Tag: Leading a worship team

A New Year To Do Old Things

1So it’s 2013. A new year, a fresh start, and a new number you have to get used to writing on your checks. That’s the hardest part for me.

We hear a lot in these first few weeks of a new year about doing new things, or making new resolutions. There’s a pressure on us, in our personal lives and in our professional lives, to do things a little bit differently.

Worship leaders aren’t immune to this pressure. We can begin feel the need to be more innovative, creative, and different than we were last year. Just this morning as I was watching the archived first session of the Passion 2013 conference I noticed feeling the pressure: teach these new songs, incorporate these new sounds, and do it this coming Sunday.

Growing and changing are not only good things, but they’re necessary things. Living things grow and change. Psalm 1 describes the man who delights in God as being like “a tree planted by streams of water…” Since when have you seen a living tree not change from year to year?

But the focus on the new can come at the expense of the focus on the old. Yes, it’s good to let God grow us up and change us as worship leaders as we draw from him. But don’t forget the old things that you’re called to. Year after year after year.

Love Jesus. Study his word and worship Him when no one’s looking.

Love your family. Don’t fall victim to the worldly pressure to overwork and miss out on your commitments in the home.

Love the Church. With all of its issues and problems and politics, it’s the body of Christ and you’re a part.

Love your worship team. Don’t treat your worship team like they’re just a bunch of names on a monthly schedule. Build community and foster friendship among your team.

Love your congregation. Don’t become a celebrity who only appears on a stage every Sunday. You might be a great singer, but if you don’t have love, you’re just a resounding gong (1 Corinthians 13:1).

Love to see your worship team leading your congregation in singing to Jesus. All of the above combine in a worship leader’s heart that finds no greater joy on Sunday morning than being caught up in praise to Jesus with a worship team and a congregation all singing the same song.

So, this new year with new pressures to do things in a new way, may we not forsake the old, foundational things that really matter: loving Jesus, loving our families, loving our churches, and loving to sing the unchanging song of heaven for all eternity: worthy is the Lamb.

Ten Worship Leading Myths

There isn’t a worship leader in the world who doesn’t struggle with regular, persistent, frustratingly silly (but still dangerous) moments of doubt/fear/anxiety/self-consciousness/jealousy. We start to believe myths that tell us we should be different, or we aren’t talented enough, or we shouldn’t uphold certain principles. These myths weaken our ministry as worship leaders.

Here are ten common worship leading myths that come to mind:

1: Every week you have to be more creative than the last. Wrong. Every week you get to point people to Jesus again.

2: Don’t waste too much time thinking/praying about songs for Sunday. Wrong. This is your most important job.

3: You need a great voice. Wrong. If God calls you then you’re the man for the job. Sing with abandon.

4: You have to stay up-to-date with all the new stuff. Wrong. None of the stuff changes lives. Jesus does.

5: You’ve really arrived when you get famous. Wrong. The Church needs servants not celebrities.

6: if people aren’t into it then something’s wrong with your leading. Wrong. That’s the Holy Spirit’s job. Be patient.

7: Anyone with a willing heart should serve on the worship team. Wrong. Look for heart AND giftedness.

8: The Holy Spirit only shows up on the 4th song. Wrong. Don’t create formulas. Magnify Jesus in whatever time you have.

9: You’d be happier at another church. Wrong. You’d just have different challenges and different reasons to be unhappy.

10: You should speak before every song. Wrong. The more you talk, the less they hear what you’re actually saying.

I know I missed several hundred more myths that worship leaders believe. If you’ve got any to share, I’d love to hear them.

Rehearsing Anywhere

Over the 8 years I’ve been serving at my church, I’ve learned by trial and error, but mostly by necessity, that it’s possible for a worship team to rehearse (a) anywhere, and (b) with very little time, and still be prepared.

Of course there’s the ideal: a dedicated time, a regular time, in a dedicated space, preferably with all your equipment, even more preferably with the same equipment you’ll use for the service, in the same room where the service will be, with the equipment cooperating and being run by experienced people.

If you can have that ideal, then God bless you.

But if you can’t have that ideal, then welcome to my world.

Especially now, since my church has lost our building, and we’re worshipping off-site at schools on Sunday for the foreseeable future. We usually can’t get into these spaces until Sunday morning, and can’t rehearse much in that space because our first service has different musicians (more traditional), so we look for a band room or choir room or something with a piano and some chairs.

This past Sunday we were at a Catholic High School which had promised us the use of their band room, but alas it was locked. We had to improvise. So we found their chapel. No piano, no instruments, no anything, but we had to make it work, and so we did.

I think a lot of worship leaders/teams think that in order to have a good rehearsal they have to run through every song twice, do the entire length of that song, have a protracted time of discussion and/or chaos in between songs, and go past everyone’s bedtime so everyone leaves tired.

I’ve learned a few things over the years thanks to not having “the ideal” that I think have helped me and the worship teams at my church learn to have short rehearsals without all the equipment or conveniences.

Step one: Talk your team through the songs. Take charge. Communicate clearly from top to bottom how you want the song to go. Tell your instrumentalists and singers what you’d like for them to do. Don’t boss them around, but do give them direction. You don’t have all day. Before you play a note of the song, talk through it. Say “here’s what we’re going to do…” and lay it out. Go through the whole song list like this. Talk through all the songs in sequence.

Step two: Play through the songs. Don’t have all your instruments? That’s OK. Your drummer can play drums with his hand on a chair. Your guitarists can bring their guitars in unplugged. Just have someone give you the right key to the song and lead them vocally. If you have some instruments, make sure everyone plays quietly so everyone can be heard. Before you play through the songs, recap what you said earlier when you talked through them. Then play through it. Then review it. Was that good? What wasn’t? People aren’t idiots. They know when something isn’t working.

Let me just pause here and say that you don’t need to rehearse the entire song. Rehearse what needs to be rehearsed. You can save time on some songs by singing the first half of verse 1 and then skipping to the second half of verse 2. Or just stop the song and say “OK, now let’s pretend we’re all the way through the song and let’s practice the accents on the last chorus”. People will go with you and thank you for saving them time.

Step three: Stop and pray. Not-ideal rehearsals are a priceless opportunity to remind your team how much they need the Holy Spirit’s help. So, first, stop. Don’t drag out the rehearsal. Stop it when things are good enough. Then pray. Everyone in a circle. Then you’re done!

Few things will burn your team out more than ineffective rehearsals. And few things will burn worship leaders out more than feeling the need to have everything perfect at rehearsals. In a sense, lower your expectations for rehearsal and just make it work. An hour and fifteen minutes should be your max, in my opinion, unless you’re recording a CD or rehearsing multiple song lists or tricky songs. On average, though, 75 minutes is more than enough.

Honestly, most worship songs are about 4 – 5 minutes long. And most churches do about 5 or 6 songs per service. A liberal estimate puts that at 35 minutes of music per church per service. So since you don’t need to rehearse each song full-length, you should technically be able to rehearse for a service in 30 minutes. It’s possible!

Ten Ways to Make it Hard for People to Follow You

This past Saturday morning we had a breakfast at my church for a bunch of volunteer worship leaders. After we shared about ourselves, I shared on how important it is as a worship leader to be easy for people to follow. I did this by modeling and talking about 10 ways to make it hard for people to follow you. I’ve listed them below.

1. Be timid
Timidity begets timidity. Confidence begets confidence. If you’re timid, unsure of yourself, and insecure, the people in the room are going to feel sorry for you, want to help you, think you were put up front too soon, and will pull back. As my old professor Steve Brown says, do some self-talk before you get up front and say to yourself, “I have been commissioned by the High King of Heaven…” and lead with boldness.

2. Play too much
If you overplay, you come across like you’re angry. If people in the room sense that you’re angry or intense, their defense mechanism is going to be to want to protect themselves and they won’t let themselves trust you. Don’t play too much. And back to the first point, don’t play too little. Find the right balance.

3. Sing the wrong melody
I once sat in a church full of people while the worship leader sang the wrong melody (on purpose) for every line of the chorus of “How Great is Our God”. This was ironic since the chorus says “…sing with me…”. They couldn’t sing with him because he wasn’t making it easy. We want to make it easy for people to sing along with us. Sing the melody, sing the right melody, and sing it consistently throughout the song. If you veer into harmony, you must (1) make sure someone else has taken clear leadership of the song from you, and (2) use a different “voice” (i.e. breathier, softer, back from the mic). (I wrote a post on this a while ago here.)

4. Sing/play impressively
Leading worship requires most of us to set aside most of what we are really capable of doing, for the sake of serving the congregation and serving the song. If every singer and instrumentalist on stage was demonstrating the full scope of their respective skill-sets, it would be a disaster. Your job is to insert yourself into people’s consciousness as seldom as possible during a time of singing. So stay simple.

5. Sing the wrong keys
C to shining C is a good rule of thumb. Guys are mostly comfortable from a low C to middle C. They can dip lower and pop up higher, but do best in that octave range. The same principle applies for women, but up an octave. If you want people to sing with you, you’ll need to think through keys carefully, often taking songs down from where they were recorded, into more singable keys. (I wrote a post on this a while ago here.)

6. Mumble
“What did he/she say?” is one sure way to distract people. Speak slowly and articulate well when you’re speaking. And don’t try to say 4 sentences in the space of 2 measures.

7. Inconsistent tempo
The average person in the room can’t identify specific things/instruments/notes that are “off” during a time of worship. But they can identify that something is off. Tempo is one of those somethings that, if not consistent, and if unpredictable, can make people feel like something is wrong. Set the right tempo for a song either by using a metronome or by singing a quick section of the song in your head before you start to establish the tempo of the song. Once you’ve established it, stick with it.

8. All over the map themes
Songs should connect with each other. Don’t try to pick a song list in 5 minutes. Give yourself time, chew over it, pray over it, consider the scripture passages and sermon theme, and come back to it a few times during the week if you have to. You want your songs to go somewhere – not just all say the same thing, and not all be randomly placed.

9. The worship leader voice
Seriously. Just use your normal voice. Don’t contort your vowels, get growly, get breathy, raise or lower your pitch, or talk differently than you’d talk if you were greeting someone at your door. You might not realize you do this, so ask people who know you. Or record yourself leading and listen back. You might be surprised. People can spot fake-ness from a mile away. (I wrote a post on this a while ago here.)

10. No clear leadership
In the absence of leadership, people don’t feel safe. With too much leadership, people want to shut down. It’s a tricky balance, but it’s really a simple biblical principle. We want to say to people, in the words of David, “O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together!”. That’s what our role is: to call people and to help people magnify and exalt the name of the Lord together.

The Dangerous Pull of Up-front Ministry and the Upward Pull of the Spirit

While I was on vacation in southern California with my wife, her parents, and our two little girls who really really fell in love with the beach, I had the privilege of spending a Saturday morning with the worship team at my Father-in-law’s church and leading worship with them the next morning at their 11:00am service.

When I was preparing for my time with them I sensed that God wanted us to share honestly about the difficulties of ministry so that (1) we could encourage and pray for one another, and (2) we could avoid the trap of trying to push through these difficulties by our own strength.

It turns out that, at least for this group, sharing honestly was not a problem. Maybe that’s a southern Californian thing, but in Northern Virginia it can be a bit difficult to really get to know people. Each member of the team shared how they had come to trust in Jesus, what brought them to this particular church, how long they had been in ministry, etc. I shared my story and particularly some of the joys and sorrows I’ve experienced in ministry so far.

In my experience, serving in up-front worship ministry presents many opportunities to become prideful, or discouraged, or frustrated, or hardened, or battered, or maybe all of these combined. Yes, there are many joys and it can be very rewarding. But for many worship leaders and worship team members, after serving for several years, we can get burned out, lose our heart for the congregation, get stuck in a rut, have a long list of things we tried that never worked, and so on. This isn’t the experience of every worship leader out there, but I think many worship leaders experience extended “low points” and wonder if it’s normal.

Yes, it’s normal but God has given us his Holy Spirit to pull us up out of the ruts and discouragement and anger and hard-heartedness to point us to Jesus and fill us with power. Jesus said to the disciples in Acts 1:8 that they would “receive power” when the Holy Spirit came upon them. He called the Holy Spirit the “helper” three times in book of John. We’ve been given power and we’ve been given a helper in the Holy Spirit and we need both!

I mentioned in my last post that I want to spend some time on this blog focusing on the Holy Spirit. After one or two guitar tutorial videos this week I’d like to start. Worship leaders who attempt to do their jobs without the help and the power of the Holy Spirit will find out very quickly that the dangerous pull of up-front ministry is too much for their flesh to handle. In the words of Paul in Ephesians 5:18, “be filled with the Spirit!” He fills us up, and he pulls us up, to point us to Jesus so we can point our congregations to him as well.