Leading a congregation – Worthily Magnify

Maintaining Congregational Connection

For the last two days, I’ve been at Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, PA, taking part in teaching at a worship conference hosted by Andy Piercy on the theme of “Restoring the Worship Connection”. I was one of the speakers, along with Andy, Paul Baloche, and Andi Rozier. It was great meeting and talking with so many gifted and faithful worship leaders.

In my session, I was asked to share on maintaining the congregation’s connection in worship. In other words, how do we help them not tune out? How do we remove road blocks to the congregation singing and participating? In an attempt to be succinct, and to cover some basic fundamentals of worship leading, I offered these 15 (!) essentials, and I share them here as well in the event that they’re helpful.

An invitational spirit
Psalm 34:3 is the heart of the worship leader, saying: “Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together!” We are like hosts at a feast.

A confident, humble, accessible style
Confidence to lead with clarity, humility to serve with pastoral care, and accessibility, so as many people as possible can follow and join in with you.

Songs worth singing
We have more songs at our disposal than ever, so we don’t have any reason to sing bad songs. Use songs that are musically, lyrically, and theologically rich. They’re out there!

A balanced repertoire
I wrote about the concept of “thinking in thirds” previously. Generally, the idea is that to keep as broad a cross-section of generations in your congregation engaged as possible, sing hymns, sing older/familiar songs, and sing new songs. Think in thirds.

Keys are key
The old adage of singing “from C to shining C” still holds true. Songs can dip lower, but don’t hang out in the doldrums. Songs can pop higher, but don’t hang out in the stratosphere. Keep your songs in singable keys for the average voice.

Building trust – and capital
Build trust with your congregation, and therefore build capital to save for later.

Spending that capital to push your congregation
Every congregation in the world has areas in which they can grow in worship. A worship leader who has built trust with his/her congregation can and should spend that capital to help the congregation grow. They’ll follow you if they trust you.

Modeling expressiveness
Worship leaders oftentimes lament the lack of expressiveness in the congregation. Start by modeling it from the platform, and you’ll send the message that it’s safe to be expressive in the congregation.

Using music – effectively and correctly – as a tool
Do whatever kind of style you can do, with the musicians you have, as well as you can. Don’t try to do what you can’t do. Don’t try to be who you aren’t. Don’t try to achieve a sound that isn’t achievable. Do what you can, as well as you can, and your congregation will appreciate it.

Having the right people – and equipment – run sound
Good sound encourages robust singing. It’s worth getting the right equipment and people to run sound in your setting. If you’re in a small church without a budget for this, call a larger church in your area with good sound, and simply ask for their help, and offer them a free lunch in return for a few hours of their time to help train your people and/or EQ your system.

Behind the scenes camaraderie with the pastor and worship leader
Tension or indifference between the pastor and worship leader will result in tension or indifference in the room. When a worship leader is seen as usurping or circumventing a pastor’s authority, that lack of unity is unhealthy for a congregation, and stifles their participation in worship. A pastor and worship leader must have a trusting and transparent relationship.

The worship space itself – acoustics, lighting, etc.
Dead acoustics in a room will deaden the singing, because people feel like they’re singing into a vacuum. Conversely, really bouncy acoustics will make everything unintelligible. Acoustics matter. So does lighting.

Driving the technology – so it doesn’t drive you
There’s nothing wrong with loops, multi-tracks, pads, etc. But when/if you integrate these things, make sure you’re driving them, and not the other way around. When technology drives us, and limits us, we run the risk of making the congregation’s involvement in worship incidental, not integral.

Faithfulness, faithfulness, faithfulness
Serve your congregation with faithfulness. Trust in God’s faithfulness. Over time, God will faithfully use your faithfulness, to accomplish his purposes, and glorify himself in and through the worship of his Church. You might not see the results you want to see, in the time you want to see them, but God is faithful, and your labor in him is not in vain.

The worship leader’s heart and diet
The public ministry of a worship leader starts – and is sustained – in private. Our private passion for God and his Word, will fuel our public ministry of inviting our congregations to feast upon him, and magnify his name with us.

Rejecting The Weekly Verdict

It’s a dangerous situation for worship leaders. Every day of their week leads up and builds up to Sunday, the day of all days, the day when they stand before their congregations and, in the course of a few hours, either succeed at their job (in which case they feel like a success) or fail at their job (in which case they feel like a failure), or do OK at our job (in which case they feel just OK). It’s what I call the weekly verdict.

Depending on how a combined total of anywhere from 25 – 100 minutes go, worship leaders head home on Sunday afternoons and begin a new week on Monday morning with a fresh report hot off the presses on whether or not they should feel good about themselves.

Obviously, there are a few problems with this:

1. Worship leaders who derive their sense of self-worth or vocational-aptitude from how one service goes are forgetting that their standing before God has been secured by Christ and can’t be improved upon by an awesome set-list or downgraded by a dud.

2. Worship leaders who feel like a success after a successful service set themselves up for a painful bursted bubble the very next week when, due to whatever many factors are at work, things don’t go so well. They also become arrogant.

3. Worship leaders who feel like a failure after a service that falls flat are allowing a gnawing neediness and insatiable appetite to creep up in their souls that becomes hungry for applause and accolades, and makes them no fun for their families to be around after church.

4. Worship leaders who feel “just OK’ after a ho-hum service forget that real-life worship leading (the kind that gets up and gets to church and gets things ready and gets rehearsed and so on…) is much more frequently “ho-hum” than it is awesome. A more provocative way to phrase it would be that worship leading is more of a long-term commitment than a one-night stand.

So what’s the solution for worship leaders who feel this weekly build-up and anxiety to the weekly Sunday morning verdict on where they stand that particular week?

First, remember your core. You’re hidden in Christ. The roller-coaster of approval/applause/criticism/yawning/euphoria doesn’t rock the person who pursues a fundamental certitude of who they are in Christ.

Second, embrace your calling. Worship leaders are not called to be actors for the sake of a crowd’s acclaim. We are called to be servants for the glory of Jesus’ name.

Third, balance your weight. Just like an airplane can’t fly if all the weight is in front, a worship leader can’t be effective if all his/her weight is placed on Sunday morning. Your hours in the office, at the piano, praying over songs, attending meetings, tending to administrative duties, arranging music, scheduling volunteers, rehearsing, emails, appointments, etc., must be the counterweight to the time you stand on a platform.

Don’t allow Sunday mornings to become a weekly determiner of how to feel about yourself. Approach worship leading with a confidence and conviction founded in Jesus, and then regardless of a great response or a royal flop, you’ll be anchored to the unchanging verdict of the Gospel.

Summer Worship Nights

Earlier this year I approached some of my colleagues and asked if they would be interested in helping me host a series of eight “summer worship nights” at my church on Fridays. They all responded enthusiastically, and so we made some plans, spread the word, and went ahead with the idea. We just wrapped up our last one last week, so I wanted to explain why we did it, what we did, what about the kids, what the nights accomplished, and what we learned.

Why we did it
I regularly get approached by people asking me if we can have a more extended time of worship (they mean singing) at church. Sunday morning worship is wonderful, but there are a million moving pieces, and in the context of an Anglican liturgical service, you can’t really have a very extended time of uninterrupted singing without the service going on for 2.5 hours. So, I thought, “why not?” Offering people more opportunities to exalt Jesus Christ is always a win. It will always benefit the church. It will always have a bubble-over effect onto Sunday mornings. With enough advance planning, and making sure the Sanctuary was free for eight Friday nights in a row during the summer, we got word out, and offered anyone who wanted an opportunity for extended worship the invitation to come out on Friday nights.

What we did
We had these worship nights in our Sanctuary from 6:00pm – 7:00pm, so people with kids could come before it got too late. The first one was on the last day of school in Fairfax County. We started on the dot of 6:00pm with 30 minutes of singing, led by a full band, with space to repeat songs as much as we wanted, and time for reflection in between songs when it was appropriate. We would start with one song, then I would welcome people and read a Psalm, and we’d keep going. A big clock on the back wall kept me on time. At 6:30pm, before people were seated, I told the kids they could go down the middle aisle where “Dr. Jones” would meet them and take them downstairs for lots of fun. We’d all say “bye kids!” as they ran downstairs, then I’d encourage people to take a minute and greet the people around them. After that, we had a 15-minute Bible teaching having to do with the person and work of the Holy Spirit. To wrap up, we had more time for singing, prayer ministry up front, or time for people to stay and reflect/pray in their pews. At 7:00pm on the dot I would say “It’s 7:00pm now. You’re free to go, free to pick up your kids, of you’re free to stay if you’d like. We’ll keep singing a few songs, and you can come and go as you wish. Now may the Lord bless us and keep us, the Lord make his face…” By about 7:15pm or so, most people had trickled out, and we’d sing the Doxology and that was it.

What about the kids
My colleague Mike Seawright, who leads our family ministries, was 100% behind these nights. Ministry really does work best with teams! So Mike got three summer interns, and one of their main jobs was to run an awesome 30-minute kids program downstairs during summer worship nights. So these three interns donned costumes which transformed them into mad scientists and professors, and had the kids doing ridiculous science experiments while also learning biblical/spiritual truths. Kids absolutely loved it. Many of them would ask throughout the week “is it Friday yet”? The interns – and the kids program – were awesome. And they helped the summer worship nights attract some younger families, so the demographic wasn’t exclusively empty nesters.

What the nights accomplished
1. They scratched an itch for people who longed for more extended times of singing.
2. They allowed the congregation to grow in their expression of worship. More time, less pressure, more freedom.
3. They were good practice for me – and my fellow worship leaders on stage – who had to use our “extended worship” muscles a bit more than we’re used to. Don’t get me wrong, we’re used to long services. But we’re not always used to 30 minutes of uninterrupted singing.
4. They were a good opportunity for young people to preach some of the sermons, and to run the kids program.
5. They allowed for multi-generational worship. For 30 minutes, everyone worshipped together. All ages. It was great.

What we learned
1. The people who came out to these evenings really wanted to be there. So even when we had small crowds, there was a wonderful expectancy amongst the people which allowed for some very sweet times of worship.
2. Summer rain storms seem to like Friday nights. We had several nights affected by torrential down storms. But there’s nothing you can do about that!
3. Nursery and kids program is key. If we hadn’t been able to offer nursery and a great kids program, these nights would not have been successful.
4. People are eager to be prayed for – and to pray for each other.
5. It was good to say at the start that we were going to offer eight. Maybe we’ll do these again next summer, but maybe not. We’ll see!
6. People were grateful that we started on time, and ended on time, every week.

Over all, I’m glad we did these, although they have significantly increased my need for a vacation. Next year, if we do offer these, I will need to spread the worship leading load out more effectively, and will leaning on Mike Seawright to help me recruit some worship interns to work in conjunction with his family ministry interns. That whole thing about teams being important is really… important.

These nights have helped us learn some good lessons about how to offer an extended time of worship in a way that works in our context, and between now and next summer, we may offer some seasonal worship nights, maybe one in the fall, one in the winter, and so on. I look forward to a good debrief with my colleagues in a few weeks, so we can make sure we affirm what worked well, and fix what didn’t.

Ten Thousand Reasons For a Thousand Tongues Forever and Ever

Recently I’ve been challenging myself to memorize individual Psalms, so that I can use them as a call to worship at our weekend services. A few weeks ago I memorized Psalm 145, and was struck by just how many reasons David gives for why we should worship God.

He begins the Psalm in the first two verses by saying “I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever.”

And then the list of reasons begins for why he should extol his God and King, and why he should bless and praise God’s name:

Because he is “great and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable” (verse 3)
Because of his “mighty acts” (verse 4)
Because of “the glorious splendor of (his) majesty, and… (his) wondrous works” (verse 5)
Because of his “awesome deeds…” and his “greatness” (verse 6)
Because of “the fame of (his) abundant goodness and… righteousness” (verse 7)
Because he “is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (verse 8)
Because he “is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made” (verse 9)
Because of “the glory of (his) kingdom, and… (his) power” (verse 11)
Because of his “mighty deeds, and the glorious splendor of (his) kingdom” (verse 12)
Because his “kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and (his) dominion endures throughout all generations”, and because he “is faithful in all his words and kind in all his works” (verse 13)
Because he “upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down” (verse 14)
Because he gives everyone “their food in due season” (verse 15)
Because he opens his hand, and satisfies “the desire of every living thing” (verse 16)
Because he “is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works” (verse 17)
Because he “is near to all who call on him… in truth” (verse 18)
Because “he fulfills the desire of those who fear him” and “hears their cry and saves them” (verse 19)
Because he “preserves all who love him” and destroys the wicked (verse 20)

Finally, after all of those reasons, he finishes the Psalm in verse 21 by saying “my mouth will speak the praise of the Lord, and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever”.

The best kind of worship leading – all across the musical, denominational, and liturgical spectrum – is the kind of worship leading that saturates the congregation at every service with fresh reminders of the reasons why God deserves praise. When people are well-fed with a feast of the goodness of God, then they are well-served by their worship leaders, and well-prepared to stand and open their mouths to declare his praise.

Pressing On, Feeding God’s Sheep

dry You’ve been a worship leader at your church for nine months now. When you took the job you had high hopes for your new ministry. You really clicked with the pastor and some of the search committee members. You had a deep peace that God was leading you to move to this new city and take on a new challenge. And you knew it would be a challenge. The worship team was a mess, the congregation was opinionated, the sound system was laughable, the song repertoire was weak, the drummer couldn’t keep time, and the previous worship leader had quit after six months. You were comfortable where you were but took this new job out of obedience to God.

Nine months later and it’s been more challenging than you could have imagined. You’re frustrated with your pastor. A few members of the worship team have stepped down and been vocal in their criticism of you. You look out on Sunday morning and it doesn’t look any one wants to be singing any of the songs you’ve chosen. Whenever you try to introduce a new song people ask why you “sing so many new songs”. You sit in your office during the week and feel like you’re trapped in a bad dream. You visit other churches or attend worship conferences and leave more discouraged and weary because you can’t imagine your own church ever looking like that.

Am I even all that good of a worship leader? What am I doing wrong? Was that person right when he quit the worship team and called me an egotistical control freak? Did I make a mistake taking this job? Would anyone care if I just slept in on Sunday and watched football? How amazing would it feel to tell my pastor “I quit”?

You’re confused, burned out, beaten up, angry, and disappointed. Your body is in church on Sundays but your mind has already packed up and moved away. It’s a lost cause. You’ve come to the realization that you’re not cut out to be a worship leader, the church you’ve been serving for two years will never change, and you made a mistake ever taking the job.

Don’t give up, worship leader friend. Press on.

“Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! (Psalm 126:5)

You are in the thick of real-life church ministry. It can be discouraging, tedious, boring, low-paying, and dry. But your labor is not in vain. Every day you are able to drive to that church and serve those people, buy your drummer a cup of coffee and then head back to church and practice with him, talk with your pastor, and get up on Sundays with a desire to help people encounter God in corporate worship, you are making the soil more fertile. One drop at a time. You didn’t make a mistake taking this job, you might have just made a mistake thinking it would be easy. It won’t be easy. But if you’re faithful, it will be fruitful. You will reap that fruit one day.

You are doing the hard work a worship leader. It isn’t glamorous. Your worship team won’t be recording an album anytime soon but you love them and encourage them anyway. Your congregation won’t suddenly look like the crowd at the worship conference you attended but you model and encourage heartfelt singing anyway. Your pastor won’t be speaking at any huge conferences next week or writing any books but you honor and pray for him anyway. Your Sunday service is a bit boring and predictable but you keep praying for God to bring a freshness and vibrancy. There isn’t a worship leader in the world who can change a church through his polish and skill. There is a God who can change a church by his Holy Spirit. Keep doing the hard work in the power of the Holy Spirit.

So you’ve been sowing in tears for nine months. You can’t even imagine what shouts of joy would sound like. You’ve worked hard, labored faithfully, and done all that you know there is to do. Your high hope has become deep despair.

To the worship leader ready to quit and walk away in retreat, imagine the story in John chapter 21 went like this:

Jesus says to you, “worship leader, do you love me more than these?”

“Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”

He says to you: “Feed my lambs.”

Jesus says to you a second time, “worship leader, do you love me?”

“Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”

He says to you: “Tend my sheep.”

Jesus says to you a third time, “worship leader, do you love me?”

“Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you.”

He says to you: “Feed my sheep.”

Press on, worship leader friend. May your love for the Savior compel you, and may the power of the Spirit sustain you. Your tearful sowing will one day turn to joyful shouting. Don’t stop feeding his sheep.