I have been impressed with the class selections this year, there have been numerous times already that I've seen I'm going to have several hard choices as to which classes to choose, as there are very few repeated classes.
My first class of the morning was a class on youth choirs and working with students. It explored the whys of having a youth choir and reminded us of a lot of the things to look out for when starting working with student choirs.
Secondly, I attended a very good reading session from Praise Gathering this morning. Like with Mike speck last night, I was pleasantly surprised at the offerings from there, as I normally don't have much I can take from them. Their arrangements tend to be too big and grandiose for the small and medium choirs I've been a part of leading. I found a very good arrangement by Rouse of "He Will Carry You," A brand new Gaither piece called "In Good Hands," and a nice original Rouse piece called "Hope Remains." There were two or three other keepers as well.
After this, I had a class with Amanda Singer, one of the architects behind the reboot of the "Children's Worship Series", formerly the Children's Music Series.
Sidebar time: One of the things that was really overemphasized in this session was how the new series really focused on worship and equipping children to be active participants in worship. I'm all for that. There was almost an unspoken slam of the old curriculum, though, implying it wasn't "worship" focused. If I was one of the writers of the old stuff, man, that would really insult me. In the end, I think any of the past CMS curriculum is what the teachers make out of it. I can't see how musicals and the older "performance based curriculum" as it was referred to is any less "worshipful" that another song for our kids. Maybe I'll understand a little better if I swim in the new curriculum a bit in the days ahead and I'll be more sympathetic. I'm team LifeWay all the way, but I have a small concern that there is a bit of worshipping "worship" and not worshipping God, and teaching kids how to do the same. Does that make sense? I still love you LifeWay Music, uh I mean Worship Week. ;). Sidebar over.
Back to Amanda Singer's class. She was one smart cookie, and really had a great philosophy on children's ministry. She was a great speaker and Sharon and I both enjoyed this class. Amanda is also serving as the children's choir camp director for the week, so Nathan is experiencing her too.
Next up was Kenny Lamm's class on Worship Tools for churches with limited resources. Being somewhat in that category, I thought it was a class I shouldn't miss. Now since Kenny is a friend, I'm a bit partial, but I can say the class was very helpful. In addition to hearing about familiar tools such as LifeWay Worship and Band in a Box, I was introduced to some even better featured apps and software I had never heard of, such as ISingWorship, an app that has some amazing tools for virtual band, such as on the fly changes to the ordering of verses and choruses, etc. Frankly that blew my mind.
Worship today was a great experience. Michael Catt, the conference pastor and Pastor for Sherwood Church, the church that brought us the movies Fireproof, Flywheel, Facing the Giants, et.al. brought a great message on how churches today are grieving the Holy Spirit by specific actions. His first point was that churches grieve the Holy Spirit by running itself like a business. That hit home a bit. Some other sound bytes (paraphrased) are that we "treat God's Word like junk mail," and condemned legalists by saying they often "sleep with The Constitution and Bylaws under their pillow." He pulled no punches, like when referring to the difficult people who constantly put tradition and ritual ahead of God's Word even when scripture clearly countered their argument by saying that we shouldn't "waste time arguing with idiots, just politely thank them and ignore them." A bit harsh, but he's got a point. He also hit home when he said prayer should not be a transition point for flow, but always should be treated as an intimate encounter with God. Good stuff.
Shannon Wexelberg was the guest artist this evening. She is a super talented song writer, vocalist, and pianist. I've been connected with her for years through a song she wrote for the musical "A Christmas Prayer,, but it was nice to finally hear her in person. Very touching and intimate time of music making.
On a personal note, we have had some disappointments with the child care and day camp programs this year. Once today we were told to hike to the top of the hill to pick up Nathan only to find he was not there but at another location. Sharon went to drop off Ginny this morning and the teachers said they couldn't receive kids until 15 minutes after Sharon's class started, which was not what the program had said, plus their supervisor was nowhere to be found. Nathan also had a bad experience this evening with his teachers this evening too. Having kids at two different pickup locations at opposite ends of the highest part of the campus has been a cruel physical punishment for parents. We've thought about just taking Nathan with us to the adult classes at some point to save some of that walking. This was Nathan tonight at the concert as proof:
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