Scots Church Adelaide

Today I have been at the site smallchurchmusic.com. It's run by Clyde McLennan, from in Perth in Australia. He says, "For about 35 years I served as Pastor in several smaller Churches, some of which were very small new churches that were just starting. In some of these, I also doubled as the Church musician...."

There has been an excellent range of music from Together in Song, which I have been using to find tunes my congregation is familiar with. As well as snippets from hymn tunes, he has copyright licensing to assist congregations where there is no organist. It appears to be an excellent resource.

I can pick out a tune on my recorder, and teach myself to sing it. With a lot of practice I can even begin to play the tune moderately well. I’d never even consider playing in Sunday worship.

By contrast, I have a friend who can sight read music; the first verse is impressive, the second verse is “Surely he practiced this!”

I can sight read text. Give me a bible reading, unprepared , and I’ll do it well, adding expression as I go. It’s easy... except for many people, it is not. We who prepare worship know this well. People need time to practice the readings before the service. Reading in worship is hard work, and stressful.

What’s my point? When we print a liturgy in the news sheet, or throw it up on the wall, we are asking people to sight read. Essentially, we are asking them to do the Bible reading without notice.

And, we are asking them to do the Bible reading, without notice, in unison with twenty or fifty other people. It’s no wonder responsive readings sometimes sound like a verbal version of Brown’s cows! Read on >>>>

A colleague recently complained they spend as much time preparing the PowerPoint slides for Sunday service, as they do preparing the actual worship and sermon. Another spends an annoying amount of time providing a “cheat sheet” for the projector operator, who keeps getting lost during services.

This was in contrast to a third colleague, whose congregation appreciates his occasional use of the projector, but which has consciously decided not to put their whole service up on the wall.

Projectors can be brilliant.... Read on >>>>

The May 28 2009 PowerPoint from the Urban Network meeting can be found here. The Office 2007 version is much smaller... Read on >>>>

Have you ever tried to scan music or text out of a heavy bound book? My music program has a fit when I try and scan from Together in Song.  More often than not, I cannot get the page flat enough for a good scan. The binding lifts the edge of the page off the scanner. Then Vivaldi Scan can't covert the text to music. Read on >>>>

Google has a very useful service called Google Alerts (http://www.google.com.au/alerts?hl=en)

It’s like media monitoring for the rest of us! We can enter details of subject that we want updates about. We can enter something like “Scots Church” for example, and Google will send us an email at any time Scots Church ends up on the web.

I keep a watch for any mention of the Uniting Church for example, and of our websites here at Scots. But you could keep an ear out for your grandkids! Like all good things on the web, some malcontents are trying to turn Google Aerts to their own purposes. Recently I have received Google alerts which are clearly fraudulent... Read on >>>>

At home we recently rediscovered two CDs from the New Zealand Hymn Book Trust.

Singing Faith has 18 tunes for hymns by Shirley Murray. Singing Love has 27 songs from Colin Gibson.

What makes these CDs different is that there are no words. They are designed for congregations to sing to.

Secondly, each tune is preceded by a one finger rendition of the melody, then the full harmony for the number of verses in the hymn. Singing Faith is better done, as the single verse prelude is a separate track in each case.

You can read about these and others at the New Zealand Hymn Book Trust.

Archived Article >>>>

We are mostly awake to the danger of emails from strangers which promise bodily enhancement in some form! A new variety of these has recently been arriving in my InBox. People I've never heard of, are sending me emails with subject lines like this:  

No matter how you are dressed, people will know you are blessed.  

Another says:  

Andrew, God's miracles still happen.  

These are still spam. They are either seeking to (allegedly) sell us something, or to trick us into revealing details for identity theft or getting into our bank account etc.

Step One: Do not open, but delete emails from unknown senders.
Step Two: Ifthe email sounds pious, but you don't know the sender, delete unopened.
Step Three: If unsure, go to Step One. 

Archived Article >>>