wildeabandon | Notes from a new church

On Sunday I spoke to the lead singer of the St Luke's worship band about joining. He was encouraging, so I've been trying to teach myself to accompany a couple of songs from a lyrics sheet and chords rather than proper sheet music. It's a very different way of playing compared to what I'm used to, but one thing I quite like about it is that I can start off by doing the bare minimum of just playing the chords as they are, and then once they're properly under my fingers start adding in rhythms and inversions and broken chords and so on. The main reason I did this is because making music is such an important part of how I worship, so I want to be part of it as more than just a part of the congregation, but I'm also hopeful that it will make it easier for me to become part of the community and develop deeper relationships.

I have felt very welcomed, with people chatting to me and then recognising me and starting conversations the next time I'm there, but it nonetheless feels quite challenging because getting to know new people has never exactly been one of my strengths. And these days I'm a lot less practiced at it, because I don't have enough time to spend with the wonderful friends I already have, so making new ones hasn't exactly been a priority. And it doesn't help that between occasionally returning to St John's, and being away from London for one reason or another, I'm probably only actually making it there about every other Sunday.

One thing which I rather like, and which is definitely helping with the "getting to know people" project is that during every service there's a short break, where we're encouraged to chat to the people near us, ideally someone we've not met before, and that feels a lot easier than talking to people afterwards, where it can sometimes feel as though there are lots of conversations going on between people who know one another already. There being space in the service for informal conversations is one of the things that would be really quite difficult to make happen in a more traditional liturgy, although I like it enough that I'm almost tempted to suggest trying it (after the peace seems to me the obvious place). I'm really glad that I am able to see things that I like /better/ about this style of worship, as it makes it feel confident that I'm doing more than paying lip service to the idea of this being a two way process of learning from one another.