Gospel and A Cappella Festival---Oct. 10, 2009

Fall is supposed to be a season of arts and music as well as sports, reading and good appetite.  So many communities hold culture events.  In my prefecture they hold the first Gospel and A Cappella Festival yesterday, inviting many civil groups, students circles and choirs to sing at one stage.  The Gospel choir I belong decided to attend this festival because our leader knows the person in charge of this festival.  Although we need to travel more than 1 hour to be at the stage for just 15 min, we have practiced the songs and were ready to sing.   As I was watching them sing on the practice time, I got fed up.  The a cappella groups sang hard but not so well with terrible pronunciation of English.  I could hardly understand what they are singing.  I thought they should sing in Japanese if they can pronounce the words right.  Gospel choirs practiced, too.  One of the participants is the new group just organized and trained for this festival.  They have practiced only 5 times over the summer.  They sang 2 songs and were nice considering the practice time.  Other choirs sang well.  But I felt something is missing.  Something important is missing in their songs.  Maybe they are great musically but yet something is missing.  The heart.  Or the most important essence of the songs, that is the praising heart toward our God.  Toward our Lord.  He should be the center of the praise.  We the singers are not to be focused, but the Lord is the one to be focused.  I prayed before our stage.  I prayed that I and all the members of our choir members should praise Him.  We sang with all our hearts and energy.  We delivered message that God is great and He is blessing us right then.  We enjoyed our stage.  I hope all the people on the hall received some kind of messages through our songs.
Gospel is such a great tool to draw people’s attention toward our God.  As they hear and sing Gospel songs, they will receive messages from God directly and indirectly.  I will continue to pray that the Holy Spirit will continue to word through those Gospel songs.  May God bless you all.