Review

Did you ever see something so brilliant and so right that you wondered why no one thought of it before? That's how I feel about Vineyard Music's Home Again DVD project.

Not just great music on a CD... you can get that everywhere. Not just an enhanced CD that gives you the lyrics and chords, faithfully equipping the church even at the risk of losing a few sales in the printed songbook category. Not just having the songs on DVD with the lyrics on the TV screen... they'd just given us that wonderful breakthrough with last year's Dwell album. Not just a guitar tutorials to show you how each song is played, whether you're a beginner or have been playing awhile.

No, what really makes this unique is the interactive ability to make your own worship sets, in the order you want the tracks. Vineyard calls this their "build-a-set" functionality on their new DVDs.

The Home Again CD series (volumes 1 - 4) have been out a little while and offer churches that may have small groups without worship leaders an alternative. The songs are acoustically rendered with good vocal accompaniment. The DVD takes it to the next logical step. The songs are heard through your DVD player, and the lyrics are on the TV screen. They have some pre-set worship sets available, but who wouldn't want to try their hand at picking just the right songs for the moment?

It's kind of like making a "mix CD", taking your favorite songs and putting them down in the order you think will be the most meaningful? The creative juices flow as we follow each song with the just the right selection. Home Again DVD opens the door for us to do just that.

However, this little bit of creativity would just be a novelty, if it was the only application one could think of for this product. But Vineyard Music's tag line for many years has been "From the Church, for the Church". The impetus for this collection is to equip the saints. Maybe you who are reading this have never experienced it, but there many churches without enough worship leaders to facilitate all the small groups that are springing up. This gives them the opportunity to go forward with a group and include vibrant worship as a part of that.

But, wait, there's more! I am most impressed with the guitar tutorial that's included with this resource. There's this regular looking guy, not credited anywhere that I could find on the disc, who shows you how to play the songs. And he gets down to absolute basics. First, he tells you the chords that go into the song. On screen you see him with his guitar. To the bottom right of the screen you see the chord fingerings, like you'd see on a printed chord chart. On the top right you see a close-up of his left hand fingerings. So, you see him strumming, you see his left hand and you see the chord charts. If there is a certain interesting hook being played on the CD, for example the rhythmic intro in the key of E to "Show Your Power", he shows you how they are doing that, as well.

This takes the equipping aspect of the DVD to another level. You can give it to an aspiring guitar player/worship leader and it teaches them how to play the song. I have a young man in my church that is learning how to play guitar, but our schedules don't permit us much time to get together, and I've been unable to help him. I will be giving him this DVD and I'll watch him grow. So what this turns out to be is a resource to equip the small group to have worship, AND to help raise up a worship leader!

Kudos to Vineyard for consistently going the extra mile! These are the kind of innovations that help propel the Church. As the Church is equipped, it grows. As it grows, Jesus touches more lives. And that, my friends, is the bottom line. I'd encourage every church to have several of these DVDs, both volume A and B, on hand to pass out to small group leaders and budding worship leaders. Volume A combines Home Again CD Vols 1 & 2, while Volume B combines CDs 3 & 4. I'm eagerly awaiting the next batch of music in this format. What's next, a jukebox of 40 albums that you can choose your mix from?

Review by John Ausmus