By Memory

For a long time now I have been wanting to do our music on Sunday mornings from memory- which means no music stand. I made this decision a year or so ago after visiting a large church in Atlanta. Having no music stands on stage just makes it look cleaner, there is nothing blocking the worship leader from the congregation, and it's a little more professional. This has always been something I've wanted to do but never made the time to do. Well this weekend I will be at my father-in-law's church, Pointe North in Moncks Corner and I will playing with their worship team on backup guitar and then I will be leading on electric guitar and singing on two songs in the morning and leading the whole evening 5:30 service worship. We also will be sharing our vision for the new church. Their church has a rule of no music stands! At first this was kind of a "aw crap" moment but it has provided the challenge that I've needed to make the jump to no music stand. I spent about 2 hours today trying to memorize all the chords and words to about 8 songs. What's funny is that for 4 of these songs, I've been singing them for 5 or 6 years! It just goes to show you if aren't intentional about things you'll never really learn. On the few that I'm playing with the pointe north band, I am just now learning. They have a rule on their stage that you can have one sheet of paper as a reminder. Well my sheet of paper for the songs I'm doing with their band is completely covered in notes one sided. It's kind of like cheating in french class, you write as much information in the smallest area possible (not that "I" would ever do anything like cheating in French class in High school uh-hmm) But for the songs I'm doing by myself- I will have no cheat sheet Yowzers! Anyway, just a thought about the processes that I'm going through.
Archie