Author: Jamie Brown

Say No to Woah

Imagine with me that King David had decided to write Psalm 103 this way:

Verse 1:
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and all that is within me,
bless his holy name!
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love
and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

Pre-chorus:
Woah, oh oh. Woah woah woah oh oh.
Woah oh woah. Woah oh oh woah, yeah.

Chorus:
The Lord works righteousness
 and justice
for all who are oppressed.
He made known his ways to Moses,
his acts to the people of Israel.
The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

Bridge:
Woah, oh oh. Woah woah woah oh oh.
Woah oh woah. Woah oh oh woah, yeah.

Thankfully, and Holy Spirit inspired-ly, David left out the woahs.

What am I supposed to be thinking when I’m singing “woah”? To whom am I singing? Is this like a high school cheer or something? Am I telling a horse to slow down? I’m confused.

And my guess is that most (all?) of the people in the congregation are confused when a worship song breaks into a section of repeated woahs. For this reason, I tend to say no to woah.

In other words, woe be to woah. Or, woahs are a no-go.

In 1 Corinthians 14:15 Paul says,

What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also.

It’s for this reason that as worship leaders, we should be leery of asking people to stop using their minds for a little while and just sing words that have no meaning. The melody might be creative and the recording might sound cool, but very little is being sung in those moments that will feed anyone or help anyone exalt God’s greatness.

Psalm 103 doesn’t need a section of “woahs” to give it a “lift” or a “hook”. It stands on its own. While worship songs are certainly not holy and inspired Scripture, I don’t think it’s unrealistic to have an expectation that they’ll be able to stand on their own as well, without the woahs.

The Difference a Few Words Can Make

What’s the difference between saying “let’s clap our hands” and “let’s celebrate God’s greatness by clapping our hands together”?

Just a few words.

And a big distinction.

In the first case, I’m asking people to respond to my desire for them to clap – by clapping.

In the second case, I’m asking people to respond to the greatness and glory of God by clapping.

Would most people notice the difference? Maybe not. Is it a huge difference? No. But do those few words make any difference? I would argue that they do.

The scary reality is that if a worship leader asks a congregation to do something, a good majority of people will do it. For example, if I got up on Sunday morning and said “let’s kneel as we sing this song”, then most people will kneel. Will they know why I’m asking them to kneel? No. They’re mainly kneeling because I asked them to.

Some worship leaders get used to this power, and get in the habit of giving short posture instructions every know and then. If you’re really brave you’ll say something like “let’s lift up a shout!” and maybe some brave people will.

We don’t often get the opportunity to give lengthy exhortations and/or teachings on the topic of physical expressiveness in worship. Sometimes (most of the time?) all we get is those five seconds in between a chorus and a verse. If we beef up those few-seconds-long exhortations with a bit more God-centered truth, the cumulative effect over a year could be substantial.

I encourage all of us to look for ways to add context to our brief exhortations, if and when they occur. Instead of “let’s lift our hands” try “let’s exalt our Savior with our bodies and lift our hands in praise”. Instead of “clap your hands everybody!” try “In Psalm 47 we’re encouraged to ‘clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of joy!’ let’s respond to God’s glory by clapping our hands together.”

It might feel clunky and unnatural at first. You’ll definitely revert backwards once in a while. But stretch yourself and feed your congregation, a few words at a time.

Here’s an example of how I did this a few Sunday mornings ago at my church while leading Matt Redman’s “The Glory of Our King”.

Using a Capo Isn’t a Sign of Weakness (British Version)

My friend Matt Blick recently shared my video from last week about how “using a capo isn’t a sign of weakness” with the readers of his blog. Matt happens to live in England, so this means two things: First, it’s probably raining. Second, he pronounces capo differently than I do. Apparently in England, the “cap” in “capo” rhymes with “map”. So we pronounce it “cay-po” and they pronounce it “cap-oh”.

So he asked if I would “re-dub a version for the UK market”. I wouldn’t want to leave all of my UK friends out in the cold (literally), so here is a British version of the video that they will hopefully understand.