concerted efforts

It had been a long time since my parents had been to one of my concerts... and last weekend they went to all three. Thankfully, when you’re doing concerts for “small and tall” together, every night is an adventure and no two events are the same.

Friday night in Winnipeg there were LOTS of children, including lots of very young children. This makes for lots of energy... and a particular kind of energy... and means that the concert can go in many different directions, but there are definitely a bunch of directions that it can’t go. Lose a crowd like that, and it can be very tough to get them back... so it definitely keeps you on your toes.

Saturday night in Altona was a considerably smaller group, with few children, and the children that were there were somewhat older. This group also happened to be remarkably quiet, and sang along gently, rather than boisterously, even during some of the more rowdy stuff. So that concert went in some quite different, more “reflective” directions.

And Sunday night in Steinbach was a mixed age group that participated and sang boisterously and enthusiastically, but most of the children were school-aged and were also able and interested to listening to some story-telling and reflective songs as well as the more active and funny ones.

Different again was the “Sunday School singing” with the grades 4-6 children at Douglas Mennonite Church, and leading congregational singing during worship (including the first few rows of very young children who aren’t usually there during that worship hour)... I hadn’t been back to Douglas for a Sunday morning since for over 6 years, when we moved to Ontario and I transitioned from the youth ministry I was doing there to pursuing this music ministry full time. Wonderful to be back.

Every place, every group, every event, every day is different, and there are plenty of songs to sing. What could be better?