Identifying Musical Worship at The New Harvest Christian Fellowship

• Main Author: Smith, Christy Miranda
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: 2006
• Subjects: christian; worship; music
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10539/339

Master of Music - Music === Charismatic non-denominational churches draw their members from a variety of religious traditions and cultural backgrounds. Presencing self with God, and community with God, is a central devotional activity in these churches. ‘Worship’ is the name given to this activity and music is one of the most common mediums through which it is expressed. Marshall McCluhan famously stated that ‘the medium is the message’ and music, being the medium in this case, communicates and facilitates many coded messages in the communal setting of a service. However, in a multi- generational, multi-cultural, and multi-denominational setting, the messages are not the same for all people. The histories of the songs mix unevenly with the histories of the individual singers, sparking multiple circuits of meaning amongst the people. The music both foments disagreements over what kind of music should be used to express the various aspects of worship, and unites the community in ecstatic encounters with the divine. Only by closely investigating the histories that constitute the conscious identities of the participant worshippers can one illuminate more clearly the similarities and differences in musical meaning systems that individuals contribute to identifying their community’s worship. The New Harvest Christian Fellowship (NHCF) is a non-denominational church that was established in October 2000 in a fast-developing western suburb of Johannesburg. The church has drawn in people from Methodist, Anglican, Dutch Reformed, Catholic, African Pentecostal, Vineyard, and other independent churches. As these people have gathered together in a warehouse, and later a school hall, to hold their services, many of them have been exposed to new worship sounds and spaces that are gradually redefining their worship experie nces. What constitutes a worship experience? How are worship identities forged and then redefined? How does music feature in both of these questions? These are some of the issues this study explores in order to understand better the role of music in the culturally complex Christian communities that are emerging throughout South Africa.