the praise team, never has the tambourine out and must cross me while I'm singing to grab 3 tambourines and proceed to pass them out in the audience. But I'm going to focus on the bright side.

P&W must've been on point yesterday because my one year old baby really seemed to be enjoying it. She smiled and danced the entire time. This is more than I can say for the older lay members. Wait, I forgot I was supposed to be focusing on the positive. One of the visitors said I had a nice voice.

Happy Monday!