Jamie Brown

Keep Your Focus on the Congregation

As a preacher’s kid and someone who’s been leading worship either as a volunteer or paid staff member since I was 12, I’ve had the opportunity to see the inner-workings of many church staffs, with all of the good, bad, and ugly stuff that goes on. It helps me understand why so many people who start off in ministry with eagerness and expectation end up dropping out confused and disillusioned.

Whether you volunteer or are paid on a church staff, you know what I’m talking about. On church staffs there are politics, power plays, and power blocs. There are certain people who are just plain difficult. There are emails that hit you from out of nowhere and leave you whiplashed. There are glaring areas of neglect that go on being neglected for years. There is mismanagement. There is competition. It’s enough to make you want to throw in the towel.

In order to stay sane, you have to stay focused on the congregation. You can’t let staff “stuff” distract you from your primary role of helping the congregation worship Jesus. You have to be able to put on blinders when necessary and not allow all-too-common church staff distractions to have a detrimental impact on your Sunday morning leading, and thus the congregation.

Living in D.C., you hear politicians use the phrase a lot that they “work for the people“, as in “the people” who elected them. I think worship leaders should have a similar creed. You work for the congregation.

And, let’s face it, your congregation doesn’t care what your title is, or who is upset with who, or what email got sent to what person, or what heated conversation took place, or who got the blame for breaking the copier machine. They really don’t care. They’re just hungry for something satisfying. And you can show them Jesus in all his goodness. Stay focused on feeding your congregation this Sunday, even if that means ignoring a lot of things swirling around you Monday – Friday.

Do You Love to Worship Jesus?

For all of the practicalities and technicalities that we talk about when it comes to serving as a worship leader, there is one thing that is the most important of all: that you love to worship Jesus. You can pick great songs, lead an awesome band, have smooth transitions, sing beautifully, play proficiently, and have a command of the stage, but if you’re not enthralled with Jesus then pack it up and go home.

It’s totally possible to become such a professional, to gain experience, to have tenure, and to get really good at your job, that you take Jesus for granted, your heart becomes hard to him, and that you mostly go through the motions, maybe even closing your hands and raising your hands, but without genuine affection for Jesus.

The number one quality you should be seeking to foster in yourself as a worship leader is the quality of a worshipper. Someone whose heart beats to worship Jesus, whose lips prefer no other song above a song of praise, and whose soul is never satisfied by anything else than the goodness of God.

Forget all the programming and performing and fame and stage lights and people looking at you and the camera pointed at your face and the critical guy sitting in the front row. Forget all the current fads and bands and music with whom you’re supposed to be up-to-date. Forget it all. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you love Jesus more. Be a worshipper of Jesus. Love to worship him.

Watch this talk by Gary Millar, given at the 2013 “The Gospel Coalition” conference and let it help you remember just how amazing Jesus is, and what a shame it is when we take him for granted.

When Your Pastor Doesn’t Expect Enough Out of You

It might seem like the dream worship-leading job: working for a hands-off pastor who never tells you he didn’t like a song, or he wants you to make changes, or he wants you to do a better job at something, or he has some suggestions for you. Doesn’t this sound great?

Not so much.

When your pastor doesn’t expect enough out of you, the danger is that you fall into a rut of inertia that you’re very unlikely to push yourself out of. And the underlying problem when your pastor doesn’t expect enough is that his low expectations are most likely rooted in a disinterest in worship and an ignorance of its centrality to the life of a vibrant congregation.

So while a totally hands-off pastor might make your worship leading life easier in the short term, it’s actually unhealthy for you and your church in the long term.

So what do you do if your pastor doesn’t expect enough (or anything at all) out of you?

Make a counter-intuitive decision, for your personal growth’s sake, to submit your song selection, your leadership style, your musical performance, and your ministry goals and objectives, to someone who can help you aim higher. Maybe you know of someone else in ministry at a different church who would be willing to evaluate you once a year or once every six months, or be given permission to spy on your Planning Center service outlines, who could speak to you honestly and help you. Or maybe you need to ask around to find this kind of person. The point is that you need to realize you have a pastoral-input-void that you need to get filled.

You also need to start the conversation with your pastor and tell him that you’d like him to be more involved. First have coffee or lunch with him. Tell him you want to start meeting with once a week to go over your plans for worship. If that’s too much, then once a month. If that’s unrealistic, then tell him you’ll email him every week with your plans, and ask him for his input. This will make a slow difference.

And if you’re serving at a church where the pastor is hands-on and quite comfortable letting you know what he wants, what he likes, what he doesn’t like, and how he’d like you to grow, then be grateful to God. Even if it’s uncomfortable, it’s good for you and it’s making you a better worship leader.

You Really Don’t Need To Talk That Much

Good news for worship leaders all over the world: there’s no reason for you to do much talking. Seriously. You really don’t need to talk that much.

Ask yourself: how many times per month/per Sunday/per service do I interrupt the flow of songs to talk for more than 5 seconds? Like the game of golf, the lower your score, the better. If you get a high number when you ask that question, may I kindly suggest that you reconsider your approach?

There are many good reasons you should talk when you’re leading worship:
– To introduce a new song
– To read Scripture
– To give instruction (ask people to stand/sit/turn and greet neighbors)
– To transition (to a different element of the service, to a different theme in the singing)
– To explain (why are we singing an obscure hymn, what national tragedy are we responding to, why do you want them to just listen to the verses, etc.)

But there are many good reasons you shouldn’t talk when you lead worship:
– It places you front and center in the consciousness of everyone in the room
– Your songs should connect well enough (most of the time) that you don’t need to say anything
– It runs the risk of you usurping the responsibility of your pastor
– When you talk too much you become like the boy who cried wolf. When you really have something important to say, no one will listen because they’re tired of you talking so much
– It can make you unnecessarily nervous. If talking in between songs makes you anxious, then there’s an easy solution: don’t do it
– It places you in a professorial role (i.e. that of a professor to his students), as opposed to a familial role (i.e. that of a fellow brother or sister)

Think carefully about whether or not your congregation would be better served by you speaking or by you letting things speak for yourself. Most of the time, go with the latter option.

Dealing with a Difficult Drummer

This is a post I can write at the moment, since (praise the Lord) I have the joy of working with several gifted drummers on my church’s worship team who do a great job and are joys to work with.

But sometimes drummers can be incredibly difficult. Their instrument is the loudest (unless you use electronic drums). If they speed up, everyone speeds up. If they slow down, everyone slows down. If they decide to play a 3/4 song in 4/4, then you’re all playing it in 4/4. They’re opinionated. They know that they’re crucial to the “groove” and they like being crucial.

How do you deal with a difficult drummer?

If the difficulties stem from a lack of gifting, then you must insist on three things:

1. That they practice and play along to a metronome. At my church, we play along to a click track in our ears to keep us all together. It’s run off of an iPhone app called “Tempo Advance”, and either I or the drummer control it. If your team has in-ear monitors, it’s easy to get everyone to hear it. If your team doesn’t use in-ears, then your drummer can play with it in his ears. If we can do this with excellent drummers, then less experienced drummers should be willing to do it too.

2. That they take lessons. If your church has the budget, then offer to pay for their lessons. I also highly recommend Carl Albrecht‘s training materials, videos, etc.

3. That they play at your rehearsals or smaller services before being used in a main service. If they say no to this, that’s a red flag.

If your difficulties stem from a personality clash, then you should:

1. Build a friendship with them. When drummers sense weakness in a band/worship leader, they compensate. Become a friend to them and then they’ll trust you and back off.

2. Communicate your expectations and ideas before the rehearsal/service . Email them and tell them how you want them to play on each song, what tempo is good, etc.

3. Don’t be afraid to transition them off the team. Bob Kauflin told me early on in my ministry that “no one should be given a lifetime pass to the worship team”. If your drummer is disturbing the unity of the team and not respecting your leadership, then you should chat with your pastor and develop a plan to transition him off the team.

The drums are the musical backbone of a modern worship team. You can deal with all manner of varying backbone strengths, but the weaker and more crooked it is, the wobblier the rest of the body will be. If you don’t have a good enough drummer to be a dependable backbone, then don’t have a drummer at all. You can fill that role by playing more or having the other members take on more responsibility. Don’t put inexperienced drummers on your team too soon, and don’t leave difficult drummers on your team for too long.