This past weekend, we enjoyed the final days of March break with a busy weekend up in Collingwood.
For those of you who live outside of Southern Ontario, Collingwood is an area known for beautiful lakes, winter skiing, and one of the biggest annual Elvis festivals in North America.
We arrived Saturday afternoon for a mini-workshop with the worship band from All Saints Anglican Church. We rehearsed the music for Sunday's worship, while also throwing out as many ideas as we could for introducing contemporary elements into their Sunday worship music. On a future visit, we'd love to have a full afternoon to really work through these concepts and have some creative time together. Hopefully, we can make that happen soon...
That evening, our singer friend, Cheryl Bourne, hosted us for a house concert! It was a fun and intimate evening of music in her living room. It was full of things you only get at a house concert:
For those of you who live outside of Southern Ontario, Collingwood is an area known for beautiful lakes, winter skiing, and one of the biggest annual Elvis festivals in North America.
We arrived Saturday afternoon for a mini-workshop with the worship band from All Saints Anglican Church. We rehearsed the music for Sunday's worship, while also throwing out as many ideas as we could for introducing contemporary elements into their Sunday worship music. On a future visit, we'd love to have a full afternoon to really work through these concepts and have some creative time together. Hopefully, we can make that happen soon...
That evening, our singer friend, Cheryl Bourne, hosted us for a house concert! It was a fun and intimate evening of music in her living room. It was full of things you only get at a house concert:
- we sang in our slippers
- a little girl danced during All You Need is Love
- intermission had birthday cake for a guest
- the smell of chocolate fondue filled the air
- a dog sat in the front row
Gerald working with the All Saints Church worship band.
The next morning, we arrived back at All Saints for morning worship. After a quick rehearsal with the band, we played our preservice music, and we felt welcomed from the start. The congregation actually applauded for one of our preservice songs! That's a first for us!
The whole morning felt wonderful! The congregation and staff were all so open, and sang along so easily. We were even able to do part of the children's focus, which felt very special.
After church, it was back in the car for the 2 hour drive back to Toronto. We arrived just in time to unload the car and head to St. John's for The Gathering. Rehearsal at 3pm, service at 5pm, and, you guessed it, collapse in our jammies by sundown!
So much work, but worth every moment!!!
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