Jazz Church review

Hi everyone, I have just written a review of the last Jazz Church event for the website. I thought I would post it here too. Jx

Well we enjoyed a great evening of praise and worship at the lat jazz church event. There was a good number in the congregation, who all seemed in fine voice. We opened with a fabulous arrangement of O come all ye faithful which seemed the perfect opening to the theme for the evening which was worship.

During his message Adam reflected on how strongly held opinions about worship can divide congregations. Some churches respond by offering all different opportunities for worship with the aim of suiting everyone but resulting in splitting he congregation, whilst others stay together but lose members. Then there is the issue of the rapidly changing world, should worship meet these needs or, since worship is the heart and soul of church life should it not meet the needs of the membership? He then explored styes of worship and named many form the contemplative to the charismatic and to exemplify the variety he showed an hilarious clip fro the Blues Brothers in which James Brown led the worship which was lively to say the least. Adam then posed an interesting question about what happens if we take the spotlight off the preacher in worship and instead focus it on the congregation and ask - How good was your worship today?

Having explored the nature of worship we then listened to a performance of Revelations chapters 4&5. This was particularly good and I was surprised how different these chapters seemed when performed compared with simply reading them. The central theme for the 2 chapters reminds us that worship is about God not about us and as we understand this we understand that we pale into insignificance. After this we sang an amazing arrangement of Holy Holy Holy is the Lord. I really do believe that the music just goes on getting better and better at Jazz Church and in this case was so right in terms of the theme, the atmosphere and it led us deeper into our worship. For our prayers we made paper crowns as we reflected on the Kingship of God.

All in all it was an excellent service in which we not only explored the theme thoroughly but we were led into a state of worship by the wonderful musical arrangements, the readings and the opportunities to respond. Well done to the team, Jazz Church continues to go on getting better each time and is a real must for all who are seeking new approaches to worship, and if you love your Jazz - well this is definitely for you.

Jayne