"...it's indie or classic rock that moves our spirit."
(Tim) You all know ClearNote Church is filled with classical musicians but we worship mostly under the leadership of amplified instruments. This EP just released by our worship musicians gives you a good feel for how we're led. What distinguishes our worship leaders is that they use instrumentation and tunes and rhythms that are familiar to those who attend. We're not asked to go back into genres of previous centuries when we sing God's praises and pray.
Then too, we believe our music should be characterized by masculine zeal. The congregation should have men pushing us to express our joy and firm commitment and worship for the majesty and glory of God. Faint spirits and cold hearts are challenged when singing God's praises, here.
So you'll notice how well-matched the music and instrumentation and beat are to our goal. If you were to worship with us one Lord's Day morning, you'd notice this is how we pray and preach, also--we don't give people space for unbelief and ambivalence...
Our leaders lead, as men, proclaiming and pleading and drumming and commanding and exhorting and appealing and rebuking and confessing as the congregation eats and drinks and claps and lifts hands and kneels and cries and shouts (sometimes) and sings with abandon. Sometimes the Holy Spirit blesses us with ecstasy which is Greek for standing outside of ourselves--the summum bonum (for our non-snobbish readers, that means "highest good") of Christian adoration.
Pass the EP around and copy it in your own worship--but be forewarned that you will have to reform the worship leadership and elders board and the mothers of your congregation to do so. Still, the fruit will be so very ripe and sweet to the taste that you won't regret it. We certainly don't.
By the way, one last comment: in our day and culture--particularly its effeminacy--if we are not losing people regularly because of the manly zeal of our warnings and admonitions and rebukes as we proclaim God's Word, we're almost certainly failing in our preaching. The same with worship: if we've not lost people from our church because of the manly zeal of our direction of worship through reading and confessing and singing, we're almost certainly neither hot nor cold.
And if you tell me you don't know what I'm talking about with this "manly zeal" thing, I'll call you a clueless nincompoop or a liar--take your pick. Go to an indie or classic rock concert and watch the zeal of the musicians leading you in the cult of man; watch the listeners reciprocate with zeal. Then think of what William Law said in his seventeenth century A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life: that men who say they can't sing God's praises only need to be reminded how very well and easily they sing in the bar. To translate his point, it's indie or classic rock that moves our spirit. Thus David's wife, Michal, approves of our worship and would only think of disapproving of our classic rock concert.
Men's zeal will out in the presence of the thing they have zeal for--and you feel it.
Remember, I love everybody.
