Jamie Brown

Are We Headed For A Crash? Reflections On The Current State of Evangelical Worship

Last week I spent a couple of days attending the National Worship Leader Conference, hosted by Worship Leader Magazine, featuring many well-known speakers and worship leaders. The conference was held about 15 minutes down the road from me, so it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. I’m glad I went.

I met some new people, heard some thought-provoking teaching, enjoyed some good meals and conversations with worship leader friends, and experienced in-person some of the modern worship trends that are becoming the norm in evangelicalism. It was eye-opening in many ways.

Over the last few days I’ve been processing some of what I saw and heard.

Worship Leader Magazine does a fantastic job of putting on a worship conference that will expose the attendees to a wide variety of resources, techniques, workshops, songs, new artists, approaches, teachings, and perspectives. I thought of Mark Twain’s famous quote “If you don’t like the weather in New England, just wait 5 minutes”. The same could be said of this conference. It’s an intentionally eclectic mix of different speakers, teachers, worship leaders, and performers from different traditions, theological convictions, and worship leading philosophies. You’ll hear and see some stuff you like and agree with, and then 5 minutes later you’ll hear and see some stuff you don’t agree with at all.

It’s good for worship leaders to experience this kind of wide-exposure from time to time, and the National Worship Leader Conference certainly provides it.

Yet throughout the conference, at different sessions, with different worship leaders, from different circles, using different approaches, and leading with different bands, I picked up on a common theme. It’s been growing over the last few decades. And to be honest, it’s a troubling theme. And if this current generation of worship leaders doesn’t change this theme, then corporate worship in evangelicalism really is headed for a major crash.

It’s the theme of performancism. The worship leader as the performer. The congregation as the audience. The sanctuary as the concert hall.

It really is a problem. It really is a thing. And we really can’t allow it to become the norm. Worship leaders, we must identify and kill performancism while we can.

It’s not rocket science.

Sing songs people know (or can learn easily). Sing them in congregational keys. Sing and celebrate the power, glory, and salvation of God. Serve your congregation. Saturate them with the word of God. Get your face off the big screen (here’s why). Use your original songs in extreme moderation (heres’s why). Err on the side of including as many people as possible in what’s going on. Keep the lights up. Stop talking so much. Don’t let loops/lights/visuals become your outlet for creativity at the expense of the centrality of the gospel. Point to Jesus. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Don’t sing songs with bad lyrics or weak theology. Tailor your worship leading, and the songs you pick, to include the largest cross-section of your congregation that you can. Lead pastorally.

I am a worship music nerd. I listen to a lot of it. I follow the recent developments. I know who’s out there (sort of). I try to keep up (it’s not easy). Even I didn’t know most of the songs that we were supposed to be singing along to at the conference. I tuned out. I sat down. I Tweeted. I texted my wife. I gave up.

You’re not reading the ramblings of a curmudgeony guy complaining about all the new-fangled things the kids are doing these days, with their drums and tom-toms and electric geetars. You’re reading the heart-cry of a normal guy who’s worried about what worship leaders are doing to themselves and their congregations. People are tuning out and giving up and just watching.

This is not a criticism of the National Worship Leader Conference, though I do think they could make some changes to more intentionally model an approach to worship leading that isn’t so weighted on the performance side. As I said, the conference exposes us to what’s out there in the (primarily) evangelical worship world.

It’s what’s out there that’s increasingly a problem.

Worship leaders: step back. Take a deep breath. Think about it. Do we really want to go down this road? It will result in a crash. Back-up. Recalibrate. Serve your congregations, point them to Jesus, help them sing along and sing with confidence. Get out the way, for God’s sake.

My Mom’s Example in Worship

“Mom, why are you showing Jesus your hands?” I asked her one morning during church when I noticed her lifting her hands to heaven. I don’t remember her answer, but I remember her example. She modeled to her young sons (and now models to her 5 granddaughters too) heartfelt worship springing from a life of love for Jesus. I’m grateful on this Mother’s Day for my Mom’s example in worship.

In church. She sang. She raised her hands. She clapped (even though she has the least amount of rhythm that I’ve ever seen in a human being). She was faithful in getting her three boys to church. She showed her children that she thought Jesus was worthy of praise.

At home. She saturated the atmosphere of our home (and car) with worship. She was (and still is) the first person awake, with a cup of coffee, her bible, and her prayer journal, every morning of the week, reading the Scriptures, praying, and listening. She still does this, and her list is probably several pages long. She made/makes worshipping Jesus not just a Sunday morning thing, but an every day thing.

Through trials. She’s come through profound trials with an even greater tenderness, sweetness, strength, and Christ-likeness. Jesus is her center, her rock, her joy, and her friend. Her love for Jesus causes her to reflect Jesus. She shows that worshipping Jesus will sustain you even through darkness.

My Mom bought me my first guitar, paid for all my lessons, encouraged me to keep practicing, and affirmed me when I began exploring a call to worship ministry. Those were huge contributions. But her greatest and continuing contribution to me (and her family and all who know her) is her example in worship. Not only with her voice, but with her life fixed on Jesus. Now if we can only teach her to clap on the 2 and 4!

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. Thanks for loving Jesus above all, and through all, and for that first guitar too. I owe you!

The Awkward Salary Conversations

Several years ago I posted some thoughts on a “worship leader’s job description and pay“. And of all the posts I’ve ever written in almost five years, that one post has gotten the most hits, the most Google searches, prompted the most interesting conversations (especially from one guy who’s apparently sold more records than The Beatles), and emails to me from various worship leaders from around the country asking for advice about how to negotiate their salary.

Since I am not currently having this conversation with my church I thought it might be a good time to share a few thoughts (for whatever they’re worth) on negotiating a salary when you’re serving in full-time ministry. I just received a question from a worship leader about this yesterday, and here’s basically what I said:

1. In principle, your church should pay you around the average income in your area, for a person of your age, with your experience, education, and taking into account whether you’re single, married, and have any children. Wikipedia has this info for most cities, I think! It’s not unreasonable to ask your church to pay you a fair salary. Too many church employees think that it is.

2. Bill Hybels says that “facts are your friends“. So, get your monthly expenses really organized and categorized. Put down what your monthly and/or yearly expenses are. Do it in transparent detail. Rent/mortgage, utilities, groceries, bills, savings, gas, insurance, etc. Does your spouse work? Put that down too. Get a complete picture of the facts of your financial situation.

3. Do this so that you can know what you NEED to make in order to be comfortable and to provide for your family. Throwing out a figure, or just guessing, or just wanting MORE is not a good idea. But do some research on the average income in your area. Then get your facts straight. Then put it down in a succinct, to-the-point letter to your boss and your pastor, and have a very specific ask. Ground it in the fact that it’s what you NEED, not what you WANT. Do it humbly but don’t feel guilty.

If they respond positively, then well done. If they respond negatively, then you’ll need to prayerfully (and with wise counsel) evaluate whether God is calling you to a situation where you’re not paid enough, or whether it might be more wise for you to look elsewhere.

Of course, God calls people all the time to serve in ministries and capacities where the compensation isn’t all that they NEED and they have to rely on raising support, or having a second job, or having their spouse work. If God has called you to this sort of ministry, then he will provide for you

This advice is for the full-time (or even part-time) worship leader who’s serving at a church that’s relatively stable financially, and able to pay him/her a salary. If that’s you, and you’re entering into those awkward salary discussions, then get your facts straight, put it down on a paper (in a memo, not a novel), and ask for what you need. And pray a lot too.

UPDATE: I forgot to add a very important thing: Very often, when churches can’t afford to pay you the average salary for your area, they can make up for it in other ways. Perhaps they have a house you can live in, or perhaps (and this is how my wife and I are able to survive in Northern Virginia) there is a family in the church who will rent you a place for a less-than-market-value rate. These are two examples of ways a church can help you and your family survive and be comfortable, even if they can’t pay you what a spreadsheet says you “need”.

Let’s All Be A Bit More Childish

I am a big proponent of worship leaders thinking seriously about their role, thinking deeply about their theology, thinking practically about their skills, and thinking critically about current trends and pressures. A lack of introspection, evaluation, and hard conversations will inevitably result in a shallowness and flimsiness that doesn’t serve the Church well. To put it succinctly, worship leaders should always be growing up.

But if there is a downside to all of this serious/deep/practical/critical thinking, it could be that sometimes we lose our childishness.

There is such a wealth (praise God) these days of solid resources/articles/blogs/videos/conferences/books aimed at getting worship leaders to grow up and into their pastoral role and their function as ministers of the gospel. Most of the time it’s all really solid stuff. But sometimes I fear that some of it might run the risk of making us lose our childishness.

In the gospels, we have three different accounts of Jesus embracing children, saying “let the little children come to me” (Matthew 19:14, but also in Luke 18:16 and Mark 10:14). In all three accounts, people bring their children to Jesus, the disciples try to keep the children away, and Jesus tells the disciples to stop. And then Jesus says that he wishes everyone was more like the children!

Fundamentally, we must always come to Jesus like a child. Helpless. Transparent. Needy. Light-hearted. And, yes, clueless. But the thing about a child’s cluelessness is that it’s two sided: (1) they don’t know a lot of stuff that grown-ups know, but (2) they don’t know what they don’t know (and they don’t care). Is it any wonder why Jesus points to childishness as an ideal?

There’s a difference between childishness and immaturity. And to all the resources, articles, blogs, videos, conferences, and books aimed at helping worship leaders grow and mature, I say “the more the merrier”. But when I start to feel like I’m a child being turned away from Jesus because I don’t know enough stuff, I start to get nervous. And so should you.

So where’s the balance?

1. Always pursue growth. And always pursue leading in a more mature, skillful way. That honors the God who gave you the gifts you have (and some gifts you might not know you have).

2. Stay childish. And help your congregation stay childish too. Come to Jesus like little children. You might not know everything, you might not say everything the right way, and (gasp) you might even exhibit joy in your body/hands/feet (children are known to do that from time to time…) But that’s what you do when you’re a child. You’re helpless, transparent, needy, light-hearted, and clueless too.

In the disciples eyes, there seemed to be two different types of people around Jesus: the disciples and the children. Perhaps Jesus’ point was that, if he had his way, there wouldn’t be any difference between the two? Worship leaders, let’s not forget it.

Always Know What’s Next

There are few worship leading skills that will end up serving you as well as the skill of always knowing what’s next in a service. Not only having your bearings, but also knowing who is supposed to be “up” after you, and what they’re supposed to do, will prove an invaluable skill and help your colleagues and volunteers learn that they can trust you.

Every Wednesday morning at my church, all the worship staff and pastors gather for a 30-minute meeting to (a) debrief the past weekend and (b) look ahead to the coming weekend. We look over the service, who’s doing what, what’s happening when, if anything out of the ordinary is happening, and if there’s anything we need to change.

By Sunday morning, half the people who were in that room on Wednesday have forgotten most of what we talked about.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve finished a song and looked down to the front row, expecting one of our pastors to come up and lead a prayer, and they look at me with a nice smile that says “I have no idea why you’re looking at me”. Since I can’t just say “because you’re supposed to come up and lead the closing prayer like we talked about on Wednesday, remember?” I just smile back and segue into the prayer. After the service we laugh about it.

Being able to cover for other pastors, scripture readers, prayer leaders, etc., is important. It keeps things running smoothly, and it’s one helpful way you can serve the people around you. Your pastor/the preacher will especially appreciate your eye contact and a gentle nod when he’s supposed to come up and do/say something, since his mind can be in a million other places.

It’s not enough for a worship leader to lead the songs and then be done. A worship leader should also be comfortable and familiar with the structure, outline, and elements of a service (particularly the tricky ones) to give his fellow-worship leaders direction when they need it.

Keep a bulletin/order of service/planning center outline close by. And be ready to jump in (with a smile) if you need to. People will trust you and enjoy leading services with you when they know you have their back.