Why Foundations Matter - Part 1: Expo Hall Noob Mistakes

I went for a couple of worship sessions recently, hosted by one of those local worship groups who apparently think they’re ready to “equip” others. 

Well, I saw noob mistakes, live, on a mega church scale. 

1. Wrong Key, Wrong Time

First one: the worship leader tries, on the spur of the moment, to lead the people to sing Lord, I Give You My Heart. Problem? They’re in C. The song is not. So what happens? Worship leader drift. You know the move - they sing one or two lines, ease the mic to their side, away from mouth as they raise the other hand upward, looking like their favourite worship leaders on the worship album CD covers. The congregation tries their best to keep on singing and the worship leader looks really good on the video-cam. In reality, however, the leader realized too late they were in the wrong key, and if they kept going their singing would crash and burn in front of everyone. 

And look, you think a small congregation croaking their way through the wrong key is painful? Try an entire Expo hall of croaking voices. That’s next-level judgment seat stuff. 🤣 

Worship Leaders: always be aware of what key you are currently at and the workable key ranges of whatever songs you want to switch to on the spur of the moment. If you are noob to worship leading, it will take you a while to get familiar with all this. Get mentorship and training from worship pastors or worship leaders who served long enough (or know worship leading well enough) to grow past this stage sooner rather than later. 

2. When Formulas Fail

Second round, same thing: start in C (I think), then the leader started singing the chorus of Here I Bow. Same leader drift, same Expo hall croak-fest. This time the bass player (most likely the Music Director) tried to salvage the situation. After one croaked chorus, the band hits the IV/V chord of the next key and waits for the worship leader to begin singing. Nice save. Almost worked, except that for Here I Bow, all the parts of the song (verse, chorus, bridge) all start with chord IV. The IV/V the band did would have worked IF the song sections began with the chord I. But they didn’t.

Essentially, that moment was less about knowing the formula to change key (IV/V of the new key) and more about knowing the song itself so they can tell when the standard formula won’t work or needed to be modded to apply. THIS is where you see the diff between a musician with merely formula & templates vs a musician who knows music. 

3. Band Leading ≠ Worship Leading

Then there was the whole business of the worship leader repeatedly turning around to flash the “C” hand sign at the band. Great. The musicians are cued. But what about us? The congregation? We are left guessing, spiritually speaking just that half beat behind. Functionally, that’s not worship leading, that’s band leading. And let’s be blunt: if you can’t cue your congregation, you’re not a worship leader. You’re just a frontman. There’s a difference. 

So forgive me if I don’t swallow the whole equipping others in worship leading, prayer & intercession and effective communications stuff. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Communicate? You can’t even communicate to a hall full of eager worshippers about singing the chorus again. 

4. Non-binary B minor

And don’t get me started on the guitarist. God, that non-binary B minor chord… You know the one: low E and high E strings both left open, musically nails on the chalkboard. Total clash with the vocals. The only reason no one noticed is because the guitar was buried under the rest of the band. Please, for the love of all that is holy, don’t teach that to any other guitarist who asks you for lessons. Does it really hurt that much to say “you’ve been playing guitar for a few months now, you should start learning barre chords”? 

Noob mistakes. Expo hall full of croaking. And yet these are the people “equipping” the body of Christ? Lord, forgive my cynicism. Now you know why I pretty much never go check out other worship groups in Singapore. It’s better that I stay away and have you think me a grumpy old man, than to turn up and remove all doubt. 🤣🤣 

Core takeaway - Look, we all make mistakes when we’re learning. But if you’re positioning yourself to equip others, the basics need to be solid first. 

1) Know your songs and their keys.

2) Cue your congregation, not just your band.

3) Play chords that actually fit (like a REAL B minor chord)

Because at the end of the day, if you can’t hold the floor steady, you’ve got no business building a second storey.

Still here? Then check out the training I offer at What I Do

The Missing Piece

(This is Part 03 of my story. If you missed it, you can read Part 01 and Part 02 now)

Back to the story…

So there I was in my Christian life, enjoying results and fruit in my worship ministry, knowing that as long as I can play the guitar I can successfully lead worship almost all the time. I had some interesting experiences because of that ability. There was once I visited a friend’s church’s prayer meeting and was asked to lead worship with just one song. OK, I took up the guitar, asked if they knew the only song I could think of (the group was almost entirely made up of strangers), and then not only led them in worship, but also flowed from there into prayer and intercession as well.

Hey, it was a prayer meeting, right?

But what was missing? Imparting that ability to others, so other people can successfully do what I do.

2 Timothy 2:2 (NIV) - And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.

You see, I had invested hours and hours of time into my personal devotions, music practice and all that in order to do what I did. And that was fine when people are younger and have less demands on their time. Try telling a harried mother of 2-4 kids that in order to fulfill God’s calling upon her life she has to spend an hour a day on the Bible & prayer, and yet another on a musical instrument.

That’s NOT going to work!

So if I wanted to have people able to do what I did, I had to distill everything I did down to its barest form, the most essential elements. I had to show them principles that could guide their decisions and choices, and those principles had to work even without people having to put in the same kind of time and effort I had already put in.

Then One Fateful Day…

As I shared before in my book Invisible Worship Musician, I was engaged by a music school to teach a course on playing the piano for worship. It was during the lesson on playing intros for worship songs that I suddenly realized the purpose of worship music: to unify the praises of the people.

2 Chronicles 5:12-14 (NIV) - All the Levites who were musicians—Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun and their sons and relatives—stood on the east side of the altar, dressed in fine linen and playing cymbals, harps and lyres. They were accompanied by 120 priests sounding trumpets. The trumpeters and singers joined in unison, as with one voice, to give praise and thanks to the LORD. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, they raised their voices in praise to the LORD and sang: “He is good; his love endures forever.” Then the temple of the LORD was filled with a cloud, and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the temple of God.

So I shared this passage with the very first class taking that very lesson. And from there I showed them how to create song intros that start to do exactly that. It worked very well for the class, they were happy that they got something simple that they could use after 3-4 lessons.

As for me, I continued to meditate on the implications of that very same passage for many years after that. It explained to me why what I did worked, and allowed me to give good reasons for why I would lead worship and play for worship the way I did.

If you do NOT have this understanding…

You end up with one of two extremes.

1)      You have people blindly copying EVERYTHING from someone who inspires them. At one point of time, as a certain Christian singer inspired many lady worship leaders in Singapore to dress, sing and pose in a certain way (one arm held out at a particular angle). Even though she was supposed to be a worship leader, she was more a lead singer, as she would sometimes pitch songs in keys 180 degrees away from what was suitable for a congregation. And she wasn’t good at leading the congregation…

I sometimes wonder if those Singaporean lady worship leaders ever caught on to the fact that what they were copying didn’t really help their church congregations in worship very much. If they did, did they ever figure out what went wrong? Or did they just blame their church congregations for being lukewarm?

2)      You have NO discipleship whatsoever. There may be one good worship leader in the church, someone who can make things work, but the other worship leaders want to do their own things in their own way. And those things and ways don’t work. After some time, some of the congregation may walk out or skip worship when they see who is scheduled to lead worship that day.

I’m not saying that is the right thing to do, but it is better than these people totally changing church because they are frustrated during your worship time, right? Of course, these days quite a number of believers don’t recognize well-led praise and worship because they have been misled into confusing a song-and-dance routine with true worship. If they leave your church because you are not giving them the show they want but what they really need (a genuine encounter with the living God) that’s understandable.

What is unacceptable is when you know you can give them the real deal but choose not to…

Conclusion:

I’ve now shared with you the core story, why I do and teach what I do. I hope that sharing my journey will help you understand me a little more, and maybe help you on your own journey also. Be blessed!

The Turning Point

As I shared before, I served in the worship ministry before I had ever encountered God in worship. Or maybe I did, but thought that it was just the effect of really cool music. So coming from that perspective, I ended up assuming worship=music.

And that meant that getting better worship required getting better music. Whatever “better” means…

When I believed that, and didn’t have any conclusive encounter with God through worship, it led to two problems:

1. My own personal worship life was very weak. Why invest time in it if I believed I had to be in a large congregation with a hyper-cool band for it to work? Worship in your own personal prayer time does not always feel good immediately. If you don’t believe in it you will give up easily.
2. I became frustrated with small group worship sessions. I didn’t encounter God in worship there, so I didn’t believe it was possible. Looking back, I realize that it was because most of the worship leaders in the small groups I attended didn’t have enough understanding to stay on a good song long enough for the singing to be unified. A technical issue. And also, they would shy away from the presence of God and choke down everything before things got really intense. Probably a sin-consciousness issue.

But one day…

The leader of my worship team sat us down and said “We’re a worship band, so we’re going to worship God!” And he proceeded to lead us in a worship session that honestly felt like being brought to heaven and back. This session shattered all my wrong ideas just like that. It was a small group (5-6 people) and had simple music (one acoustic guitar). And I KNEW, deep in my heart, that I had just met God in worship.

And I was hooked. Totally hooked!

Not only that, I also wanted to share that same experience, encountering God in worship, with every believer I could. I became totally obsessed with worship and worship ministry; I kept bugging the band leader for his ideas, concepts and opinions.

Now he wasn’t that much of a teacher; he just kind of stumbled across what works, but he couldn’t really explain to me how or why it worked.  So I continued with the smartest thing I ever did: I copied him wholesale. He led worship on solo guitar and it worked, so I started learning how to play the guitar. He would use certain songs and lead them in a certain way, so I would work on the same songs and do them the same way.

And it worked for me too!

Of course there were refinements I needed to make along the way. Things like what key to pitch songs in, how to use music to properly support what I was doing, and nitty-gritty things like that. But I had already achieved what many other worship leaders I knew could only pray and dream about – consistent success in leading worship. I would be able to bring the worship as deep and as intense as it could go that session, and the worshippers would encounter God, be blessed by him and want to seek him in worship more and more.

So, is that it? Was that all? Did I live happily ever after, end of story? Not quite. There still remained one more important step to reach and milestone to achieve. But it’s getting really late for me now, so I’ll share with you the story next time. In the meantime, be blessed!

Worship Leader Basics

About two weeks ago, I attended the funeral wake of my grandmother-in-law.

It was a Christian funeral service, because she received Jesus as her Lord and Savior for quite a few years already. I wasn’t close to her in the first place; the Singapore pace of life makes it hard to build decent relationships amongst relatives and friends. So it was out-of-sight-out-of-mind for her, and I'm not proud of that.

Because I wasn’t emotionally close, I was emotionally detached enough to observe the worship leader and musician trying to lead worship for the service. They stumbled over some of the basics. I haven't talked much about worship leading basics before, so I had better mention some of them now.

1) Sing Appropriately

One of the songs they used was 轻轻听, (it was a Chinese service). This means "listen gently", but if you don't understand Mandarin Chinese you'd never have guessed from the worship leader's singing. She was bawling it out for the entire song. Her dynamics ranged from loud, very loud and voice-distorted-on-the-mike kind of loud. I spent the 4 minutes or so cringing and feeling embarrassed for her.

So please sing appropriately. Match your voice and singing volume to the lyrics of the song. Don't sing a rousing song timidly, and don't belt out a quiet, contemplative song at the top of your voice. If you do, it shows you aren't really paying attention to what you are singing in the first place.

2) Rehearse

They sang Amazing Grace (but with Chinese lyrics) next. The worship leader and musician stumbled over the song for the first verse. Why? Because the leader was singing the song in three-four time (which is how it was originally written, and how many Singaporean Christians know it) and the guitarist was playing in four-four time.

What made it even more of a waste was that the people really tried to sing this song. And it was all choked up by the guitarist. Now if the leader and guitarist had rehearsed the song before hand, they would have been able to come to an agreement (three-four or four-four?). That would have allowed the two of them to start in sync, which would have made a large difference.

I recently got tagged into a discussion on Facebook about rehearsals. A lady was questioning the need for rehearsals. Her thought was that since it was worship, God was the recipient and the sincerity of heart was the most important, why practice so much? We don't practice our prayers, do we? She believed that practice was for performances unto men, not to God. So we should just spontaneously sing and play unto God, right?

Now I could go into her points the way I was taught in my university philosophy course, go straight for the assumptions behind her points, challenge the assumptions and then demolish them with Scripture passages. But I understand where she's coming from. She's reacting to the extremes of performance music in church. Performance music tends to have structure imposed for structure's sake, so she, like many others, went the other extreme by rejecting all structure.

She even said that the musicians and singers at the dedication of the temple just spontaneously played and sang unto God. From that we could easily guess that she never tried to coordinate 288 singers and musicians (1 Chr 25:7) as well as another 120 priests with trumpets before, or she'd quickly discover how 'spontaneous is best' would epically fail on her…

Just so you know, the idea that worship was supposed to be spontaneous also came out in the book Pagan Christianity. But just because an idea is popular doesn't necessarily mean that it's correct!

So practice. Rehearse. The only time you won't need it is if all the worship team is doing familiar songs. In other words, if the rehearsals are already done!

3) Match the intensity of the people

Leading worship for a funeral service is tough, because there may be visitors there who are not yet believers or who come from a different church and worship culture. So they may just stand there and not sing.

When that happens, it's difficult to generate momentum in the worship. The worship leader that evening tried to do so by singing louder and later singing in tongues. Maybe that would work in her home church, the congregation may take that as a cue to sing in tongues together with her, and there would be some participation at least.

But at a funeral service? With outsiders, people from liturgical churches and non-Christians?

1 Cor 14: 23 - So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and some who do not understand or some unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind? (NIV)

As I said, I understand how difficult it is to lead worship properly at a funeral service. If you are the worship leader, you have to be ready to feel as if you are singing all alone. If the people DO sing, they usually sing in a lack-lustre way. It's tempting to try to rouse them by hyping things up a bit.

Don't.

Go as far as you can for that session and that's it. If the people aren't flowing with you, don't try to force them. One objection some Christians have to contemporary praise and worship is that they see it as emotional manipulation. And if you try to hype up the worship when the people aren't responding, you ARE doing exactly that.

Conclusion:

The basics. If we have been serving in the worship ministry for some time it's easy to assume everyone knows the basics. But once in a while, just to be sure, it's good to go back and re-visit them again. And share them with your worship team also, especially the newer members!

Is it supposed to be easy?

One thing I realized a couple of Sundays ago, it's actually quite an easy job playing for my church worship team.

One thing, the skill level is there, but there is no one trying to hog the limelight or the sound mix by playing too much or random doodling on the instrument. We are all content to play what is necessary, to flow with the dynamics of the session, and no more.

And flowing with the dynamics is easy also. Almost every musician in the team is also a worship leader in his own right (we have an all-guy band), so it's easy to just ride the wave, so to speak. Seriously speaking, how many professional church musicians, even in mega-churches, are effective worship leaders in their own right? Not that many in Singapore!

One worship leader I was chatting with once asked me, "Don't you think the musicians need sensitivity to the Holy Spirit during the worship?" and was a bit surprised when I answered "No, they just need to follow the worship leader. We don't need great spiritual sensitivity, just some basic humility!"

(have I offended anyone yet?)

In my experience, if the worship leader isn't flowing with the Holy Spirit, there is very little a musician can do. Little, subtle nudges through the music are about all we musicians can try. And even then, if the worship leader doesn't get it, we have to flow with the leader anyway, or there would be dis-harmony in the team. And that's not good.

Let me put it this way…

A good worship musician cannot help a bad worship leader very much, but a bad worship musician can definitely drag a good worship leader down. So as a musician, my job is mainly to support the worship leader with what he or she is doing. It's up to the worship leader to make sure he or she is doing the right thing!

Why do some people think being a worship musician is difficult?

Basic skill – if your basic skill level isn't there, you will of course have to put in effort to manage. If you are a drummer and can't even play consistent quavers (eighth-notes) on the hi-hats, for example, you can be sure the rest of your skills aren't up to par. Playing for worship will then be a stressful experience, both for you and for the rest of the band.

Worship music – Let's be frank, what passes for contemporary church music these days has grown a lot more complex. In the old days, the most musically challenging arrangements and songs would come from an occasional Ron Kenonly album, where they would pull all the stops on the band, orchestra and choir. Tom Brooks would unleash his usual musical genius to create arrangements that would leave everyone going "wow!!!". And everyone would be awed by the entire album.

But those were special albums, special occasions. For every one of those special albums, Integrity Music would have 10 or more that are taken from what churches did and found effective. These days, many albums seem to be concert-like standard, with a professional band, huge choir and enough attendees to fill a small stadium. The average church is left with the impression that they are supposed to have music like those albums too, or it wouldn't be acceptable praise and worship in God's eyes…

Talk about a heavy burden!

I've said this before, and I'll say it again, good worship music is what unifies the praises of the congregation. Oftentimes, what is simpler tends to work better in a real-life church, as long as the counts and the chords are clear. As a general rule-of-thumb, the more you play the less they sing.

(more on this in the Invisible Worship Musician, chapters 9 to 11)

Worship dynamics – As I said earlier, musicians just need to be able to follow the worship leader. For us, worship dynamics made up of whether to build up the intensity or bring it down. For worship leaders, core decisions will be:

1. Do you bring up or down the intensity? That's easy, let the congregation's singing be your guide.
   
2. Do you move on to the next song with high intensity or bring it down again before you go there? Again, let the congregation's singing be your guide. Just remember that you need to be sure the people know the next song if you want to go there high. Or else the whole thing will just crash on you. Painfully.
   
3. And at the end of the song, does God want to exhort the congregation through you? This is something you need to consider at the later part of the worship, IF the praises of the congregation has been unified. Just be ready for it. Since the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy (Rev 19:10), don't be surprised if God wants to exhort, encourage and edify the congregation through you sometime during the worship session.

These three concerns are the ones a worship leader has to deal with. Us musicians have it easy, by comparison. Just how to build up or bring down, and maybe what to play during prophecy, spontaneous worship or during prayer time (my book, chapter 11). If you have the experience and know what usually happens during the worship session, flowing with the dynamics is actually quite easy. You'd then have a good reason to be confident!

Conclusion:

I share all this not to gloat or boast, but to show that it CAN be easy to play music for worship. If it isn't, check to see if you have the basic skills, an accurate understanding of what worship music is like, and confidence in flowing with the dynamics of the worship set.

Just remember, God isn't in the business of giving us burdens to heavy to bear. He's in the business of giving us rest. So get any unnecessary clutter out of your way and enjoy serving God in the worship ministry. Be blessed!

Worship Ministry Foundations - Time and People

One thing about ministering to another church, it makes me look again at the foundations of worship ministry. I have to explain again to a new worship team why what I do works, as well as why they sometimes get results even though they don't do everything the way I tell them to.

When they have this understanding they are able to adapt to any changes that happen, because they know the foundations and principles that give them results. And that is what I want for you too, of course!

2 Chronicles 5:13-14 – The trumpeters and singers joined in unison, as with one voice, to give praise and thanks to the LORD. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, they raised their voices in praise to the LORD and sang: "He is good; his love endures forever." Then the temple of the LORD was filled with a cloud, and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the temple of God.

Time:

How long has this group, fellowship or congregation been around? The longer it has been around, the more time it has had to build up their unity. And that is something that will be expressed in their worship.

In 2 Chronicles 5:12 (not included above) we read that the musicians involved at the dedication of the Temple were Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun. They were around and serving ever since King David's time (1 Chr 25:1). Solomon started building the temple since the 4th year of his reign, and completed it in the 11th year (1 Kings 6:37-38). And this tells us that Asaph, Heman and Jeduthan were already serving and heading their respective worship teams for at least 11 years.

Of course we can expect some turnover (some musicians would have retired ever since and some new ones introduced). But the fact remains, 11 years is a considerable period of time. Enough to build a unity of heart and mutual understanding that allows them to work well as a team. In 1 Chronicles 25:7, we find that they were sorted out by family groups. That means that even outside of ministry time they were in considerable amount of fellowship with each other.

What this means:

This means that the worship ministry of a long-standing group can do things ineffectively and still experience the glory of God in their worship. However, this ministry may end up thinking that they have results because of their heart, skill, methods or their super-anointing. You can just imagine the books, worship albums and worship seminars that will follow from that!

And if they ever minister at another church and the people there don't respond, they may think it's because the congregation are not true worshippers, not serious about God and all that. The congregation may also end up suspecting that there is something wrong with themselves, why do they not experience the glory of God when the 'anointed', famous worship team from another church comes to minister to them.

People:

As we saw from 1 Chronicles 25:7, the worship ministry was made up of Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun and their relatives. That is quite a closed group. At the dedication of the Temple, they were joined by 120 priests on the trumpets, another closed group. Once you have a closed group of people who have spent a lot of time together, unity is easy to build.

But what if your church is NOT a closed group? What if you have new believers born-again into your church regularly? What if you have people from other churches visiting or switching over to your church? What if your group is growing, as the LORD desires?

Acts 2:47 – And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (NIV)

That means that you have to discover what is the most user-friendly approach to worship ministry and stick to that, unless you want to alienate the newer people. Your congregation may already be used to your various musical and worship leading quirks, but wouldn't it be better if what you do works not only with them but also with newcomers as well?

This means cleaning up your worship team of any musical distractions. Make sure your drummer can keep time and your keyboardist or pianist isn't doodling or rambling away on the instrument because he or she is bored. Make sure your overall band sound isn't too loud or too full, since the more you play the less they sing.

And most importantly, make sure the congregation always knows where you want them to sing next. I've seen too many lead singers rather than worship leaders, people who are more interested in their own singing rather than leading the congregation. Musicians, you are not exempted. If your worship leaders are not musically inclined or trained, and they have difficulty knowing when to start singing, then you are not doing your job as a worship musician. If you can't even cue in the worship leader, who has some idea of what is going on, how much more lost would the congregation be?

All those tips and pointers I just gave are not new. I have mentioned them before in my emails and posts (and taught in greater detail in my book, of course). If you get good results in your church even in spite of not following these tips, it would most likely because you have a long-standing, closed group. Nothing wrong with that, just remember that what you are comfortable with now may not work should the group dynamics change or if you have to minister in a new congregation, OK?

Be blessed!