This last season has been an enlightening one for me. In some ways I’ve been learning some new things, but in many ways I’ve been re-learning things about myself. Relating to worship leading, I’ve been re-learning that I really like a spontaneous environment. I think it’s partly just the way God has wired me. So I feel like I hit my groove as a worship leader the best when there is opportunity to leave ‘the page’ … to sing and play stuff that was not planned before hand. Part of the reason I think that leads to my deepest worship leading is because it allows the Holy Spirit to speak what is on His mind at that very moment. Or maybe it’s what I want to express hack to Him at that very moment. … I just love talking to a person who is actually listening to what I’m saying, and then responding in a way that makes sense. … Duh. Don’t we all? But sometimes we come into a worship experience with God having planned it all out ahead of time. But what if God says something we didn’t expect Him to? ‘Uh … Sorry, God. I’ll get back to you on that. Right now, I need to play you this song that we practiced.’ … When I loose my head, and lead a set that way, I just end up feeling lame. I don’t mean to say that I hate to play songs that were written ahead of time, or that I don’t plan for a worship set, or that I don’t like to practice. On the contrary. You have to be even more prepared to be truly flexible. And I commonly connect with God on a deep level with ‘pre-written songs’. It just needs to be a song that makes sense in the context of what the Holy Spirit is currently leading.
So, when I’m in these environments where it’s OK to play and sing whatever I feel the Holy Spirit leading me towards, I often end up singing new songs … spontaneous stuff. Sometimes it’s a whole song. Sometimes it’s an interlude within an existing song. Sometimes it has words and sometimes it doesn’t. But over the years, there have been a lot of them. On Wednesday evening as I was singing one of these things, I had an idea. Why not start recording some of them? And maybe share it. So on Thursday night I took my little iPod mic and set it out in front of me. And now it’s Friday and I’m going to share one of those little spontaneous moments with you. It’s a low-fi recording, but hopefully that will be OK. If you want hi-fi … then go get my album. ☺
(Remember, this was totally spontaneous in an improvisational setting.)
‘The Train of His Robe (Spontaneous’
You can download and listen to all Dan’s music here
I hope you enjoy it.
Cool, thanks for the download. This reminds me of the worship nights back at GCF.