As a worship leader (lead worshiper, music leader, whatever) for our church, the coming advent season is always an enigma to me. The following is an article I wrote over at RockWorship.com, reposted here for your benefit.
What in the world is a modern-rock / alternative service style church supposed to do around the Christmas season for music? If you’re not careful and don’t plan, you may find yourself breaking out the pianos and hymnals, reverting back to the Christmas music you played as a child, and totally confusing, if not alienating your congregation, who is used to loud, upbeat, modern “worship” music on Sunday morning.
Over the last couple of years at our church, this has been our struggle. What do you do when a small but vocal portion of the congregation demands traditional Christmas hymns, and there is a loud outcry from the four people who are interested in being in a choir? (Actually, there are eight people interested, but only four have the time to put into practices.)
The answer? Re-write the music to the hymns! We do it with others, why not Christmas hymns as well? We’ve successfully refitted ten classics for a guitar-driven, rock band. Some of these we re-did on our own, some were done by other big names (David Crowder, Eoghan Heaslip, Matt Redman), all work very well. The melodies haven’t changed much, and the flow is basically the same, so they are recognizable. These ten, along with a few other pieces of “special” music tend to (yule) tide us over for the season.
- O Come All Ye Faithful
- The First Noel
- Angels We Have Heard On High
- O Come O Come Emmanuel (my personal favorite)
- Joy To The World
- We Three Kings (sing all the verses!)
- Go Tell It On The Mountain
- What Child Is This?
- Angels We Have Heard On High
- Silent Night (of course)
Contact me if you’d be interested in a copy of these arrangements.
Also, don’t forget to mix these in with your regular repretoire! Nowhere is it written that just because it is December, you have to pick from an entirely different set of music! There are plenty of “advent” songs among our typical repretoire. Also, just to be inflamatory, I have in the past, blogged some priceless Charles Spurgeon quotes on Christmas.
Merry Christmas!
November 8, 2006 at 12:40 pm
What about Feliz Navidad? Crowder did a pretty good version of that.
November 8, 2006 at 2:01 pm
I dunno man. Last year’s choir was fun, I think most everyone enjoyed it, and there were in fact about twelve to fifteen people committed to practicing for it. I know it’s not all about getting on stage and getting a chance to sing but I know I was looking forward to doing a choir again, as are many others. Alienating? Who even among the “unchurched” doesn’t know at least half those songs you listed?
November 9, 2006 at 8:35 am
Thank you and whomever worked with you for your labor and toil to bring us Christmas Worship that is relevent to everyone! I am awed by your heart and willingness to put time into something that is behind the scenes, yet impacts the whole mood of our Christmas season services! You Rock (literally!)
November 23, 2006 at 8:26 am
Please send arrangements for Guitar Rock Driven Christmas Hymns. Thank you.