They didn’t tell me about it – but glad to catch it here.

Lenee
Atlanta, GA

a valid argument, then, would be “i feel like all the focus on the awesometude of the production takes away from the God-centered focus i like to have while attending a church service. rather than worshiping God, i find myself worshiping the quality of the production, or even worshiping my own tastes or preconceived notions of how church should be.” that’s where the discussion needs to start; categorizing something simply as “not worship” is not a sensible argument, and is more likely to inflame than inform.

(note: my thoughts on this were basically lifted from the life-changing “unceasing worship” by harold best, which is such a wonderful book by such a godly man that, well, basically, you need to read it.)

In response to your comment on my site regarding the missing “over the top drummer boy” blog entry, I had to redo the post because the embedded javascript didn’t work w/ Blogger.

My revised post simply links to you.

FWIW, some of the above commentors are correct in saying that Lil’ Drummer Boy doesn’t work as worship, but I don’t think you guys were trying to pass off Lil Drummer Boy as worship. I think you were using it in a presentation/performance manner to engage the audience, and I see nothing wrong with that. An engaged audience is way better than a disconnected one that sleepwalks through service awaiting the final amen that frees them to leave and go do something interesting.

I could be wrong, but I think the question is: does high-powered, highly-produced entertainment = church. It seems to me that is what others are asking, and I’m also interested in the question.

I’m also interested in an exploration of the implications of that question, like when does ‘relevance’ and ‘speaking to the culture’ cross the line from what the church is called to do, and what individuals are called to do (i.e. pure religion as defined in james as ministering to widows and orphans) to ‘spiritualized’ entertainment?

“when you darken the room, crank the amps, and synch the professional concert lighting, you are entertaining and performing, not worshiping and leading the congregation.”

That is a different blog post entirely.

This morning was insane @ BBCC.

One of the dudes with the trashcans trashcan fell off(that reads weird oh well)… Like the rope came undone or something. He totally improv’d it and went nuts and was like holding it up high and beating on it like a mad man…..

Also, I liked Danny Dukes this morning singing it better than the other dude and buckhead.

And Finally, in my opinion, the vocal mix could have been bumped up a little bit. But thats just me.

Anyway, awesome job production peoples!

-cD

Ooo! One more! I had never seen the ornament chandeliers until this morning. Those are basically like awesome too.

It was a great little gift to give everyone as an opener. The band and production crew did a wonderful job on the 3 worship songs after it as well. I can’t say enough about the closer. The fact that Meghan’s story was told before the message and then she was able to sing about how God shows Himself to her was incredibly moving to me. I felt closer to God after it all. Thank you for your passion and the energy you are adding to the staff and volunteers.