A little over a week ago I was a presenter in a small group (ok, it was for 4 other bass players!) breakout session for a regional worship arts seminar at a small Christian college. It was their first (and hopefully annual!) seminar. Overall, the event was well organized and well paced. It was a long day, but, overall, for a first-time event, I give it a solid “A”. There were a few things I would offer as suggestions for the future (lack of pre-event communications being chief among them), but I was pleasantly surprised by the overall event.
That said…
On a side note and digression from this post, my being a critic of all things around me (even myself most of the time) was challenged a bit during today’s sermon where Pastor Aaron spoke about being judgmental. I will, of course, pass my critiquing everything around me as not following this “being judgmental” mindset, but, of course, one tends to always justify one’s own actions…
It was interesting. The particular college I was at is starting a Contemporary Christian Music program. It’s currently VERY fledgling and really not even a program. It’s 2 small music groups that minister at various local/regional events. The head of the music program spoke to the 50ish people in the room about some of the thought processes for the future of the program. He talked about rather than a traditional senior recital as required by participants in the “regular” music programs, the graduate would have to coordinate/develop a worship set/program and even potentially (gasp!) write a song. And then, they would “perform” that set as their recital.
I leaned over to the person sitting next to me who knows me quite well and remarked, “We did that BEFORE we were even IN college!”
This is in reference to Life Forever/LF, the band I was a part of starting in junior high. We developed our own programs (for chili suppers, youth groups, Sun. PM services, camps, etc.) and even (GASP!) wrote our own songs long before we graduated from high school, mush less college.
Now, I will make 2 statements following that paragraph…
ONE. I will make no guarantee that the programs were the best that music had to offer. We were young. Largely self taught. Largely self directed. And rarely had critical thoughts on what we were producing. We used Christian cliches, obvious/predictable rhymes and the music itself wasn’t very cohesive. BUT, we did it.
TWO. We WERE young and self taught and self directed. We were field by our own passions and dreams. Not a “degree” by any means. I don’t understand how we’ve come to the point where some 35 years ago as 14-16 year olds, we were doing things that a college is only now considering as adding to their program. Is this considered revolutionary? My heart hurts at this. I suppose I should be happy that finally, something like this is happening at my Alma Mater. And yes, to some degree I am…
… but then, I listened to the 2 groups that are a part of this program. Oh, the work that needs to be done…
