Mars Hill Visit (part II)
Let me tell you what I noticed while we were sitting there waiting for the service to start: First, because I’m a little bit of a tech geek, I noticed that there was very minimal theater lighting. They had some white spots & floods to brighten the stage a little, but not much. Over the crowd was standard flourescent lighting, similar to what one would find in a high school gym. As I said before, the stage was in the middle, with four screens over the stage, forming a cube, so projected images could be seen from every direction. Simple!
Right at 9:00, the worship team took their places standing around the stage, facing inwards. So, because of where we were sitting, I was staring at the back of the worship leader’s head. Really, because there is not theater-style seating, the only person on the worship team I could really see was the bass player, who appeared to be a 17-year old student.
Sunday’s music as atypical, as it was all done 70’s funk. I thought it was great, but most of our team didn’t really care for it. What I really loved, however, was the song selection, which I think is typical of Mars Hill. They started with a Civil Rights-era song “Marching up to Freedom Land,” with lyrics that were more spiritual than Joan Baez’s version. And then moved through several worship songs and one hymn, all done in the same style. But, what I noticed, was the lack of Tomlin, Crowder, Hillsong, Passion in their choice of worship songs. It truly is hard to find a worship service today that isn’t driven by what’s “new” and “popular.”
So, here’s the whole order of service: Pre-Service Jam, 5 Songs (25min), Rob Bell (40min).
Rob’s teaching was solid. He’s teaching through Philippians right now, so the text was Philippians 1:2-6. What was really cool about the teaching is how it spoke to our group, as a group. I think most of us walked away feeling like God had something to say to our church…and not just to us individuals!
So, Rob dismisses, joyboxes in the back, and it’s over…and we move on to our meeting with Matt Krick…
Another thing that I thought was cool was that they didn’t have any video cameras. It made me actually have to listen to what Rob was saying instead of just watching him on the big screen.
while i do enjoy tomlin/crowder/hillsong/passion, it was quite refreshing to worship to “less popular” worship songs. i think variety in worship is important!
also, i loved the live band and the funky style! i honestly thought we were gonna be singing “play that funky music white boyyyyyyy….”
which would have been sweet.
i think i was one of the few who enjoyed the music. i can’t explain it, but funk gets me pumped. i was dancing (i hope there weren’t any baptists in the crowd! sorry granpa!).
i walked out of there going, “i’ve never heard some of those songs.” and that was probably one of the first times i’ve said that after a service.
not knowing a song really makes you pay attention.
worship at mars hill = top notch but not over the top, extremely genuine (even for funk).
i to enjoyed the no video cameras. that had what was most important on the screens, the verses and the main points. again, it was simple and effective.
while i enjoyed the music and had fun with it, i felt distracted by it. like eric i hadn’t heard some of the worship songs and was trying to focus on them, but had the funk song in my head. hard to get in a worshipful mood with “jungle boogie” going on in your mind…haha! plus i heard people around me trying to figure out what the funk song was instead of listening to the worship song.
it was good, just not for me.
Hey just to clarify, the 70’s funk isn’t normal. We actually sing a lot of hymns. I thought the Sunday that you’re talking about was cool, but it definitely wasn’t “atypical.” Living in covenant relationship at Mars one of the things I find most amusing is the critics who slam our music or our being a young church that wears black glasses because Rob does. That’s always funny to me. I’m not saying that you’re doing that b/c obviously you’re not.