“Does God intend us to merely listen to music—or to sing ourselves?”
“I don’t sing very well, so isn’t it better for me to just listen to the music during worship?”
Well, whether you sing well or not, check out the latest Breakpoint commentary from Chuck Colson about this topic, and let’s lift up our voices together and sing praises to God Most High!
hillsong-united-look-to-you-album-cover
Hey there members of Gracepoint Fellowship Church, Berkeley! We did this survey a long time ago but I’d like to bring it back. What is your favorite song to sing during worship times? OR What songs would you like to sing? Please leave a comment with your favorite song title and artist as your feedback is important! I will compile the stats for the top 10 songs and artists submitted.
In case you haven’t noticed, we are developing a resources section here at our Gracepoint Worship blog. For those of you who have been bummed that there’s no keyboard MYT this summer, we are publishing our own keyboard tutorial videos, made by our very own Dominic! He’s currently serving as our keyboardist at Gracepoint Fellowship Church Austin, Gracepoint Berkeley’s sister church. Here’s the fourth installment of the series. Check out the Resources Page for more videos!
Here is a story contributed by our David Lee, our Gracepoint Fellowship Church, Austin worship leader.
“…as I lead the austin band, there was one sunday where john lin was leading and we were getting ready to do our closing song which was a new one. During invitation time one of his students comes to the front and he goes to pray with him. P.manny then tells everyone that we’d be closing w/ a final song. John is still praying and ppl are looking at me waiting for me to start the song. I’m standing there with my guitar and start strumming the intro when I realize that I forgot how the song goes; so I stop, walk over to dom and ask him how the song goes and he gives me a blank stare as if to say “ur on ur own”. Finally, john walks to the front and we resume after much laughter. Luckily henry wasn’t recording.”
I have learned an important lesson regarding choosing praise sets – though the words are very, very important, I need to think about more than just the words when I prepare a set.
Potential problems that can happen if I only think about the words:
1) a fun rock-style song followed by a Celtic-style song followed by a somber hymn
2) 3 or 4 songs that are all difficult to play and all the instrumentalists (including myself) are wondering why we decided to play so many difficult songs at one time
3) 3 or 4 really boring sounding songs – words might be great, but everyone wants to go to sleep
Those are just some examples. I think this lesson became really clear for me one Sunday during run-through when we were working on “In Christ Alone” – the one that goes – “In Christ alone, my hope is found. He is my light, my strength, my song…” As we were practicing I just realized, “um, this song is kind of difficult to play. Are we together or all off-beat? Do we have any dynamics going on? Etc.” And I just felt like, “wow, I hope we make it through today’s set.”
So, after that weekend, as much as I might really like the lyrics of a song, I look at the bigger picture and look at other factors – how it sounds musically, how it will be for us instrumentally, how it fits with the other songs, etc.
Susan Iskandar – Gracepoint Hsinchu Taiwan Worship Leader
Ever wonder why the Gracepoint Fellowship Church praise band sometimes looks like secret service agents with those headphones sticking out of one ear? If you’ve never seen them then you haven’t been looking closely and that’s good because you should be focusing on praising God anyways! 
Anyhow, the in ear monitors are basically as is described. Instead of the typical monitors, speakers that sit in front of the stage, we use wireless packs which our headphones plug into. The music is now plugged directly into our ears and this allows the singers and instrumentalists to hear ourselves while on stage. The coolest part about it is that we can choose to turn up or down whatever instrument or other singers in the band. It’s like creating my own personal mix on Sundays!
Summer has arrived and home worship services are now in full swing here at Gracepoint Berkeley, where every Sunday, groups of 30-50 people are squeezing into our members’ homes around Alameda to meet for worship service.
What this means for Gracepoint worship is that each home worship group, using whatever talent they have, is basically learning to lead praise at a small church this summer! No more pro-presenter, no more awesome stage design, and no more cool moving lights. Enter the bongo drum, shaker, and acoustic guitar, like Steven and Joe did this past week at their Koinonia home worship service.
So come join us at one of our many locations this summer to worship in our new, yet old-school, worship format. Who knows, maybe we’ll even bring back the overhead projector and handwritten transparencies!
For those who have been attending our home worship services, comment here on how they’ve been going!
Here is Mike from the Gracepoint Fellowship Church Berkeley Worship Team teaching Where the Love Lasts Forever by Hillsong United.
For your enjoyment, looks like he’s going to be just like his dad! Feel free to Comment!
The opening video from Hillsongs 2007 Conference. It’s creative and very moving, the build from bittersweet symphony to Amazing Grace w/ Chris Tomlin is pretty awesome…enjoy!
