Well -
Got through our Praise songs this morning, and actually heard people in the congregation singing with us, esp. the slow prayerful one "Breathe". Now before you laugh at our paltry efforts at Praise please realize that this is a smaller mainline church in a suburban, pretty conservative area, small choir, used to hymns, classical preludes/postludes, choir anthems and the like, we only started Praise/Worship a couple of years ago at the former minister's insistence, with some resistance and not a lot of support. There are a few younger people and children, but most of those involved in our music groups are boomers or older, so it was kind a miracle to me to hear people participating more. It was just a blessing to hear them singing on something that was not in the printed Hymnal.
Our first was 'I have decided to follow Jesus'. For this we had everybody stand and encouraged the Choir to sing the first verse with us, very slow, almost acapella. Then we upped the tempo and rhythm on the second, and on the third verse one singer brought out our secret weapon - the TAMBOURINE! She beat that thing and people started CLAPPING! I remembered the times that I had seen some people's stone-faced reactions when we tried to do something gospel-like and thought, 'God sure does move in mysterious ways'!
