Music Practice

I had forgotten how painful it can be. We had to practice 4 songs tonight for Friday nights youth surge. The others on the team play together often enough but I had never sung with them. This was not a huge drama as I was familiar with most of the songs.

When a singer goes to music practice, she shows up approximately on time (or as near as circumstances allow) and waits while everybody else sets up and tunes their instruments. Then we decide which song to practice first and how many times to do what, this is of interest to the singer so she listens. Then talk moves to who plays which parts, who comes in where, which bits are loud and soft, four or eight bar intro, what chords everyone is doing. The singer is not generally included in this discussion and, understanding little of it, tunes it out. After several minutes of discussion, the music starts, the singer begins at what sounds like the right time, and we are off. About three quarters of the way through the song, the musicians cut out (by agreement) and the singer tries not to falter and hopes it is not because she made a mistake. Happily shortly the music begins again and she is relieved to know it was a "building technique". After the song is sung through once, the musicians begin the "who made which mistake where?" and "I thought we were doing this here" and "maybe if we try this" and so we sing again. If it is a song we are comparatively familiar with, it will end there. However if there is disagreement, confusion, unfamiliarity or lack of concentration, the song (or part thereof) will be repeated several more times.

This is for every one of the four or five songs. Now I do understand that the Musical planning and discussion and co-ordination is important and it would sound TERRIBLE and be a waste of time if there wasn't any, I just wish singers were slightly included in this. I know we are not necessarily understanding of the musical instruments and jargon, but we do understand build and pulling back, the power of just singing, how many times we can repeat the same dopey phrase without strangling somebody. Also I am appreciating the value of a team leader who firstly leads, and secondly understands musical instruments (obviously not me).

Church Camps

I went on the church camp for the church I have been going to for 7 Sundays including the camp weekend. It was a family camp and really good teaching and a very good social and learning experience. It was hard though and this is why.

1) Though I have been on camps by myself before and even to ones knowing nothing and nobody prior to attending, they were leader camps where we were running kids programs so we got to know each other while working side by side. Also they were ALL 18 to 25 and NONE of them had children so one could converse for more then 5 minutes without interruption or distraction.

2) I had only been to the church meeting 6 times before so I had not met many people before. Because they all seemed to have been at the church for 1000 yrs, and I am not the shy and retiring type, I met lots of people who came to find out who I was. This is really good and the reason I was so keen to go, a wise person once said "You can achieve in relationships in one weekend at church camps what takes 6 months of Sunday meetings to achieve." However it does become tiring to constantly do the 20 questions conversation.

3) I did not have any family there, and I only knew one family there for more then one or two weeks. If I stayed close to them, that restricts my movement and socialness and also puts a burden on their family.

I spent all of Saturday meeting new people and meeting kids and doing creche and listening to talks and wandering around finding people to talk too and playing board games and by dinner time I was tired. I sat at a table feeling lonely in a crowd and wishing that a mum or a sister was here so that I could not be by myself and not have to do anything so tiring and find stuff out about people. I realized that in spite of convincing myself otherwise, tears were on their way so I went and hid somewhere for a private cry. I was SO tired of not knowing anyone.

On my way to my dorm in search of a hanky, I came across a couple I had met the week before who sat with me and were VERY nice and looked after me beautifully.

I now have much respect for the single people who went to our church camps without their families because I told them church camps were really good.

Bible Study 2

I have been to church twice here and tonight was my second bible study night. I would recommend bible study to EVERYONE. I love the time to open the bible and learn from God and each other. I love the time to get to know other Christians and to hear about their struggles and joys. I love the time to be out and not at home but to be around like minded people and being reminded I am not alone. I especially love the caring little community that bible studies are, they are the main strategy for people to be cared for in churches and it is brilliant since the role of carer falls to everyone in the group to care for everyone in the group.

Last year I was in a group of older ladies, they really liked me and they enjoyed the fact that "young people" are still Christians. They had been feeling like it was only the old people and I said they were looking in the wrong place. They looked after me like grandmothers do and I looked after them by visiting and eating their food and talking to the about life, the bible and gardens.

Here I am still the youngest but it is by 2 years not 40 yrs, I am loving the socialness, the diversity that the men bring to the group and the genuine love and care of the bible study leaders. I am really grateful to God that there is a bible based church where I can be fed and loved and grown.

Living for Jesus

I am occasionally surprised about what people notice about me. I notice things about other people, things I admire and wish to copy and things I don't admire and try to learn from their lessons and not do things. However I rarely see myself as important enough or interesting enough for others to do the same when observing me. Certainly it is always a shock to find that somebody has talked about me or thought long about something I did and said, especially those things I feel are insignificant like what temperature water I like.

However imagining that nobody notices what I do and say is not actually helpful or even really humble. If we don't understand that others are watching, we will not strive to act Gods plan for the world, or to mirror Gods love. When we assume nobody notices what we say or do then we give ourselves license to say stupid, hurtful things, or to act selfishly, or to be entirely thoughtless about our conduct.

On my first visit to a Busselton church, I wore jeans and a polo shirt. I had put thought into this choice, it was modest and shoes were included in the get up (because I was planning on walking). As I said goodbye to my employer, she said "You not going dressed like that are you?" I said that God did not care what I wore and who else is there to impress but people. She replied that there was no way she would walk out of the house dressed like that. I did anyway and on my way to church I wondered if I had done the right thing. Should I have dressed as she expected in order to open conversation or should I have continued used my clothing as a point about what church is for and why I go.

This simple thing of what to wear, that I had almost entirely thoughtlessly decided on, had the potential to cause her to have less respect for Christians, or to challenge her view of God and life and the important things. We ought not to become paranoid and never do anything, but We should always have a reason for what we do and that reason should be to glorify God.

Church Camps

In the pleasant land of the east, the different church groups and the schools share house party/weekend away/camp sites, these include Camp Elim and I can't remember what else. As I was driving to guitar lessons today in Busselton though, I passed a lot of camp signs, including "Baptist camp site" and "Seventh day adventist camp site" and about 6 others. I thought it odd that we can't, for example, share. I mean it is not like we all have a camp every weekend, we could probably manage to organize it so our weekend aways are not at the same time. It works in NSW and I think it says a lot about denominational pride that there are separate camping sites. Almost like separate graveyards when it doesn't even matter because we will be dead when we are there.