sustain:if:able kiwi

worship and new zealand music month

To celebrate New Zealand music month, I posted a short review of 5 Kiwi albums released in the last year. It has occurred to me since that each of the 5 albums have been incorporated in various shapes and forms into worship here at Opawa Baptist. For those what are interested in worship as “all that we are responding to all that God is” (superb definition from John Drane), here is how:

Salmonella Dub’s Heal Me has a track titled “Seeds” We used it to as part of Grow through gardening, over 3 weeks. We had a hanging basket. Everyone got given a “flower” laminated, on which they wrote their name and planted themselves in the hanging basket. It served as a call to worship. It became for me a very spiritual moment to hold that basket and then pray for those gathered to worship that evening, that they would grow.

Two albums; Tiki Tane, and Little Bushmen start with a track using traditional Maori instruments. We have used these tracks in recent weeks in our morning service as a call to worship, followed by this prayer:
We gather at a place on which many have gone before. Thanks for land on which we gather. Thanks generations worshipped in this church. Thanks for those who have shaped our faith, mentored and encouraged us. May our acts of worship continue your work of shaping generations for ministry in our world today. Amen

SJD’s album has a funky track titled Jesus, full of questions about the place of Jesus in our world today. We used it in our Grow through searching for the real Jesus. The service includes a time in table groups, in which people discuss together – as we listened tonite, what did questions would we like to ask Jesus if he was sitting beside us; and as we listened tonite, what words would we use to describe Jesus. The song “Jesus” made for a helpful soundscape as people talked in groups. What people discussed is then collected up, and placed on the Grow service website.

And, as for my top album, Into the Dojo, by the Blackseeds. Well they have a track titled “One by One.” With lyrics like “Come on and take me up, one by one” and being a song filled with up-beats, well, it’s a great song for during the offering! With a smile of course.

So there you are. Five examples of using songs in worship, honouring that pathway, as a layer allowing, “all that we are – even our contemporary musical life – responding to all that God is – alive in Aotearoa New Zealand today.”