*WARNING: EVERYTHING YOU SHALL READ FOR THE NEXT 8 MINUTES IS ALL MY OPINION. THIS IS MEANT IN NO WAY TO OFFEND, ENRAGE, OR DEGRADE THOSE WHO LOVE THIS EVENT AND RUN IT. IF YOU WISH TO LIVE IN YOUR LITTLE BUBBLE THAT NO NEGATIVE COMMENTS CAN ENTER, I SUGGEST YOU LEAVE NOW*
On Friday, October 13th, I went to a school event called Praise Night(PN). For those of you who are asking, it's basically a mini-concert to sing to Jesus and you get advice, an ice-breaker, and some food along the way. I went to PN's "Don't Be Afraid" event, and oh boy. It was a ride. I'm about to share what exactly happened, what the songs were like, and at the end, my thoughts, opinions, and suggestions for the future of this event. Let's get started!
I was dropped off around 5:20 near the gym and everyone immediately sang Taylor Swift's Love Story in my direction. I'm not a Taylor Swift fan (because I've got Cody Fry and Blink 182 to cover that), but I still appreciate her as a person. The only songs I know from her are Love Story and You Belong With Me, but Lydia the Bard's minor key versions. (They're really good. Go listen after this.) I sign in and give my ID so they can keep me on tab, and go inside the gym. They only use about 5ft below the stage, so we were bunched together. We start with the rules of the house and then jump into an ice-breaker. It was Hot Potato with a basketball. If you held the ball when the music stopped, you went to the middle of the circle and danced to the music. We ended 5 minutes later and started the songs.
The songs in order were Chasing Me Down(CMD), Our God Reigns(OGR), I Smile, Champion, Jireh, Never Walk Alone(NWA), Goodness of God(GoG), and Reckless Love(RL). CMD was a pop punk-sounding song, but that was probably because of the electric guitar and drums. OGR was a clap fest and my hands hurt at the end. I Smile was an uplifting bop, Champion was more of your typical praise song, Ji-ruh was a slow, kinda lullaby song, NWA I don't remember, and GoG also. The big one for me was RL as my old Religion teacher put this on all the time as our prayer time song. Note that PN had the Israel Houghton version, the one for my prayer time after a quick YouTube search was from Cory Asbury(wait...)and it's the same thing. So knowing it made me sing this louder. I think the teachers heard me so I'm suspicious. At the end was a guest speaker and some Q&A. After was the lasagna a parent made and I left around 7:00 with my ID in hand and thoughts in head.
So, what did I think of this event? I liked it! The energy was vivid, the songs made me hyper, and the team behind this should be very proud of everything they've done. My opinions? It's not everyone's cup of tea, but if you need extra credit or just want to come for friends or fun, then this is a fun way to thank God in your day-to-day life through music. It doesn't beat Mass, but it has songs with energy instead of the soft ones at Mass. Do I have any suggestions for music, food, or just in general? Only for music. The only song I knew was RL so I was kinda stuck on singing but I tried. When I found Mr. Fry -er- CODY, I liked 3 songs from him that I heard from a religious standpoint. The first one was "Flying" which in an interview for CelebMix, he says it is "...about a guy who jumps off of a cliff because God told him he’d be able to fly, or at least that’s what he believes. He quickly finds out that flying might not be quite that easy. I {Cody} think a lot about faith and risk-taking, and how to deal with adversity and disillusionment." It's a truly inspiring song that talks about the daily struggles we can have in our faith and how we can overcome it. It doesn't even mention God, Jesus, or any religious figure, making it like a hidden faith song! The second was "Pictures of Mountains", and it "is a song about what's lost when we replace reality with a digital replica". I agree, but then I heard it as thinking the things we have are good enough (dancing a waltz with no partner; singing duets as a solo), but then God shows us there could be more for us and how much He loves us(I thought that I knew what a mountain was like, 'til I stood in the valley and looked up at the sky. And I could feel my heart beating faster, that feeling I've been chasing after, something that no one could capture: pictures of mountains) It made me cry and it's like RL if you think about it. The last one was Before I Met You. I found this song before I went to Praise Night and it. is. A. BOP!!! It's an earworm and my apartment will hear me from the shower singing, "WHO AM I? WHO ARE YOU? WHERE DID YOU COME FROM? AND HOW CAN I GET THERE TOO? WHAT ARE WE DOING? DO I EVEN CARE? WHO WAS I BEFORE...BEFORE I MET YOU?" Definitely could be a love song, but I'm done in the romance department so I see God's name all over this. If anyone who knows someone in Praise Night or a Praise Night member reads this, please pass this on to the team as feedback from a first-timer on Friday the 13th. I will try to come for the November event, but I will be a regular if any or all of those 3 songs are on the list for upcoming events. I will even be down to sing them if you are okay with that! If you've made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts and experience of this event. If you need me, I'll be listening to my Praise Night playlist of those 3 songs for the rest of my 4 years in high school.