Inspiration...

DI Day 05 Report by Jacqui Mitchell

One wet Saturday morning in October…

What would you do on a wet Saturday morning in October? Fourteen (mad?) people from Lutterworth put childcare, car washing and shopping aside, climbed into their cars and headed north up the M1 to the Riverside Centre in Derby. It was DI-DAY 05 on ‘Ancient Future Worship’ and we were going to be there. Most of us didn’t really know of the significance of our trip, but there was a definite buzz of excitement as we sacrificed our Saturdays for a voyage of discovery.

Have you ventured into another room?

The first session was a plenary by Phil Norris on Ancient Future Worship: Enjoying the Whole House. Within the context of worship being a 24/7 experience, he defined worship as what we do when we gather as a church. This includes song, prayer, the Eucharist, the Word of God, all of which fuels our 24/7 worship.

We were reminded that our God did not start with our church movement in the 60s, but rather that we have a big God and a big history. We are part of the whole Christian movement which dates right back into ancient history, and passes through many traditions. The part of Phil’s talk that most impacted me personally was the image of our church tradition being in just one room of a house of many rooms: he suggested that we may wish to visit other rooms, and learn from the way they do things, for example the Taize singing and meditation or other ways of celebrating the Eucharist.

Creative worship

Gill Sakakini took the next session on creative worship. In it, she showed us how we can deliver messages through the visual medium and our surroundings. She encouraged us with photos of uninspiring rooms and how these had been adorned in order to inspire, teach and glorify God. She showed us how imagery can take us closer to the otherness of God.

Small groups

After a fantastic spread of lunch we split into small groups for 2 workshop sessions. There was a wide choice, ranging from vocal workshops to introducing changes on a Sunday morning. I went to the classical instruments workshop by Colin Andrews, followed by Gill Sakakini’s creativity workshop. The first one involved a collection of instrumentalists, mostly flautists, improvising all at the same time. ‘Run away!’ I hear you thinking, but no, Colin had us all in order, and managed to herd us into a reasonably tuneful cacophony. In Gill’s workshop, we got into small groups with pen and paper and thought about how we might change our Sunday morning layout.

Worship

Of course, we couldn’t end a DI-DAY without an enthusiastic and inspiring time set aside for worshipping God. A fab end to a fab day. But not the end of the day’s influence…

One wet Sunday morning in Lutterworth…

What would you do on a wet Sunday morning in Lutterworth? Well, we’d be at Lutterworth Community Church, worshipping God. This time, the chairs set out to help us focus on a table, upon which a gift was placed to help us consider our gifts from God. We can honestly say we have been envisioned, prepared, and enthused - ready to learn from old and new - on our creative adventure with God.

Jacqui is married to Julian and they have two small children, Charlotte and Elsie. She is a mum at home and also jointly runs a tree surgery business with Julian. In her ‘spare time’ she is working on her MBA degree with the Open University. Jacqui plays a variety of flutes and whistles at church or anywhere else really and her party piece is playing a scale on a beer bottle.

for vocalists

Vocalists are important! Go grab a Bible and read 1 Chron 22: 5 - we are building something of great magnificence for the Lord. It's the little things that make the difference between being Ok and being excellent.

There is something about singing which is universal, everyone does it. For babies and young children there is something about singing words and not speaking them that they can comprehend. For older children and adults, music makes our words memorable - think about all the different rhymes for letters of the alphabet, colours of the rainbow, musical notation...

Your role is to:

• Provide musical direction - in terms of leading, you are second to the worship leader - people are looking at you for a strong lead, in turn giving them security and enabling them to think less about "what should I be singing?" and more about who they are singing to
• Provide depth and colour to the songs - to bring harmonies and melodies, light and shade, contrast, atmosphere and style to the music
• Help visitors and new people learn songs
• Support  the congregation in praise when some may be finding it hard to focus on the Lord - read the story of Aaron and Hur supporting Moses' hands...

We're not just 'backing (or 'background'!)singers but we also need humility and sense of team.

more...Caring for and Warming up your Voice