Danny ChaiMaybe I can’t criticize Korean worship spiritually, but I sure as heck can criticize it musically. I listened to a couple Korean worship recordings where they do this random thing, repeating a line in a song. I’m not talking CFC style (no idea if this is true – once heard I think a CFC tape that Kevin Lee had, maybe it was OIL, something like that, but they were singing “I Just Want To Be Where You Are” by Don Moen, the whitest worship leader ever (he has about as much soul as Al Gore on a good day), and it lasted about 20 minutes. They sang the “Oh my God…” part about 100 times and every time it started again, I screamed. I was saying the words, but not with the meaning they intended) where they repeat sections of a song over and over. I’m talking a single line.
What I think I heard was a Korean recording of Hillsongs’ Power Of Your Love. And they repeated (not positive) the line that goes “Will be stripped away”. So it goes like:
Lord I’ve come to know
The weaknesses I see in me
Will be stripped away
Will be stripped away
Will be stripped away
By the power of Your love
Each repeat of course accompanied by louder and louder Casio synth swells. They don’t do it every time – just some of the time. I think Paul Lee heard this technique and did it at FiCS. Not good times. Bad times. I’m sorry, but this is the worst idea in worship since Willow Creek decided to release praise CDs.
I’m a big fan of being clear where you’re going during praise. If you’re going to repeat, or not repeat, or whatever, the worship leader/team can give clues where it’s going by what is said, the volume, the chords played, etc. Just, the less time the people are confused or unsure, the better; the more they can concentrate and whatever, and that’s a good thing.
With the random line repeat technique, everyone is totally confused. It’s so unpredictable, you’re always like, do I go on? Do I repeat the line I just sang? Who knows? And even when you enter a repeated section, there’s no comfort, because who knows how many times you’re going to repeat it? You have no way of knowing. At least at OIL you know you’re going to repeat it exactly 100 times. Totally confusing.
I slammed about 20 different things in a single post. Yikes.