Semper Reformanda Records Signs Ish
April 19th, 2007 by The management | Posted in Announcments, Ministry Philosophy, New Music
One of our contributers, Dan Price’s band Ish was just signed to Semper Reformada Records and they conducted an excellent interview with him.
I found questions 4 and 7 to be particularly good.
If a young musician felt called to become a lead worshiper for their church, what advice would you give them to help in their preparation and education?
I’d want them to be theologically astute and culturally tuned enough to explain their song selections on a biblical and practical basis.
I would also hope that they would understand that their service itself is worship, even if they sometimes don’t “feel” God’s presence etc…’
I also encourage all of our guys to write songs. Sometimes the songs aren’t that great and we don’t use them, sometimes they work out well, but I try to get at least one song out of every band each year and some bands end up with 6-10 songs which is great.
Worship is sometimes a contentious subject in the church, what key factors from a leadership perspective have helped the elders and congregation of Riverview get beyond this?
We unapologetically target young here. This means that the music sometimes is weird and loud and we ask that people who don’t like this, to sacrifice their preferences for the sake of our mission. It’s not much of an issue anymore. If your 50 years old and your 18 year old kid is into church, you’re usually pretty happy. Of course we do have an old timey folk gospel band (Folksplosion) that plays, and we get complements from the olders and youngers when they play. Targeting young means trying different things now-there’s not just one kind of music that people like. Go on myspace and you’ll see people that love Willie Nelson and Death Cab for Cutie too. I think things would be more stale if we just stuck with one kind of music like a Chris Tomlin (love the guy) cover band, which is what I did for quite a while.
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I think you are right. I have been playing worship for a bit over 30 years. I play electric guitar and have the most fun jamming with the youth band on “10″. From choir to folk mass to all types of contemporary music, worship is meant to engage us with the living God. From Sanctus to Kutless and things more metallic, it is about the offering we make to God with the music and what He can turn it into. Thank God it is the anointing and not the style that makes it worship. Rock on!