Man makes orchards but God makes forests.  Did you ever see the straight lines of planted trees in an apple orchard?  Nice and even, but not a very pleasant walk.  Trees in nature, God’s handiwork, are different sizes and shapes.  They’ve been shaped by seasons and storms.  Great forests are magnificent experiences and can be visited, year after year with continual new discoveries.
In my opinion, Holy Spirit centered worship should be like that.  Worship songs, when regimentally arranged and practiced, lose some of their life.  They become cookie cutter versions of CDs previously heard.  No matter how good a CD is, it’s still a recording of a previous experience.  To duplicate it can be impressive, even educational, but also cheapening.  It’s the difference between a hand woven rug and its’ factory reproduction.  There’s a reason the one at Walmart is a quarter of the price.
     Based on this philosophy, we’ve starting a new method of worship “rehearsals.”  Rather than traditional worship practices, we’re having Weekly Jam Sessions.  We’ve already tried this once or twice.  Musicians bring worship stuff they’d like to teach, learn or play.  We’ll learn some new songs, but in the context of enjoying them and worshipping with them while teaching each other what we know.  Musicians will be able to stop and work out chord progressions or rhythm styles, without playing a song to death by the time we play it publicly.  In the midst of these times, hopefully we can pick out the songs that seem to have fuel for our fire.
     Worship has a unique dimension here.  Nearly everything is sang in two languages, English and Russian.  Of course, there are people of other languages in our base, but everyone speaks one or both of these languages.  While I’m no fan of Cultural Imperialism, it made things easier leading worship.
The negative side is that we can’t introduce a new song, unless we can get a Russian translation.  The Russian speakers won’t be able to participate.  While we have translators, converting song lyrics is more complicated than regular translation.  The new words have to fit the rhythm and phrasing of the melody.  
I’d like to see more songs written by Ukrainians and Russians in their native
tongues that we have to translate into English.  God bless Australia, but we shouldn’t rely on English speaking countries for our worship music when God is doing great things here, in the lives of this Slavic people.  Every revival in modern church history grew a crop of new hymns or worship songs.  I think it’s time to see something planted here.

¶ 2:17 PM

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