Visiting other churches, part two

It was close to four years ago that I moved back to Oregon from Washington state. I was single at the time, and looking for a new church home. I visited several churches in and around my new/old “home town”. One of the churches I visited  was a newer church, but housed in the same building as the church I was baptised in thirty years ago! I was greeted warmly as I entered the main building, and got a nice firm handshake. Another person asked if I was a coffee drinker, and asked if they could get me a cup. A THIRD person handed me a bulletin, introduced themself, and shook my hand again. Wow! this is going well, I thought to myself.

I made my way into the sanctuary and found a seat. The sanctuary, while not huge, was large enough, painted stark white, with natural wood trim. There were potted plants, and some ficus trees. The church had no pews, opting for plush chairs instead, and they were comfy. As more folks made their way into the sanctuary, the worship team went to the platform. No suits and ties, these guys and gals were wearing  jeans and shirts, casual but clean. being a musician, I pay special attention to this stuff, and watched with interest as they tuned their instruments, and then had a short “huddle ” prayer.

As they started playing, I became very interested, and was very impressed. Two acoustic electric guitar players, a bass player, a drummer, and a keyboard player, and everybody sang. The two guitarists traded lead vocals. One of these was a female. There was also a female playing keyboards. The vocals were very good, and the harmonies were tight. Both guitarists were better than average, and their playing styles complimented each other, and the music. The bass player played a good steady bottom line, but took a fill every so often. The drummer played rock solid, and the keyboardist played solid parts without being too busy.

The service was contemporary, and they played several popular worship songs, and a few that were “radio current”. I was really enjoying myself, and so was the congregation. Transitions between songs were seamless, and there was just the right amount of talking in between a couple of the songs. I had to talk to these people after the service, and find out what they did, because whatever they were doing…it was working!

When the service was over, I made my way up to the platform. I introduced myself to the worship leader, a nice guy named Chad. We chatted for a few minutes, and I asked him point blank how he was able to get the quality that he and the worship team produced. I’ll never forget what he told me.

” We have a lot of fun together” he told me, “we do stuff together away from church, twice a month. We have played together for a while now, and we work hard at what we do – we rehearse twice a week, and then an hour on sunday mornings. Most of us take lessons, because we love this.” He went on to tell me about how they audition prospective team members, and the reasons why they did it the way they did. I was impressed, both because what he said made total sense, AND because he backed up what he said with scripture.

I had another opportunity to visit that same church last year, and was pleasantly surprised to see three of the five musicians I met still on the platform. If anything, these guys had gotten even better!

Love the Lord, love your instrument, learn them both!