What an incredible weekend we had, full of praise, amazing music making and collaborating, energy, love and lots of hard work! You can view our launch at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYOr9lY_mLg.
People came from all over Australia, even with the crazy challenging weather! Thanks to the commitment, hard work and can-do attitude from everyone who participated including:
Choir - Peter, Kyria, Nathan, Tim, Liz, Andrew, David, Belinda, Susan, Meah, Jacqui, Gabriella, Nita, Rosie, Phoebe, Madeleine, Timothy, Jonathan, Hava, Jake, Fiona, Siana, Zadok, Judah, Margaret, Anne.
Ensemble - Miriam, Carolyn, Brent, Harry, Caitlyn, Heidi, Caroline, Nita, Phoebe, Georgia, Julia, Rosie, Rhiannon, Ash, Matt.
AV - Chris, Andrew, Luke (huge thanks to Luke Wheeldon Audio)
Stage - Chloe, Ketty
Catering - Anne, Wendy, Leanne, Madeleine, Ketty, Tim
Logistics - Ali
Theatre - Christina, Dominique (huge thanks to Lake Macquarie Council)
Chairs, instruments - James, Clyde (huge thanks to Charlestown Ecclesia), Matt, Pete
Distribution superstars - Nita, Georgia

One section in our service included the dedication of the worship book and below is our dedication prayer, given during the service:
​
Dear Father
“LORD God, there is no one is like You. You never forget the promises You have made with Your people and You are loyal to those who faithfully obey Your teachings.”
Thank You for bringing us here together tonight in person from all over Australia, as well as online, from all over the world.
We now present this book, the blue Worship book, to You as an offering of our service and love to You, and as an offering of service and love to this community of believers worldwide.
We pray that the Worship book is used to glorify Your’s and Your son’s names, to help believers focus on You, to help bring them into a sacred space where they can sing and meditate and praise Your name.
We thank You for inspiring the talent within our community to produce this work - the composers, the lyricists, the musicians, the poets, the notators, the proofreaders, the distributors, the many people worldwide who have come together to collaborate on this book, as well as all the participants tonight, all of these servants of Yours who belong to You. We ask that You continue to bless them, to continue to inspire them to put their talents into service for You and for this community of believers.
We ask that You always turn our hearts to You, fill our hearts with thankfulness, help us recognise the blessings in our life that You provide, including forgiveness of sins, and fill our hearts with these good things so that we praise You joyfully with our whole being. Keep us turned towards You so that we focus on Your goodness rather than our own fears.
Please help us to remember to sing together as a congregation, in harmony with each other, focusing on our commonalities in Your love, rather than any petty differences. Help us to use this book to create more harmony, more music in our community to help unite us. Help us to listen to the lyrics contained in these songs, inspired by You, so that they motivate us in our individual lives.
Please always help us to have a new song in our hearts, for Your mercies are new every morning. We look forward to a time when Your glory fills the earth, when entire nations, not just denominations, sing with one voice Your praises, when a new heaven and a new earth is finally here.
We give all of this night to You, we give this book to You, and we pray You hear our words, hear our praise, and accept these.
In Jesus' name we pray,
Amen

We are currently working through a list of 144 songs, listening, notating, creating accompaniments, cleaning up scores. Thanks to our hard working notators from all over the world:
Timon Burney (Australia)
Dan Hardy (Germany)
Rachel Hocking (Australia)
Nita Lawrie (Australia)
Amy Parkin (UK)
​Phil Rosser (Australia)

In other news, we’re planning a launch April 6th, 2024 DV, to be held in Newcastle, Australia, in partnership with the upcoming Newcastle conference. Here’s the link to find out more about the conference: 
​https://www.newcastle2024.com/ 

Well, we're progressing through our task list, accompanied by the sounds of the Pacific ocean, kids, and the cricket (that last one is not by choice). Between us all around 20 songs have been transcribed/notated/edited - that's 12.5% of the book, which is progress. Amy 'amazing' Parkin from the UK has taken on some transcribing (notating music by ear, a task not for the faint-hearted).  Timon Burney, Dan Hardy and Phil Rosser are providing fantastic help, and we've also had help from Dan Osborne. I've typed out all the lyrics and they've gone off to Sam, Ken as per the last blog and Stuart Muir (another lovely lyric consultant). Our printers (Ligare) have started providing us with colour samples (see below!), updated quotes, as well as answering important questions like 'if the book is 400 pages long, how many can we fit in each box for postage?' I'm also setting up the preorders page so we can plan for print numbers. We have to finalise these numbers by April, a hard thing to judge! The other hard number to judge is 'how many songs can we actually fit into the book?' - a persistent question.

An exciting update on one of our previous blogs Moving Towards a Songlist is that Hartmut Sieber from Germany (Esslington ecclesia radio station) has offered to help with our radio station idea. We've also had helpful advice from Andrew Longman (UK - the only other Christadelphian radio station that we know of!). I'll provide more details about this project as we go, but the general idea is to have an internet radio station that is basically a playlist of Christadelphian music (not only those in the Worship book). If we can set up the project now, we can hopefully save chasing and include permissions for airplay with the Worship book printing permissions. 

It's so wonderful to have so many people contributing to this project, every single skill is needed, and the amazing technology that exists today means that we can do this across the globe. Exciting!

Well, we are right in the middle of the holiday season, challenged by the call of the pool/beach, social get-togethers, and crowded internet bandwidths. We've been spending our days lining up workloads for our lovely fellow-notators June Errington, Rosie Russell, Cameron Hillman (with more to come), and for our lovely lyric consultants Sam Dando and Ken Pooley (with more to come).  Some composers have been contacted for more information such as 'does sheet music exist for this' and 'please forward us the lyrics', but we've yet to officially notify anyone about the final song list, so please hang tight!  I've been playing through many of the songs on the piano, enjoying some of the songs beautiful chords with 7ths, 9ths, suspended notes, which really suit these blue-sky summer days that we are having. Luscious music matching divine days, praise God!

Photo: www.eurobodalla.com.au

After around 40 hours of meeting, playing, listening, reading and discussing, we've managed to bring the song list down to around 160 pieces but that could also change. We're now going over the list again, looking at themes and styles to see how we can best have an interesting representation of our community's music using a wide range of composers and lyricists. We've begun to divide up the tasks, working out how many pieces need transcribing, how many need editing, assigning names to each task, and also reviewing stats for the project. Next week's aim is to begin notating and transcribing amongst all the holiday excitement.

While I write this, I'm listening to the playlist I've created from all the submitted songs (whether accepted or not) and am loving the incredible range of music playing in the background. It makes me think that we need a Worship book radio station, something like iTunes radio or similar! My Worship 2 submissions playlist is over 8 hours long (bigger than any CD project). Any volunteers? Email me: [email protected]

Today was our first meeting since the submissions closed. After a 6 hour meeting going through the song titles alphabetically, we only got up to 'C'. There's lots of work ahead, but it's such an enjoyable process listening to audio files and singing around the piano. People have written music from their heart and we are blessed to have such people in our community.  We feel lucky that we're able to listen to such a wide range of music in so many different styles, from so many age groups, backgrounds, and countries. Our next meeting is on Monday and we hope to finish all approvals by next week as our schedule is very very tight! For those waiting on an answer, please wait a couple of weeks. (PS Excuse the mess in the picture - busy people...)

Calling all composers, lyricists, musicians, creative people....
Worship 2 is due to be published in 2015 DV and we are looking for contributions
If you are a composer or lyricist and have one or more great song/s that you know would benefit others, please submit your song/s for consideration for publication. 

Submissions can be in the form of notated music (e.g. via Sibelius) or lyric sheet/audio (e.g. mp3s, word docs) and these can be uploaded through our website.

This is the only way to submit a song, otherwise we will not be able to consider your song for publication.

Submissions are due November 30, 2014, but it would be really really helpful if you can submit your song earlier!
Please refer online to our FAQs for more information about Worship 2 including song themes and submission requirements.

We are really excited about this project and we know many others are too!
We've seen a lot of great music written since the original Worship publication and we hope that these pieces will be included in Worship 2. Please make sure that your piece doesn't miss out!

Keep in touch through our website, these messages, and our Facebook page. Please pray for the success of this project. 
God bless
Rachel, Nita, Jacqui
www.theworshipbook.com

We’re really excited to present to you our very first newly-published sheet music How Amazing, written by Stephanie Jamieson and notated by Nita Lawrie. Steph has written a number of pieces that have really resonated with believers across our community, including Sun and Shield, Christ is Returning, and Choose your Eternity.

Steph has this to say about How Amazing.
“I can specifically remember the moment which this song formed. It was a few years ago on my drive to work and there was a particular bend in the road which, after navigating the busy highways, refreshingly opened up to reveal the beautiful coastline of Newcastle. I would say a daily ‘wow!’ at the beauty of the water glistening in the morning sun and couldn't help my thoughts being lifted to God and His creation. 
It got me to thinking about how many times I'd looked at an ocean, or a mountain, or the moon and stars, or anything in nature and just marveled at Gods handiwork.
This especially hit home when reading Job 38. It starts out ‘Where were you when I laid the foundations of the world? Who marked off its dimensions, surely you know?’ The chapter goes on to talk about all the incredible aspects of nature that God has set in motion, and it's truly inspiring to read about the scientific, intelligent, practical, decorative masterpiece that God has intricately formed out of the void. 
What blew my mind even more though, was that even though God is so mighty and powerful in creating everything around us, He cares intimately about us. 
He knows our names.
He's moving in our hearts and minds.
And He's longing for us to willingly align with His purpose so that the earth can be filled with His glory.
The song for me serves as a reminder to look around in awe and appreciation  - we are so blessed to live in such beauty, and in appreciating the incredible power of God and His handiwork, we can also appreciate the intimate care and purpose He has for all of us.
How amazing.’

The recording of How Amazing is on the album In Your Light We See Light. The track was recorded in Adelaide and Sydney with Stephanie Jamieson, Timon Burney and Keturah Thurlow.

Click here to download the sheet music.
Click here to get the audio.