Sunday, October 08, 2006

Worship in the new hall!

So, at LCF we have recently had our church hall refurbished including the installation of a new floor, creating a whole new level.

So its now time, after all the time spent planning, building and finishing the place, to start using it to its full potential. Today we had our first worship time on the new level for the 11-18's, and having a worship time for this age group on a Sunday morning is something we've committed to doing for the long term. Our aim is to really encourage and inspire the young people to worship and to create an environment and atmosphere where they feel they can be themselves.

But this morning didn't come without its teething problems. Firstly the space is like an echo chamber, with about 5 seconds of reverb on every noise you make. Consequently we have to push all the sound levels higher to get everything heard meaning it gets quite loud, even for youth worship. Then when we turned the video projector on we realised that being closer to the sky lights in the roof makes the space a lot brighter and consequently you couldn't see the words on the screen. So if anyone has any ideas about acoustically treating the hall, and how to block sunlight both on a tight budget then let me know.

But it reminded me how much I still rely on technology sometimes. Being a techy geek I always like things to sound and look as good as they can, but at the end of theday we dont really need any of it to worship God. In fact we don't even need any instruments. All these things can help us, but they are only aids to help us worship and they shouldn't become the focus of our worship times.

I've also been thinking about engaging all the young people in worship. I know for some guys they find it really hard to worship in the standard way of singing songs altogether. Don't get me wrong I don't think we should ever stop worshipping together in that way, but I wanna be able to engage those kids who find it hard so they still part of it.

I've got a few good books about interactive worship which I might re consult, but if anyone has any ideas of stuff they've tried or maybe not tried then please let me know.

2 Comments:

Blogger Steveybabe said...

Hey dude!

Really glad the new floor is up and ready for use. I remember Dave H telling me that they had an acoustic echo problem in their church. They helped to solve it by putting up a thick rug on the far wall. This absorbed a lot of the sound waves, stopping them from bouncing back. Maybe that would help.

As for the light issue, you'll most likely need to install a blind or re-orientate the screen to face the window.

But I think somehow you've probably exhausted these ideas already!

Great to have you back on the blogging front. I've recently undergone a revival too!

7:37 am  
Blogger gill said...

hey joel, i was really glad i came to lcf two weeks ago, i didnt realise it was ur first time using the room!! i thought it was really good and really enjoyed the service for the young people there :)

hope your good

gill xx

11:20 pm  

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