Monday Morning Insights

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    Top Ten Bits of Worship Team Wisdom

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    There?s only One Person in the audience. There are lots of people out there to please (and some of them are quite insistent). At the end of the day, though, One Person matters most, and His name is Jesus. Seek first His approval. (Mt. 6:33)

    Everybody needs to tune to the same pitch. We pass around the tuner every time we gather, and find that this guarantees we?ll be in tune with each other. Similarly, if we?re all in fellowship with God, we?ll also get along together beautifully; our differences simply become rich harmonies. (1 Jn. 1:7)

    Sometimes we?re at our best simply because we spent quality time together. An afternoon together as friends can tighten the groove of a bassist and drummer when they play together that evening. God has commanded a blessing when people ?dwell together in unity.? (Ps. 133)

    All our plans are subject to change. I have yet to experience a worship service, a wedding or a work-week that went exactly as I expected ? or wished. Wise people are prepared to bend; they also know that these changes are often directly from the Hand of God. (Pr. 16:9)

    How we respond to change is probably more important than whatever we had planned in the first place. When we?re thrown a curve, the way we handle it reveals much ? maybe everything ? about our character. (Job 1:21)

    The song is bigger than the singer. The message we carry is more important than we are. When the cheering masses greeted that donkey at Jerusalem?s gate, he might have felt pretty good about himself, but I doubt he was ever received that way again. Without his Divine Passenger, he was just another donkey. (Jn. 3:30)

    The person in charge of your ?sound? can help you or destroy you. If your work has to be channeled through someone else, make sure of their competence and character. A lot rides on the shoulders of the middleman. (2 Kg 5:21ff)

    We never really leave the platform. The wireless microphone is never truly switched off. Strangers, co-workers, friends and family are observing us every moment of the day. We are ? 24/7 ? as Paul said, ambassadors for Christ. (2 Co. 5:20)

    God often turns our worst mornings into miracles. There are Sundays I step down from the platform thinking I should resign and get a job at Walmart. These are usually the same days someone grabs my hand, and ? tearfully ? thanks me for leading them into the Presence of God. I don?t know how God transforms my clumsy moments into masterpieces, but I?ve seen Him do it over and over, and not just with music. Trusting that His transforming power is working in us (and often in spite of us) should keep us both humble and confident (Ph. 2:13).

    The song might not end exactly as we rehearsed it. Musicians must follow the leader?s cue as he closes a song; life?s that way, too. Sometimes there?s a key change. Sometimes we finish a Cappella. Once in a while, the song even has to be cut off early. Our times are in the skillful hands of the Chief Musician, Whose timing is always perfect. (Jn. 20:22)

    I think there's some pretty good insight there.  We've got a lot of worship leaders and pastors that read the blog... what would you add (or subtract) from Phil's list?  What have you learned by leading worship?

    As a past worship pastor, I found Phil Christensen’s ‘top ten insights’ he has learned from leading worship to be extremely interesting… (this comes from the "Thinking Man’s Chronicles" blog)…

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    1. Ben E on Mon, June 20, 2005

      Some great points!  I would add:

      If you lead worship, you need to worship!


      Not only during the service but our personal/spiritual lives.  This especially goes for the Worship Leader.  How can you help lead people into the presence of God when you don’t regularly go there yourself!


      Be Prepared!


      In my experience, the Worship Leader also tends to be the “stage manager.” You have to stay one step ahead of what’s going on and who’s up next.

       

      Rehearse the service and communicate to those involved so that you can stay more “in the moment” instead of working for the next moment. (I need to do a better job of taking this note myself!)


      Look & Listen!


      I get a littled “stressed” when I look at the audio or visual board “op” or at an instrumentalist to give a cue, adjust a level or make a tempo change and they’re not watching or listening. You can worship, watch & listen at the same time. Honest!

       

      What’s the Message?


      Part of my job is to spiritually “set the table” for the Pastor. He’s the primary person bringing God’s Word to the people.  I want everything to flow in that direction and to remove as many obsticals as possible. Also, I love to see the Pastor worshipping and not worryng before he preaches.  It makes a bit of a difference!


      Finally:  Give Grace!

       

      Nobody’s perfect! I come close but still…yeah, right!  Just ask my team!  You don’t always know the difficulties someone is facing even moments before they arrive, so if things don’t go perfectly and mistakes are made…GRACE!  I want to “give” grace because I know I’ll need it!


      Hey, thanks for throwing the Music Guys a “bone!”  And I’ve chewed on it too long already! God Bless!

       

      Ben E

       

    2. BeHim on Mon, June 20, 2005

      I remember a truly wonderful worship experience I once had… The Worship team led worship from behind a veil.  Lights down low and simply led us to praise God.


      The moral behind this practice was:


      1.  Worshiping God, people shouldn’t see you (the worship team), they should see God.  Like looking through a window.  When clean it’s as though you are already outside or “in the presence of God in heaven”.  When dirty, you can’t help but notice the dirt on the glass more than what is beyond the glass, outside (we miss being in the presence of God because we are distracted by the “performance” of the team - like solos or gyrations, guitar or drum solos, etc).

      2.  The worship leader is much like a person starting the song “happy birthday,” thier duty is to simply “start” the song so others will join in comfortably and focus on the person to whom they are singing.


      As the pastor (as he was both, the senior pastor, and worship team leader) explained these worship truths, he faded away and we as a congregation moved towards praising God fully.


      It was truly an amazing experience.  Thank you Tim for the fond memory and praise God for your example.

    3. Lee on Tue, June 21, 2005

      Great insights!


      i haven’t been a worship leader for very long (only 5 yrs), but from what i have observed, the biggest problem with worship in the new-paradigm churches isn’t the heart-focus of the worship leader and team.  Everyone i have met or networked with totally understands the Audience of One concept, the band unity thing, and the freedom in the Holy Spirit/structure in the Holy Spirit balance.  


      I think that sameness and mediocrity in musical and artistic craft across the board is what will turn us all into what we fear most—irrelevant traditionalists.  I have seen “quality in heart/spiritual condition” become an excuse for lackluster musicianship. 

      I believe that God has made us all uniquely creative and world-class at something.  IMO, we should strive to be who God has created us to be as artists, as worship leaders, as churches.  I see too many of the same kind of thing as i visit websites and conferences.  I am not pointing fingers, here… i am as much a culprit of this as anyone.  who doesn’t check out Fellowship, Willow, Saddleback, or Northpoint and say, “wow, that’s a great, successful idea, let’s borrow from that!”  It is great to borrow ideas, but it can also be a doorway to inauthenticity.  Conferences pre-package ideas for sale that squash originality and uniqueness. 

       

      This may be heresy, but i think, if we are wanting to spend money on a conference, maybe we should forego C3 or the Willow Arts conference we’ve been to every year and buy tickets to U2 or Coldplay.


      I am totally preaching to myself, here.  Be great at what God’s empowered you (and require it of your band).  But above all, Be yourself.

       

    4. Peter on Tue, June 21, 2005

      Wow! Some great comments here!

      One reader wrote:


      “Look & Listen!


      I get a littled “stressed” when I look at the audio or visual board “op” or at an instrumentalist to give a cue, adjust a level or make a tempo change and they’re not watching or listening. You can worship, watch & listen at the same time. Honest!”

       

      Amen to that!


      I would add one thought, and I hope it causes some discussion but not fighting. Don’t get so caught up in being the “lead worshipper” instead of the “worship leader” that you spend all your attention, focus, and energy on worshipping and none on leading. (I think that’s what this quote above is kinda saying.) Leading musical worship is a very different activity, a different “discipline” than worshipping (musically). LEAD! It is very hard for a congregation to worship if the “worship leader” gets lost. Here’s a quick stage check. If you don’t know what the next two songs are, what keys they are in, what setting you need to switch to on your POD or whatever for them, and where you are going to stick your capo to play them, or what synth patch… you’re probably getting lost, and everybody else is going to, too.

       

      Also, with that in mind, I think when a group is really working well together, the worship leader is the whole band/singers/sound/lights/et cetera… and the worship team is the congregation. Aim for that.


      Sorry… one last thing… Yes, worship is a whole life thing, not a musical thing, as in Romans 12. Don’t castigate yourself too terribly if your life is not perfect. I truly believe that we can only worship God with imperfect lives and hearts, because that’s all we’ve got… I’ve had individuals on teams with me who wanted to leave because there wasn’t enough “clean stuff” in their life. I urged them to remain (they were not in any serious “mortal” life-damaging patterns of sin mind you) and that we NEEDED them on the team JUST the way they were. We need YOU on the team just the way YOU are.

    5. Greg Jones on Tue, June 21, 2005

      I found Lee’s comment especially thought provoking. He wrote:


      ———————————————————-


      I think that sameness and mediocrity in musical and artistic craft across the board is what will turn us all into what we fear most—irrelevant traditionalists.


      ———————————————————-


      As a contemporary worship leader who appreciates contemporary and more traditional music and at the same time plays jazz and progressive rock when off duty, this comment really resonates with me.


      But I think that our creativity as worship leaders is limited by the congregation’s ability to follow. Many of the creative music ideas that I would like to incorporate would cause the songs to be unfollowable or only create a distraction.

      I find myself constrained to having to pick music that best fits the personality of my congregation and the vision for our church. At the same time, the music has to be appropriately suited to augmenting the message of praise & worship and the lyrics.


      So throwing that dark angry heavy metal riff won’t work in a song singing about the joy of the Lord. My John Coltrane chord substitutions will only distract the congregation from the melody of the tune. And forget about altered time signatures. Many non-musical people in congregations can have enough problems clapping to 4/4.


      I also find my hands tied in that I need to pick music that most people in the church know. This means choosing music that’s popular on Christian radio and the in Christian music markets.


      Unfortunately, like secular music markets, the corporate “suits” use a formula driven approach in order to market the music that is popular. This formulaic mindset stifles creativity and encourages conformity.

       

      Despite these limitations, this limited framework does allow for some creativity. For instance, I can choose to do a song like “Shout To The Lord” slow (like the original), upbeat (try it, it works well) or with a different chord progression (using relative minors) that still preserves the original melody.

       

    6. Ben E. on Tue, June 21, 2005

      Peter,


      The “Look & Listen” was focused more toward the personnel/technical aspects of leading worship but I certainly understand it’s application on the more spiritual side of things.

      I’d planned an instrumental during our offering time.  While it was being played, I could see people worshipping and could hear them quietly singing.  Time for an adjustment. We needed to sing!  I walked over to the players to tell them but they already knew.  When I looked up at my “PowerPoint Guy,” he was already on it.  Because everyone (including myself) was Looking & Listening, both physically & spiritually, we found ourselves in a beautiful moment and you could absolutly feel the presence of the God in the place!

       

      I also, love it when the congregation takes over the song or the moment in general.  On Easter Sunday, we showed a short video while underscoring it with “You Are My King.”  The congregation began singing long before any lyrics could be shown.  You do have to lead people but also know when to get out of the way! 


      Blessings


      Ben E

       

    7. thx on Tue, June 21, 2005

      Greg—

      I’d encourage you to keep trying new arrangements and stay appropriate, but don’t underestimate your congregation. God created John Coltrane subs and progressive rock; there’s no reason they can’t have a place in worship, as long as the hearts that are hearing and playing are worshiping.

       

    8. PeterD on Tue, June 21, 2005

      Living a life of worship.  It is a 24/7 commitment.  I like what a lot of you had to say.  It all works well when we are focused on God.  One thing I’ve noticed.  When I plan too much, I get in the way, and the worship just seems “OFF”.  Being open to the moving of the Holy Spirit is paramount in any worship service.  It doesn’t matter if you have a traditional/conventional service, blended or a contemporary/high energy service.  We tend to get stuck in ruts as worship leaders, some are good ruts, some are bad ruts.  I prefer to stay in the rut of being sensitive to God moving on his people.  Step out of the way worship leader, God is doing something.  Let me be decreased and let God be increased.

    9. Pete King on Fri, June 24, 2005

      Thanks for this article. It’s been a while since we’ve discussed the music aspect of church. Notice I said aspect. Because what some of you are saying here is exactly on point. Finally someone agrees with me(not that I’m always right, because I’m not) that we have become carbon copied idealist borrowing from other’s methods and trying to make them our own. True all things were copied from something else but lets give God some credit. He put the talents and abilities in our lives that make us a unique person for His plan. My director in college really summed it up nicely when he said that people want to hear how you sound not how you can immitate someone elses. Once again, I’m not saying we don’t reflect the music we listen to, but let’s allow God to not only use our stylistic influences but also our lives and everything we have experienced to be brought out in our music. That’s the crux of the problem. It isn’t imitation that is bad it’s authenticity that is missing. We are simply trying use stylistic approaches as a means for impacting lives through our music. In our defense, the problem is driven not just by our desire to please others but it is also a problem that is put on us to meet people’s expectations and wants. True, often times we select the music because it fits our personality and likes but we also need to be challenged and stretch beyond the comforts of preference. In other words, listen to the music with our hearts as well as with our ears. Being ecletic is difficult and I’m speaking to myself here but so many of us refuse to appreciate other’s approach to the same message. Let’s not get stuck. Just as sometimes we lead the same song every week because we REALLY LIKE IT.

    10. Phil Christensen on Sat, June 25, 2005

      Thanks, Todd - I’m honored to have you reprint this at MMI - I always enjoy the good thoughts here. Thanks, also gang, for adding your terrific comments and ideas.  What a marvelous God we serve - and how astonishing that He invites us into His presence to praise Him!  This never ceases to blow me away.

    11. Phil Christensen on Sat, June 25, 2005

      Thanks, Todd - I’m honored to have you reprint this at MMI - I always enjoy the good thoughts here. Thanks also gang, for adding your terrific comments and ideas.  What a marvelous God we serve - and how astonishing that He invites us into His presence to praise Him!  This never ceases to blow me away.

       

       

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