Improving Upon An Idea

About six weeks ago, I dropped by the office of Chris Macedo, our Music & Worship Pastor.

I was working on a message for the Crescendo series, this one from Psalm 150. Here’s the text of Psalm 150 in the NIV:

1 Praise the LORD.
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens.

2 Praise him for his acts of power;
praise him for his surpassing greatness.

3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
praise him with the harp and lyre,

4 praise him with tambourine and dancing,
praise him with the strings and flute,

5 praise him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with resounding cymbals.

6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD.

So anyway, I asked Chris, “can we DO that Psalm instead of read it? Can you make all those instruments work as part of the Scripture reading?” I was envisioning a musical rendering of the Psalm.

Chris said yes.

And he then took the raw material of that idea and produced something remarkable, something far beyond what I could expect or envision.

He and his team composed music, arranged lighting, and edited video to create a multi-sensory experience of Psalm 150.

Here’s what it looked like this past Sunday:

As we said afterwards, “WOW.”