Giving Your Worship Team Options

I don’t like having to decide before a service exactly how I’m going to lead a song, how we should start it, how we should end it, or what (if anything) we’ll repeat. Until I’m actually leading the song, seeing and hearing how people are responding, and sensing where God is leading, I never quite know what will work best. Having the freedom to make last-minute (or second) decisions is helpful.

There are exceptions of course, like when a song is accompanied by a dance or a video, or when we’re following a specific arrangement, or when a lot of moving pieces are involved like choirs, organ, orchestra, etc. In those cases it can make a lot of sense to decide ahead of time the exact roadmap for a song.

But the worship team at my church has gotten used to me saying to them during rehearsal something along the lines of: “we’ll see what happens. We might do this, or we might do that.”

I’ve found it helpful to let my worship team know what the options are on a particular song. Take this past weekend for example:

  • We started with Sovereign Grace Music’s “Greater Than We Can Imagine”. On the recording, the band comes in together at the beginning at full volume. I told my team that we’d either do that, or I’d just come into verse one quietly, we’d slowly build, and then be in full by verse two. It depended on how it felt in the room. We ended up coming in slowly.
  • We sang Matt Redman’s “This is How We Know” which we had taught the week earlier. On Saturday night I made a last minute decision to skip the bridge, since I felt like people were just barely getting the feel of the verse and chorus. On Sunday morning I told them that we might do the bridge or we might not. We ended up not doing it.

Sometimes I’ll tell the worship team: “when we get to the end of verse three, we’ll do one of two things. Either we’ll play the intro and go back to verse one, or play the ending and sing the last line over it a few times. Just follow me at the end of verse three and I’ll let you know.”

On our chord charts sometimes I’ll even include “option A” after a chorus or bridge, or “option B”. During rehearsal I’ll tell the team to watch me for a cue. Usually option A is the default so my “cue” is doing nothing. Option B is something we might do – or only do once – and so my cue is looking back at them and nodding “like something is about to happen”. It sounds silly but after a few years the worship team knows what I mean when I say that.

It can be frustrating to be locked into a predetermined way of doing every song before the service starts. But it can be equally (or more) frustrating to have no idea what you’re going to do and expect it all to come together on the fly and your musicians to read your mind. As much as you can, let your worship team know what the different options are within a certain song, rehearse those parts, and make sure they’re comfortable. The more you do this the more natural it will become for everyone.

Communicating Modesty Standards to the Women on Your Worship Team

Every year around this time I send an email to all of the women on the worship team at my church to remind them about the importance of watching what they wear when they’re helping lead worship.

It’s awkward to say many of the things that need to be said since I’m a guy. So I had my amazing wife Catherine write the email for me. We tweak it every year, but it mostly stays the same.

Here’s what Catherine wrote. Feel free to pass this along to your worship team if you think it would be helpful:

“To all the beautiful ladies on the worship team,

Its that time of year again when temperatures no longer dictate modesty.  I’ve sent out emails about this before but was reminded of the challenge this past Sunday when I showed up to church in a dress that seemed not-so-low-cut at home but was, I thought, inappropriately low with a baby tugging on it! Arg. So, here’s a quick reminder about expectations for modesty on the worship team from someone who doesn’t always succeed in following them herself. (I do try!)

A quick reminder of why this is a big deal as worship team members: Mostly because our purpose is to draw attention to the Lord, not ourselves. We all know that most men struggle with purity in the way they look at scantily clad women. Many of them are very successful in meeting this challenge, but the time to test them in their resolve is not in church. (As if we should really be testing them any time!) Yes, it’s their responsibility to guard their hearts and avert their eyes if we are just too beautiful, but we can lovingly assist them in this as their sisters by not tempting them! Our goal is to lead them into seeing Jesus, not distract them.

Some practical guidelines (as “modesty” can be a very vague term): Sorry if these are a little over-explicit, but I know we all come to modesty from different places, so this gets us on the same page.

No cleavage in the front or back
This was my mom’s favorite rule to tell her students when she taught science lab classes. I love it! But, just be careful that your shirt is not showing cleavage and that you can lean over to pick up fallen music without showing those front row people a little more of God’s beautiful creation than they should be seeing. I know this is hard with deep “v”s in, but tank tops underneath are always an option. (Be careful in this too, as I know I’ve been frustrated to discover that some of my tank tops are even a little low cut if I’m being careful.)

Test skirts for length
This is more of a challenge this year than it has been in the past, as short skirts are definitely in. I think a good rule of thumb for when you’re up front is that your skirt should touch your knees when you’re standing up and not show too much thigh when you’re sitting down. Also, remember that when you’re in the informal choir, you are elevated in comparison to much of the congregation. This means your skirts will look shorter since they are looking up to you.

Make sure you can be expressive in worship without showing skin between your shirt and your skirt/pants.
Again, long tanks tucked in or out can be helpful in this. Raise your hands in front of the mirror and see what you see! You don’t want to be inhibited in worship because of a shirt that might ride up. Also, check for underwear (or “cleavage”) sightings when you sit down.

Use discretion in the tightness of your attire

As summer comes use discretion about sleeve lengths
I really don’t think sleeveless shirts or dresses are an issue, but strapless is obviously out (unless you wear a sweater over the top) and I think the same could be said about strappy or tanks.

Oh, and obviously make sure that your underwear isn’t visible through your clothes (ie. no see-thru clothes)!

I know that sometimes modesty can be a touchy issue with women, so I hope I haven’t offended anyone! None of these are hard-and-fast rules. They’re just the things I try to think about as I pick clothes. And the reasons I get mad at my wardrobe so many times as my clothes shrink in the wash or I gain weight. (Ha. There’s only so long after having a baby that you can legitimately wear those nice long maternity tops!)

One more story (that I’ve told before) before I stop: My junior year in college, one guy (you don’t know him) started leading worship in chapel on a semi-regular basis. He seemed nice, Godly, and smart. But he always wore very tight shirts. It was actually kind of uncomfortable to look at. So my roommate and I dubbed him “one who causes us to stumble”. (Although I have to admit that we didn’t think he was very attractive, just dressed in such a way that it seemed he was trying to attract. He was not attractive, but he was distracting.)

Now whenever I hear about that guy, or see people he hung out with, I am reminded of his yucky tight shirts. I guess the point is that we are not the only ones who should be dressed to attract attention to the Lord, not our bodies. But this is only to the girls because its a lot easier for men to dress modestly and undistractingly. (Sheesh. Most of the time, they’re just boring… “-ly dressed”, that is.)

Love,
Catherine

Sing to the Lord

I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me. (Psalm 13:6)

Oh come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! (Psalm 95:1)

Oh sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth! Sing to the LORD, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. (Psalm 96:1-2)

Oh sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done marvelous things! His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him. (Psalm 98:1-2)

I will sing to the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being. (Psalm 104:33)

Sing to the LORD with thanksgiving; make melody to our God on the lyre! (Psalm 147:7)

Praise the LORD! Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the assembly of the godly! (Psalm 149:1)

Notice a theme? Time after time in the Psalms, we’re commanded to sing to the Lord. This is important for several reasons.

First, notice that we’re commanded to sing. Singing isn’t merely encouraged in scripture – it’s commanded. God’s people are to be a singing people, a musical people, and a noisy people.

Second, in case you missed it, our singing is to be directed God-ward.

But this isn’t always so easy:

We get distracted
If you’ve seen the movie “Up”, you’ll remember the scene when the talking dog, Dug, is in the middle of talking to Carl, when he’s distracted and suddenly blurts out “squirrel!” Oh, how often we get distracted by the squirrels when we’re in the middle of singing to the Lord.

We get self-conscious
Yes, we’re commanded to sing corporately (“…in the assembly of the godly”), and our singing has the effect of “teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom” (Colossians 3:16), but each one of us is individually called to direct our singing to the Lord. So pay attention and enjoy the people around you, but at the same time ignore them. You’re not singing for them or to them.

We forget we need Jesus
There is not a single second when an astronaut, performing a space walk, is not completely dependent on the perfect integrity of his space suit. Without it, he’s hopeless on his own. Similarly, there is not a single word we can sing to the Lord without being completely dependent on Jesus Christ, our mediator, our great high priest, and our way to the Father.

C.J. Mahaney phrased it this way at the 2009 Sovereign Grace Worship Conference:

“…we must never leave the impression during corporate worship that we do not need a mediator. There isn’t a moment where I don’t need a mediator. In light of the Father’s holiness and my sinfulness, I cannot approach him directly apart from Christ.”

When we gather to sing to the Lord, we can only do so because of and through Jesus.

We think our voice isn’t good enough
Each member of the body of Christ is gifted in different ways. This is how God arranges it (1 Corinthians 13:3 says “God arranged the members of the body, each one of them, as he chose…”). Some are more gifted singers than others. Some are trained. Some are tone deaf. But God wants us all to sing to him. This is comforting and encouraging to all of the average singers among us, and should be humbling to those who are more gifted.

We think it’s just singing words
David said in Psalm 108:3: “My heart is steadfast, O God! I will sing and make melody with all my being!”

When we sing, we’re not only supposed to articulate praise with our lips, or make melody with our vocal chords – but “sing and make melody with all (our) being!” Does our singing look like that? If not, we have some growing to do.

So the next time you sing, sing to the Lord, with eyes fixed on him, a heart grateful for Jesus, and a voice raised unashamed. And ignore the squirrels too.

When the Congregation Claps On the Wrong Beat

This past Sunday we closed our service with Tim Hughes’ song “Happy Day” celebrating the “empty cross, the empty grave” and “life eternal” that Jesus won for us.

I started the song off by playing four measures on my own, and then the rest of the band joined me. The problem? They were one beat behind.

Because my intro was just straight eighth-notes and I jumped into it after saying something to the congregation, my drummer (who is super gifted) couldn’t quite tell which beat was the downbeat. Hence the band coming in one beat behind.

I quickly realized that this meant the congregation was clapping on the wrong beat.

What should I do? Go the entire song with the congregation clapping on the wrong beat? Try to fight them and hope they figure it out? Or just stop the song and start over?

I chose the last option. I just motioned to the band to stop, told the congregation we were going to start over and why, and then we tried it again and got it right.

Here’s how it sounded:

I think this is the first time I’ve ever had to stop a song and re-start it. I don’t imagine it will happen that often. But sometimes, like this past Sunday morning, it’s the best option.

And I think it was the right call this time. It showed the congregation we don’t take ourselves too seriously, it helped the band get back on track, and allowed us to sing the rest of the song without a huge distraction. This kind of thing helps keep us humble. It’s also fun to look back on it (or listen back as the case may be) and laugh. And learn. But mostly laugh.