Category: Leading a congregation

How Wrong (with audio)

1The bad thing about this blog is that it makes me feel compelled to share all of my worship leading bloopers with the whole world wide web. So, without further ado, here’s my most recent mess-up from this past Sunday.

For our offertory, we were going to sing Stuart Townend’s “How Long? (We Have Sung Our Songs of Victory)“. I would sing the verses, joined by the vocalists on the chorus, and then at the very end we’d have the congregation stand and sing a chorus. This is a great song for Advent (which is why I picked it), and was even more poignant following the horrific events in Newtown, Connecticut last week.

So I started the song off on piano, and then began the first verse with no problem.

We have sung our songs of victory, we have prayed to you for rain / We have cried for your compassion to renew the land again…”

But then, instead of continuing with verse 1, my brain decided it would be a good idea to sing the second half of verse 2:

But the land is still in darkness and we’ve fled from what is right / We have failed the silent children who will never see the light.” 

The obvious problem is that it’s the wrong half of the verse. The second problem is that I’m the only person singing, so there’s no covering this mistake up. Yikes.

I was so confused and lost that I had no option other than to just stop and start over again. Here’s how it all went down. Enjoy.

My congregation responded to my little blooper with laughter, encouragement, and applause. How encouraging! This was another reminder to me that people in the room are quite happy to see that the people on the stage are just normal people. There’s no need to pretend that you’re amazing. Just be you.

I received an email that evening from a man I really respect who’s a member of our church and he thanked me for this little blooper and said it helps affirm that we’re not trying to draw attention to ourselves on stage.

So, I hope my bloopers are an encouragement to you that perfection and flawless performance are not our goals. Yes, excellence is, and this was a reminder to me that I need to do a better job of memorizing the words. But when you mess up (and you will), just get over yourself and move on.

Leading Worship In the Shadow of Tragedy

1Yesterday’s mass shooting an at elementary school in Connecticut is the kind of tragedy that makes everyone – Christians, non-Christians, atheists, agnostics – take a step back and wonder how and why something so awful could happen. The fact that everyone who will be walking into your Sunday morning services has been asking those questions should give worship leaders and pastors reason to think very carefully about what they’re going to sing and what they’re going to say.

First, worship leaders, don’t attempt to be the consoler-in-chief tomorrow. You might be the first person “up”, but that role falls to your pastor. It’s appropriate for you to say something like “This morning as we stand to sing, most of us are singing with heavy hearts after what we’ve witnessed this past week. So as we stand, let’s declare what we know to be true: that God is faithful, God is good, God is sovereign, and God sent his son to rescue a very dark world”. That’s all, roughly, that you need to say. Let your pastor do the rest. And let your songs preach.

Secondly, it’s not too late to change your song selections for the morning. Here are the songs we’re singing at my church tomorrow in case this is helpful.

1. Blessed Be Your Name (Matt Redman)
– Opening song
– Helps us articulate praise to God in the midst of joy and sorrow
– “Blessed be Your name… when I’m found in the desert place… on the road marked with suffering… though there’s pain in the offering…”
– “You give and take away…”
– We will keep the arrangement of this from getting too rocky

2. It is Well with My Soul (traditional)
– Song after the welcome, where our pastor will have people be seated and will address the tragedy and lead in prayer
– The 4 traditional verses assure us that when we experience peace, or sorrow, or trials, because “Christ has regarded (our) helpless estate, and shed his own blood”, we can say “it is well”. Verse 4 reminds us that one day Jesus will return.

3. How Long? (We Have Sung Our Songs of Victory) (Stuart Townend)
– Offering
– The verses contain cries to God like “Lord we know your heart is broken by the evil that you see…” and “…but the land is still in darkness and we’ve fled from what is right. We have failed the silent children who will never see the light”.
– The chorusses echo so many places in the Psalms and say “how long… before the weeping turns to songs of joy?”
– The last verse gives hope: “But I know a day is coming when the deaf will hear his voice, when the blind will see their Savior, and the lame will leap for joy. When the widow finds a husband who will always love his bride, and the orphan finds a Father who will never leave her side.”
– The version on iTunes that you should buy is the one off of the “Pour Over Me” album
– We’re singing this during the offering, and not expecting people to sing along.

4. There is a Higher Throne (Keith and Kristyn Getty)
– Communion song
– A song about the hope of heaven, where Jesus will “…wipe each tear-stained eye, as thirst and hunger die…”

5. Come Thou Long Expected Jesus (traditional)
– Communion song
– “Come, Thou long expected Jesus, born to set Thy people free. From our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in Thee…”
– We will take the chorus from the old Vineyard song “All Who Are Thirsty” with the simple lyrics “come, Lord Jesus, come”, and use it as a chorus on this hymn.

6. Everlasting God (Strength Will Rise) (Brenton Brown)
– Closing communion song
– A song of faith: “Our God, you reign forever. Our hope, our strong deliverer… You are the everlasting God… You do not faint, You won’t grow weary.”

As Bob Kauflin tweeted this morning (12/15/12), we should be regularly singing songs that help us lament the brokenness and darkness and fallenness of this world. But particularly after tragedies like this, when everyone has been shaken by seeing evil on display, pastors and worship leaders have to be willing to change their game plan and help people not only grieve, but grieve with hope in a good and faithful God, who sent his Son to suffer and die in our place, who knew grief and loss, and who was raised to life, ascended to heaven, and will run day return to “make all the sad things come untrue”.

Try Not to Act Like a Narcissist

A few months ago I was taking a seminary course on pastoral counseling through the Washington D.C. campus of RTS, or Reformed Theological Seminary. At one point the professor was making a tangential point about one of the defining characteristics of narcissists, which is that they treat the people in their lives like they’re cardboard cutouts. They can move them around, put them down, raise them up, dispose of them, and use them however it serves them.

Then he moved on, and moved back to whatever the main point was that he was making.

But I couldn’t get past what he had just said. Narcissists treat people in their lives like they’re cardboard cutouts.

I immediately started thinking about how I interact with the members of my worship team. The ones I know well. The ones I don’t know so well. The newer members. The stronger members. The weaker members. Do I value them and treat them like brothers and sisters with love and respect and honor? Or do I see them as cardboard cutouts, names on a spreadsheet, there at my disposal to be used as I deem best, with no consideration of their hearts?

Now, I think I’m a pretty sensitive guy and try to do my best to care for the musicians with whom I serve alongside. But, newsflash of the century here, I’m not perfect, and in that moment in that seminary class, I think the Holy Spirit was convicting me of a dangerous ability to be careless with people in the church and, perhaps unknowingly, act in a way that can be hurtful to them.

Maybe it’s not scheduling someone for 6 months and never explaining to them why. Maybe it’s never responding to an email from someone, deleting it, and assuming they’ll just go away. Maybe it’s not getting back to someone who asked you to call them. Who knows.

Try not to be a narcissist. Treat people with love and honor. It doesn’t mean you to have to make everyone happy and never be tough. You need to be tough in ministry sometimes. But don’t be a jerk.

As a wonderful old lady in one of my former churches once told me, ministry will (hopefully) make you tough and sweet. That’s what the Holy Spirit wants to help us be, and by God’s grace, he’ll keep helping us find the balance.

Six Ways to Improve Your Church’s Worship

It takes a long time for churches to grow in worship. Expecting immediate change is one of the major reasons why worship leaders and pastors get discouraged and give up. It’s never as easy as we want it to be, and it always takes longer than we want it to take.

Well, maybe not always. Sometimes there are easy things we can do to make a difference in a relatively short amount of time.

As I’ve visited and watched other church services and worship leaders over the years,  I’ve found myself coming back to six things that I wish I could suggest in almost every case. These aren’t earth shattering suggestions. They’re fairly simple.

But they’re fundamental. And if worship leaders and their churches would make some minor corrections in the fundamentals, I dare to suggest that they’d see significant improvement in their Sunday morning worship services.

Here are my six suggestions:

1. Turn the lights up
Romantic restaurants turn the lights down to help couples feel isolated. Movie theaters turn lights down so you can see the show. When churches turn the lights down it creates isolated spectators. Turn the lights up brighter to facilitate communal involvement in worship of Jesus together.

2. Have your pastor call people to worship
Is the pastor (or one of them) even in the room yet? Is he eating a donut offstage? Does he not think this opening time of worship is important? Does he agree with what the worship leader is doing? I guess I don’t think this time is all that important either. These are the questions and that’s the conclusion your congregation may have if they don’t see the pastor’s face until the sermon. He should be up on stage early. He should welcome people, pray for the service, and encourage and invite them to worship. When the pastor is seen as supporting and participating in worship, it will make a difference for the better.

3. Use congregation-friendly keys
Seriously. If you sing songs that are too high, people will tune out. Read my old post on this if you have any questions.

4. Remove rock-star stage elements
Being elevated on a stage is enough. But projecting the worship leader’s face onto a giant screen? Building a platform for the bass player to stand on for no apparent good reason? Fog? Come on. I can understand building a platform for the drums so they can be rolled and moved with ease, but do we need extra platforms on top of the already existing platform? No. And do we need to see the worship leader’s face the whole time we sing? No. We don’t. Take away these distractions as soon as you can.

5. Don’t introduce too many new songs
When you don’t introduce any new songs, your congregation tunes out because they’re bored. When you introduce too many new songs, your congregation tunes out because they don’t have the energy. Two new songs a month, max.

6. Nudge your team to be more expressive
No congregation will go beyond what they see modeled from up front. If expressive worship is modeled from up front, from the singers and musicians and the pastor, then you’ll see expressiveness in the congregation. They’ll know it’s safe. But if no one up front is expressive, then of course you can’t expect the congregation to be, except for the one brave soul. They’ll know it’s not permitted.

There’s a growing epidemic in our churches of worship bands playing songs while a tuned out congregation waits for the sermon. If the musicians and pastors think more carefully about serving their congregations and inviting them into worshipping Jesus together, then we’ll all be pleasantly surprised. And God will receive more of the glory due his name.

Ten More Worship Leading Myths

A couple of weeks ago I shard ten worship leading myths that seemed to encourage/challenge a lot of worship leaders and generate some good discussion. I think most worship leaders find themselves regularly facing discouragement and doubt about their role in ministry and whether or not they’re making a difference and going about things the right way. All of us who lead worship could use some encouragement and challenging from time to time, so I offer ten more myths that can keep us being as effective as we should be.

11: My worth correlates to how worship goes. Wrong. It correlates to Jesus’ perfect sacrifice so get over yourself.

12: If people aren’t into it, I should repeat it 4 more times. Wrong. Sometimes you just need to move on.

13: That song didn’t work last week so we should throw it away. Wrong. If it’s a good song, try it at least 3 times.

14: I’m really good at this so I don’t need to prepare. Wrong. God seems to enjoy humbling cocky worship leaders.

15: Maybe someday people will notice me. Wrong. Maybe someday you won’t want to be noticed.

16: Big church worship leaders are experts. Wrong. Small church worship leaders usually have a much harder job.

17: My job is to take people on a journey or create an experience. Wrong. Your job is to point to Jesus with clarity.

18: If we sing too many old hymns we won’t be relevant. Wrong. If you sing too few you won’t have enough substance.

19: I don’t need to get too involved in the congregation. Wrong. If you don’t love them you’re just a clanging cymbal.

20: My pastor doesn’t know how lucky he is to have me. Wrong. You don’t know how lucky you are not to have his job!

As always, I’m sure I missed a couple hundred more myths so please feel free to share.