Worship Ministry Notes
Andrew Cashner, Catalyst for Worship and Creative Arts
ACOUSTIC BLANKETS. Why are there two giant black blankets hanging in the sanctuary? These are acoustic blankets designed to absorb sound and reduce reverberation. Our sanctuary was originally built as a photography studio for trucks, without much concern for acoustics. The result is a nasty flutter echo that can make things hard to hear clearly, both speech and music. I want to make sure our worship services communicate the good news clearly to everyone. Thanks to Ben King for building brackets and installing our first two acoustic blankets! Our first step is just to get the blankets up and see if that fixes the problem or if we need more panels or other treatments. Once we fix the audio problem, I'll want to see if we can make these more visually appealing, and I welcome ideas from our artistic and creative people!
JOIN THE WORSHIP TEAM AND TECH TEAM! We are always looking to include more people in the Worship Team and Tech Team. The purpose of the Worship Ministry is to lead the church in weekly and occasional times of worship, in which we praise and thank God, hear the word of God read and proclaimed, call on God in prayer, receive God's grace through the sacraments, and as a a community, offer ourselves in commitment to serve God in the world. The Worship Team leads those times of worship through music sung and played, Scripture reading, and prayer. Their first job is to support congregational singing to help people connect with God through the service; but the sky is the limit for the amount of additional creativity and artistry that we can add, according to the gifts given by the Spirit, to inspire people and glorify our Creator.
WORSHIP TEAM participants play or sing in the service as often as they are able to (it doesn't have to be every week), and meet to rehearse and prepare before those services. We typically meet on Thursday nights, 6:30-8pm in the sanctuary, and on Sunday mornings, 8:30am before the service. You only need to come to rehearsals on the weeks you are going to help lead the service, and all of this can be worked out according to your needs.
We welcome people of a variety of ability and experience levels, ages, and cultural backgrounds - in fact our ministry depends on that kind of diversity. If you are interested and care about worship, I can teach you the skills you need. If you have a more Classical background (like me) and are more comfortable reading music, I can accommodate that; and I can help you stretch into playing more by ear and improvising. Or if you don't read a note I can work with that, too! Also, if you feel like the current Worship Team never plays music in the style that you like to play (or language you like to sing in, etc.), that may be just because you are not yet on the team! Join us and help shape the sound and feel of worship at New Hope. Contact me at music@newhopefree.org to let me know you're interested, or just come on a Thursday night and check it out.
TECH TEAM participants make it possible for everyone to see and hear the service, in person and online. This includes setting up microphones and loudspeakers, running the mixer (sound board), creating the song lyrics slides and displaying them in time on the projector, and setting up lights and cameras and producing the livestream broadcast. Just like with singers and instrumentalists, there is a place for people with different levels of experience and ability. This is primarily a Sunday-morning-only commitment (rehearsal at 8:30am), and does not need to be every week. The current team members and I can train you on our systems. Many people experience our church for the first time through the livestream, and for some people it is their only way to join us, but not one sound or sight will reach them without a strong and committed tech team. If you care about worship and you are technically inclined, and enjoy being behind the scenes, please consider helping out with this vitally important area.
