Church Music

[Warrior4Christ]

Who here plays in a church band? And even if you don't, what type of music do you have at your church (song samples would be nice, because titles are mostly meaningless to some people)?

I play bass for our evening "youth targeted" service, and have just started for the morning services too (so this will be mostly from the perspective of the evening services).

Recently it occured to me that we have mostly Australian songs (from Hillsong United and Planetshakers, and also we have a few talented song writers in our church ). So I thought it would be interesting to know what other "international" churches are singing. We do the occasional imported song like (samples are not necessarily the same style we play):
Heart of Worship (I saw it mentioned in Purpose Driven Life book, so it must be imported)
God of Wonders (Third Day played it, so I suspect it was imported too)
Majesty, My Glorious (Delirious?)
I Could Sing Of Your Love
plus several others.

Planetshakers (started in Adelaide ):
My King
Open up the Gates
You Are Holy (Guy Sebastian singing)
plus many others.

Hillsong United:
King of Majesty
Perfect King
My God
Salvation is Here (this has a very trebly "bass solo" - not in sample)
Always
plus many others.

[Slater]

I ran the sound board for my High School's worship team. Does that count?

[Maledicte]

I occasionally play the piano for congregational singing and offering. Does that count?

[Sephiroth]

I ran the sound board for my High School's worship team. Does that count?

mon the sound guys!!

i'm a sound guy at my church, i canna play an instrument or anything, i just do sound.

[Slater]

I don't do the soundboard for my church often anymore tho ^^;
(the school and the church are the same general organization and thus the same building)

But... does making Audio CDs for the worship team and doing powerpoint count for anything?

[Emanku]

I recently changed churches, but for about five years or so I ran the projecter (One of those cool computer-controlled ones!). That means I interacted with the bands a lot and had knowledge on all the songs in the comp's database (I did put several of them in there myself). There were something like 300 songs stored there, and I had to input a new one every week or two.

Most of the songs were fairly current, coming from well-known Christian musicians. There were also a lot of old hymns that had been 'modernized' by our worship leader, Mike. He had the best version of the song "I Feel the Winds of God Today". It played the first verse in traditional hymn format, then repeated with a more upbeat melody that transitioned nicely into the second and third verse. Sometimes he would go back to the first verse and, for fun, sing it to the tune of the theme song for "Gilligan's Island". God must have a sense of humor for that music to fit perfectly with the lyrics of an old hymn.

I would list some of the songs that were played but it'd probably take a long time. We had a lot of variety.

[Warrior4Christ]

Emanku, can you just list several?

And does anyone recognise the songs I listed?

[blkmage]

We know a lot of the Hillsong songs. Those other miscellaneous ones (Heart of Worship, My Glorious, God of Wonders) we know too. I've never heard of Planetshakers though.

I'm in Toronto (Canada) and I attend a Chinese church. I usually do video and lighting for our English service (since most of the younger people here speak English). I've played bass once or twice for our youth fellowship.

I've noticed that the high school kids tend to lean towards Hillsong and Delirious while the university students tend to choose more Passion (Matt Redman, Chris Tomlin, David Crowder, Charlie Hall, etc.) type songs and older songs.

Actually, a bunch of us went to see Hillsong United when they came to Toronto.

[Zilch]

I ran the sound board for my High School's worship team. Does that count?

a w00t goes out to the sound monkeys like you that put up with bassists like me!

But yeah, I play bass in youth group.

[shooraijin]

I played keyboards for several years in my old church in San Diego, and before the new pastor came to the church I attend up here, I was their "ringer" when they needed a pianist and no one was available.

I have not been happy with the changes the new music minister has made, but that's a whole other story.

[Blitzkrieg1701]

I used to play cello in our church band (oh wait, we call it "praise orchestra" now 'cause that sounds cooler), though I had to stop to concentrate on being in the drama team.

A lot of the songs we do were written by or Arts & Music minister, but I kind of don't know which ones are homegrown and which would be recognizable to everyone else. We do "In Christ Alone," "God of Wonders," "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" and "Heart of Worship" though, and I know they weren't written in house.