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!

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!