Dr. Leo Sanchez’s talk at the NCMC Conference

More NCMC Video: Mike Higgins

New City Music: 2011 Conference – Online Resources

The dust is settling. The evaluations are being read and processed. We have had review meetings and been praying about what next year will look like. In the meantime, we have an enormous amount of audio, video, pics, and other resources to package into digital nuggets for everyone to share and experience. So, here’s what we’ve got so far – by the way, all the content will be available in some form on the New City Music website.

Latin American & Caribbean Styles Class – Rhythm Samples - Dr. Leo Sanchez shared several specific folk styles that are unique to Latin America and the Caribbean. This article includes links to notated musical examples of all the tunes he shared.

Worship: Our Wake-up Call - This is a video of the opening plenary address (preaching) from Tony Myles on Ephesians 5:8-20. His sermon challenged us to be aware of the horizontal aspects of corporate worship in which we speak to each other through songs.

That’s all for the time being, but there’s enough in these two talks to stew on for a few weeks until we can get more online.

Don’t forget to check out the pics that Neil Das took of the conference here.

 

 

 

 

Coming Down from the Mountain – New City Music Con

God is good! I know you are thinking that I need to take a break, but I can’t sleep in and my house is quiet so it’s a good time to reflect. It was great to see the pics that Neil Das has already posted froom the conference. Check them out here.

I want to share my personal favorite moments from this weeks conference:

• The absolute explosion of celebration and activity on Tuesday night as Voice of Africa led us in worship. Emmanuel on the hand drums was a real treat.
• Tony Myles sharing that he doesn’t know what a “Plenary Address” is so he’s just gonna preach.
• My kids dancing and playing with Pastor Kevin VandenBrink’s daughter
• Playing a “stankin” set with the NCF U City crew – God, my God, God is good!
• My dad’s talk – a reminder that this is hard work, but the fruit is evident in the lives of the young people he has mentored
• Jim Payne’s songs which revealed a deep passion for the gospel and a love of the craft of songs
• Aloo Gobi – Zack said he’d make it “American Spicy”
• Malcom Speed’s revealing personal experiences with some of the legends of gospel
• It was great to see my Congolese friend, Nestor Biayi, affirmed in the African Style Class as he was called in from the back of the room to demonstrate Saben
• Dr. Sánchez – conga, guitar, upright bass, vocals, and bringing some cool hard truth with wonderful class. We were so affirmed and challenged by his words. (Yes, that talk was recorded and will be available as soon as possible)
• NCF- Chattanooga successfully did the work for me of picking tunes for the next year. I’m not sure that my team will let me rest until every one of those tunes is in our set.
• Doing the electric slide – can we do that in church?
• Jumping in on “Glorious” with Dr. Sánchez on the congas and clave
• Redeemer PCA in Jackson standing as a family together as their composers shared their songs.
• watching half the people in my “Into to Improvisation” class falling asleep – What do you expect when you put exhausted people  in a warm room on couches, after lunch. Next conference we’ll ask everyone to bring a yoga mat so that we can have nap time once a day.
• Watching Paul Neeley get Joshua Saleem playing hand percussion
• seeing my friend, Odetta Fields, come into her own as a choir director
• Jeff Rakes humbly taking us to school with his tune “All Honor and Glory” – man, Jeff set a new standard for my flute player.
• Seeing this cross cultural body of believers express their “heart song” in the form of “O Lord, How Excellent”
• Carrie Knapp – that girl can sang.
• Mike Higgins bringing us back to the promise that the curse is broken and the accuser has no power over me
• I loved the spontaneous expression in singing “You Are Good” at the end of the night. I wish that we had been able to hear more from Jonathan Gramling from Dorchester.  What a voice!

An unexpected gift

We had a summer ministry team with us from Appleton Community EFC a few weeks ago. Their Associate Pastor/youth guy, Mike  Collison has been building his own cajons and did a special craft project with out tutoring kids in which they were able to build their own and then they had a big drum circle at the end of the week. Cool!

So, after returning from my vacation in sunny Pensacola Beach, FL I found a handmade, Mike Collison cajon sitting in my office. You can see where the whole youth group signed it on the bottom. The cajon has snares on the inside to better simulate a drum kit sound. I’m looking forward to next week’s staff prayer when we’ll be able to add some beats to our worship. The instrument is very well crafted; and I would recommend it to any serious player.

a quick conference update - we have 60 people registered and several more ministries to add to the list including
Chesterfield Pres (St Louis-ish, MO)
Grace Pres (Dover, DE)
City of Hope (Columbia, MD)
Alianza/Covenant Pres (Harrisonburg, VA)
New City Fellowship (Fredericksburg, VA)
New City Fellowship (Lancaster, PA)
a church plant from (Pasadena CA)

Conference Update – “If you build it, musicians will come.”

Is this heaven?

No, it’s the New City Music 2011 Conference!! 

Planning a conference, I feel a little bit like Kevin Costner in the film, “Field of Dreams”. If you haven’t seen the film, (or like my wonderful wife, you need a little plot synopsis to remember if you’ve seen it) Costner’s character is a farmer in Iowa who hears a voice telling him to turn his corn field into a baseball diamond. The voice only says, “If you build it, he will come.” Eventually, Ray Liotta shows up as Shoeless Joe Jackson…well…you get the idea.

Costner’s character feels scared and a little crazy as takes on a impractical, spiritual mission. I can relate to that. I start to wonder if anything will really happen or if anyone will actually come. I start to feel doubt that we have anything good to say or anything real to contribute. I begin to question my own motives and begin to fear a kind of divine retribution for being too ambitious and narcissistic. In Sonship, that would be called a classic “orphan mentality”. An orphan mentality produces fear of God that comes from taking our eyes off of the gracious gift of the cross. As a full son and heir, I can be confident that God is my loving Father who takes pleasure in holy fellowship with me through the perfect sacrifice of Jesus. With my eyes fixed on Jesus, I can see that all those fears were coming from a spiritual attack not from the Holy Spirit.

These fears are a smoke screen, but what is the reality. By God’s grace, we have an excellent lineup of experienced speakers and musicians who come from many different cultural backgrounds. By God’s grace, we have a wide range of registrations coming in from gifted multicultural music ministries who are all excited about coming. By God’s grace, we are still financially “in the black” and on target to hit our goal of breaking even. By God’s grace, our hope built on nothing less and Jesus blood and righteousness! Here’s a break down of who is coming so far:

Registered Ministries thus far:
New City Fellowship – University City (St Louis)
New City Fellowship – South City (St Louis)
New City Fellowship – Glenwood (Chattanooga, TN)
New City Fellowship – East Lake (Chattanooga, TN)
South City Church (St Louis, MO)
Crosspoint Encuentro Church (Smerna, GA)
Covenant Presbyterian Church (Orlando, FL)
Crossroads Presbyterian Fellowship (St Louis, MO)
The University Church (Athens, GA)
Covenant Seminary (St Louis, MO)
Concordia Seminary (St Louis, MO)

There’s more ministries that have given me verbal commitments that they are sending people, but I am not going to list them here until we get them registered.

Countries of Origin in addition to the USA:
Kenya
Democratic Republic of Congo
Ivory Coast
Panama

Plenary Speakers for the NCMC

Tony Myles

James Ward

Leo Sánchez

Mike Higgins

We are constantly tweaking the schedule for the NCMC to maximize the time and resources. I am pretty certain that we have worked out the line up of plenary talks sufficiently enough for me to share with you what the conferees can look forward to. Don’t forget to register!

Tony Myles – Tuesday Evening, August 9

Tony is the Associate Pastor for the New City Fellowship-University City worship site. Tony is an excellent preacher, but he’s also a skilled keys player in our rotation. Tony has an insatiable appetite for music. When ever he’s in the same room with a keyboard, I see him circle around it like a vulture until he finally gives in and sits down to play. Tony has been involved in several different kinds of churches from an inner city mega-church to an African American PCA church plant before joining the pastoral team at New City Fellowship.

Tony’s talk on Tuesday will kick off the conference and set the stage for what’s to come.

James Ward – Wednesday Morning, August 10

James Ward is my father and my mentor. Having been a musician at New City Fellowship in Chattanooga from it’s inception, he was a trailblazer in the process of reconciliation ministry in the post-Civil Rights south. He studied music at Covenant College and received a Masters degree in Jazz Performance from the University of Tennessee. His compositions have become part of the unique culture of many of the New City Fellowship congregations. His original songs include, “Death Is Ended”, “Pray, Pray, Pray” and “Keep Looking Up”. He’s also given us new settings for “Oh For A Thousand”, “Rock of Ages” and “May the Mind of Christ My Savior”.

James’ talk on Wednesday comes from 40 years in the trenches of cross-cultural music ministry.

Leopoldo Sánchez – Thursday Morning, August 11

I just met Leo, but I am really excited about what he’s bringing to the conference. Leo was born in Concepción, Chile and raised in Panama City, Republic of Panama. He is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, where he also serves as Director of its Center for Hispanic Studies in The Werner R.H. and Elizabeth Ringger Krause Chair for Hispanic Ministries. Not only is Leo a theologian, but he’s also a double-bass player with the St. Louis Civic Orchestra and plays Latin and jazz bass.

Leo’s talk on Thursday is going to be about the growing church in the “global south” and how our liturgical planning and music style might be affected here as a result. Leo will also be leading our Styles Class on Latin and Caribbean music.

Michael Higgins – Thursday Evening, August 11

I first got to know Mike Higgins when he and his family came to Chattanooga to join the New City Fellowship staff when I was in high school. Mike comes from a C.O.G.I.C. background, but he is ordained in the PCA. After NCF, Mike served as the Senior Pastor of Redemption Fellowship (PCA) in Fayetteville, Georgia for ten years before returning to St Louis as the Dean of Students of Covenant Seminary.

Mike will be closing out the conference on Thursday night with a sermon in our “open-to-the-public” worship service.

How to get the Group Discount for the New City Music Con

We would love to for whole teams of people to attend because the hope for our conference is that it would encourage relational growth in your group and to start healthy conversations within your entire ministry. Plus, if you hear a hot new song that you want to bring home to your congregation, you will already have a group of folks on your team who will know it, too.

If you are coming to the New City Music 2011 Conference with a group of 4 or more folks from your ministry, you can each receive a discount of 25% off.  When you register on our website, just apply the discount code: GROUP, and your amount due will adjust. 

New City Music 2011 Conference – more details!

New City Music 2011  Conference – Worship Music for Reconciliation and Justice
8/09/2011 — 8/11/2011
Join us in St Louis learning, sharing, and jamming with folks from other music ministries who are committed to reconciliation and justice.

Featuring:
Mike Higgins – Dean of Students @ Covenant Seminary
James Ward – Music Director @ NCF Chattanooga
Tony Myles – Pastor and musician @ NCF St Louis
Kirk Ward – Music Director @ NCF St Louis
Mike Ramsey – Music and Youth Director @ NCF St Louis (South City)
Suzanne Bates – Counselor and Musician @ NCF St Louis

Register and get more info at www.newcity.smartevents.com

Conference early-registration – $60
With Student ID – $25
If you are coming with a group of 4 or more, use the discount code GROUP to receive a 25% discount.
Scholarships are available.
After July 1, Conference registration increases to $75
3 meals are included in the conference and housing is free.

2011 NCF Music Conference in St Louis

Registration is now open for the 2011 NCF Music Conference in St Louis August 9-11.

Early Registration is $60 for individuals, $45 for groups of 4 or more, and $25 for students. Go to https://newcity.smartevents.com/ for more information.

Want a reason to come? Here’s what the 2010 conference was like.