I had to lead worship for an office fellowship a couple of Thursdays ago, and because of the other tenants in that office, I was asked to lead worship without my trusty guitar.
Talk about a challenge!
You need to understand that I am a musician first and foremost, not a singer. Therefore I feel very insecure when I am trying to lead worship without any instrumental accompaniment at all. I was reading an article by another worship leader recently. In it he wrote glowingly about how a small church without music instruments can just make do by singing a cappella, and how stirring the effect of adding vocal harmonies would be.
Not that I disagree with him totally, but I've spent time trying to train vocalists to sing harmonies in praise and worship. Let's just say that it is very much easier to get someone to take guitar lessons online and play for worship rather than train up some singers who can sing harmony. Much, much easier! So I believe his advice may not be the best advice he can give to a new or small church struggling to manage without good musicians or instruments.
In the end I managed the session by choosing the right songs. I used the songs
Amazing Grace (traditional version)
My Jesus I Love Thee
These two songs
The verse is difficult to sing without some instrument marking out the counts, because the melody just floats around somehow. There is also a 2 bar gap from the end of the verse to the start of the chorus, again difficult to manage without a rhythm instrument. Yes you can cut short that gap if you are singing a cappella, but that gap is the point where most people would be lost. And try as I might, I cannot think of a musically tasteful way to cut short that gap without getting artificial or contrived. So I will never use that song when leading worship without any instruments.
Conclusion:
Am I being too nit-picky with all these details? I don't think so. I believe that leadership involves looking ahead, anticipating problems that may arise and either preparing to face them or finding ways to avoid them.
Those who have read up to the final chapters of my Invisible Worship Musician will know that I believe worship ministry is all about controlling as many of the factors as possible to bring things to the point when we lose the control and surrender it all to God. We see this in how the priests in 2 Chronicles 5:12-14 carefully orchestrated all the details and how God responded by gracing them with his glory. And when he did so the priests could not continue their ministry any further. In other words, they lost control of the proceedings. And that's OK!
Too often I see people either bring down the intensity of worship before we get to the point when God responds with his glory, or they do things half-baked, let a lot of important details slip and expect God to show us his glory anyway. It's like what I said in a previous blog post "They want to believe that they can get results without putting in the necessary effort. And they use the Holy Spirit as an excuse."
May that not be said of us!
Talk about a challenge!
You need to understand that I am a musician first and foremost, not a singer. Therefore I feel very insecure when I am trying to lead worship without any instrumental accompaniment at all. I was reading an article by another worship leader recently. In it he wrote glowingly about how a small church without music instruments can just make do by singing a cappella, and how stirring the effect of adding vocal harmonies would be.
Not that I disagree with him totally, but I've spent time trying to train vocalists to sing harmonies in praise and worship. Let's just say that it is very much easier to get someone to take guitar lessons online and play for worship rather than train up some singers who can sing harmony. Much, much easier! So I believe his advice may not be the best advice he can give to a new or small church struggling to manage without good musicians or instruments.
In the end I managed the session by choosing the right songs. I used the songs
Amazing Grace (traditional version)
My Jesus I Love Thee
These two songs
- Were familiar – there were people from a few different churches present, so I had to restrict my choices
- Had easy-to-manage vocal ranges – We didn't have the guitar to help cover any gaps in the singing, so I HAD to make sure there was nothing to hinder the singing. That, by the way, was why I do not like to use Chris Tomlin's version (My Chains Are Gone). The vocal range is 1 ½ octaves, very hard to manage. It's easy to cover that up in a large congregation, but not in a small group meeting.
- Had steady counts in the melody, without large gaps in the singing – This is vital. Remember, the two core roles of a music instrument in worship is to unify the key (through chords) and the beats (through the rhythm played). So if you have to lead worship without an instrument, you will have to unify the key through your voice. And you choose songs which have obvious counts.
The verse is difficult to sing without some instrument marking out the counts, because the melody just floats around somehow. There is also a 2 bar gap from the end of the verse to the start of the chorus, again difficult to manage without a rhythm instrument. Yes you can cut short that gap if you are singing a cappella, but that gap is the point where most people would be lost. And try as I might, I cannot think of a musically tasteful way to cut short that gap without getting artificial or contrived. So I will never use that song when leading worship without any instruments.
Conclusion:
Am I being too nit-picky with all these details? I don't think so. I believe that leadership involves looking ahead, anticipating problems that may arise and either preparing to face them or finding ways to avoid them.
Those who have read up to the final chapters of my Invisible Worship Musician will know that I believe worship ministry is all about controlling as many of the factors as possible to bring things to the point when we lose the control and surrender it all to God. We see this in how the priests in 2 Chronicles 5:12-14 carefully orchestrated all the details and how God responded by gracing them with his glory. And when he did so the priests could not continue their ministry any further. In other words, they lost control of the proceedings. And that's OK!
Too often I see people either bring down the intensity of worship before we get to the point when God responds with his glory, or they do things half-baked, let a lot of important details slip and expect God to show us his glory anyway. It's like what I said in a previous blog post "They want to believe that they can get results without putting in the necessary effort. And they use the Holy Spirit as an excuse."
May that not be said of us!
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