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| Monday, September 01, 2008
Music > Local Worship Music @ New Creation Church Within this article :A. A Brief History of Worship Songwriting Culture in Singapore (80s to 2000s) B. Case Study : Local Worship Music @ New Creation Church (interview with Jack Ho, Deacon and Head of Music Ministry of New Creation Church) ; Review of albums Writer : Dawn Fung In an interview with Jack Ho, Deacon and Head of Music Ministry of New Creation Church, we ask about the church's songwriting background, its aspirations and its choice of materials for their albums (1).  (a) New Creation's Music MinistryJack : Our first album, Fresh Fire 1 was produced in 1994 - other than one track of a spontaneous song, the rest were covers of other worship songs. For a number of years, we did not really emphasise on songwriting and we have been really reluctant to move into that strongly for a number of reasons; I feel that there are a lot of good songs out there, from places like Integrity and Hillsong. Unless a song is very well written and articulate for praise and worship, I didn't want us to be doing original songs for its own sake. Which is why out of the many songs submitted in the past, only a handful of songs were actually used. We have a practice of recording every service so if something is interesting, it will be caught on tape. The album, A Touch of His Presence (2001), is a compilation of spontaneous songs that were sung in our Sunday services over a period of a few months. In it, we included a track where Pastor Prince prayed for healing over the people, and we have testimonies of people being healed while listening to it. When we finally did our first local worship album, it was already 11 years later in 2005. It was shortly before that when we decided to write and introduce our own songs that reflect the teachings of the church. As we grew in the preaching of the word of grace, we wanted to sing songs that speak of His finished work and not our own works. Instead of focusing on "we will do this for you, God..", we moved towards singing more of "You have done everything for us" and "You deserve all the praise and all the glory". 2005 was also the year when Pastor Prince decided to bring more people full time into the music team. That was a big decision (today we have 12 full-timers in the music ministry) but we felt it was worth it as it gave us more time to write songs of a better quality and also to improve our musicianship and vocals as a worship team. The album You Gave (2005) is a direct result of that decision and it was followed by another three more worship albums of our own songs to date.  New Creation ChurchJack : Since many people submit songs to us, we have to select them carefully. Firstly, songs that are submitted would go through a panel of four to five members of our team. The writer of the song remains anonymous so that the critiquing would be fair. The song is also expected to be simply accompanied by a guitar or a keyboard as we do not want to be distracted by some complex music arrangement. Part of the critiquing process is to check the theology of the song, the grammar, musicality, theme and other key areas relevant to a good song. Our more consistently published songwriters are Karen Lim, Sean Goh and Ronnie Lew. Not every original song we use in church will be included in an album. For songs that have been selected to be included in an album, we have another level of clearance. Pastor Prince is the executive producer for all the albums so every song has to be okayed by him personally. He will appraise the music for its suitability and if further changes are needed, he may suggest another title or give input on the lyrics.  New Creation Church congregationJack : The way I see it is that there are lots of other quality songs available and we will continue to use them together with our own songs. I am also careful about our songlists on Sundays - I tell our worship leaders that at the most, we'll use two of our own in each list of four to five songs. I have been to other churches overseas where I don't hear a single familiar song and it was not enjoyable as I was not able to participate as I'd like to. We are simple in our songwriting aspirations - we are very local church based and we are not looking to be another Hillsong. At the present moment, we primarily distribute our CDs through our church and our own bookshop, Rock Gifts & Book Centre. We have recently been approached by Integrity to bring some of our albums outside New Creation Church and is now finalising a decision on that. Only God can grow a song's influence. If any of our songs becomes an international hit, it can only be God. And even if it does, we will just stick to what we're doing - minister to this local church, and be glad if other churches may find our songs helpful in their worship. To find out more about music albums by New Creation Church, pls visit www.newcreation.org.sg and www.destined2reign.com Notes : (1) List of albums from New Creation Church : Fresh Fire 1 (1994), Fresh Fire 2 (1996), Taste of Heaven (1996), A Touch of His Presence (2001), Here is Love (2002), You Gave (2005), Still Waters (2005, Instrumental), A Touch Of His Presence 2 (2006) ,You Alone I Praise (2006), I See Grace (2007), Justified (2007, Hokkien and Mandarin), Love's Come Down (2007, Christmas), Gospel Revolution (2008, youth) Images : (a) http://newcreation.org.sg Other images courtesy of New Creation Church
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