“Don’t worry about the music, the theology, the pastoral issues… as long as your heart is right before God, then your worship is okay.” How often have you heard that? Is it entirely true? It’s quite easy to say, and it is right that God, in his grace and through what Christ has done for us, receives our imperfect offerings and uses us in our weakness. We should never lose sight of the fact that our heart attitudes and motivations are more important than getting every note right. BUT (and that’s a big but!) does that give us the excuse not to care about the music, the theology, the pastoral issues…? I’m not sure it does.
I wrote an article recently about the range of skills we see in Bezalel (Ex 35:30-35) when God sets him apart to construct the Tabernacle. Or you can read of King David in Psalm 78 that he “shepherded them with integrity of heart; with skillful hands he led them.” The context may not be musical worship, but I think the principles are the same – integrity of heart is intrinsically connected with skillful hands. Or to put it the other way around – good intentions are easily thwarted by careless actions.
So for example – you may aim to lift people into celebration praise, but if you are playing all the right chords in the wrong order (or vice-versa!) you’re going to be more of a distraction than an encouragement to worship. Or maybe you are looking to write a song that engages people with our Trinitarian God, yet you’ve done no reading on the subject and so your words end up confusing or misleading. Or perhaps you want to lead a response time after a sermon, but your pastoral skills are under-developed and so people are hesitant to open up.
What is the answer – do you have to be perfect before you can step up to lead worship? Not at all! Everyone has to start somewhere and, as we’ve already said, God is gracious. But I also believe he gives us opportunities to grow in our skills, understanding and leadership. The question is; are you intentionally identifying the areas you need to grow in, and taking steps to develop in those areas? Imagine you decided to work on one area each six-month period; over five years you would grow in ten areas. Below are some ways, without much cost except a bit of effort, that you can grow in the skills you need to be an effective worship leader:
Mentoring – find someone who is good at an area you want to grow in, and ask if you can meet up with them once a fortnight for six months to get their input. Get them to feedback on the way you currently lead worship, with both encouragement and ways to grow.
Reading – find three books on the area you want to grow in, and read them over the six-month period. Keep a journal or blog as you read, asking yourself questions and noting down things that you need to remember or put into practice.
DVD or online lessons - learn musical or other skills at your own pace. These kind of resources structure your practice, so you’re not just playing what you always fall into playing. Choose musical styles outside your natural favourites to stretch your playing.
Start a project - my friend recently wanted push his music writing skills, so he set himself the challenge of writing one piece each day for Lent, and posting it on his blog. The deadlines forced him to get down to the task, and he grew with each piece he completed.
Conferences and courses - look out for events in your area, especially ones outside your comfort zone or that focus on skills you know you are lacking. Reflect on what you learn and write down specific action points from the experience.
In the London School of Theology Music and Worship Department, we get the privilege to help students develop in a wide range of worship-related skills over a 1-3 year period. If you can’t take that kind of time out – never fear! Our four day Worship Connect Summer School might be just the thing you are looking for. We’ve gathered some of our most popular courses and tutors into one-week intensive streams – Developing and Rehearsing a Music Team, Creative Keyboard, Planning and Leading Engaging Worship, Creative Words for Worship, and the Musicademy Worship Guitar Boot Camp. In addition you’ll share in inspiring, varied worship experiences, deep accessible teaching from Theology of Worship lecturer Chris Jack, and time for fellowship and relaxation. Check out www.worshipconnect.org for more details.
Sam Hargreaves teaches part time in the Music & Worship Department at London School of Theology. He and his wife Sara co-lead engageworship.org – resources & training for innovative, creative & world-changing worship. He also co-leads RESOUNDworship.org, a new worship songs website.
15 Comments
Another question to consider … does worship require music or can we worship God without our instruments, chord charts, voices, and the usual tools?
Great article, thanks. I’d add in 1 Chronicles…
1 Chronicles 25.7-8 – Along with their relatives—all of them trained and skilled in music for the LORD – they numbered 288. Young and old alike, teacher as well as student, cast lots for their duties.
1 Chronicles 15.22 – Kenaniah the head Levite was in charge of the singing; that was his responsibility because he was skillful at it.
So we learn about training and skill, musicians and vocalists coming together and iron sharpening iron. One thing that I’ve felt recently is maybe things have gone a bit too far in the kind of direction of ‘everything is worship’ and perhaps sometimes putting involvement above gifting (‘Pagan Christianity’ is a book I highly disagree with for example LOL!) Of course, it’s a balance. I’m not the world’s greatest vocalist or guitarist, but as people rightly say it’s about wanting to grow and do their best – Jesus ‘grew in favour with men and with God.’ (Luke 2.52).
Brian, good point. I agree with you completely. I do feel sometimes think some have gone too far down the ‘our whole life is worship’ road. We know our whole life is worship, but there is something very special and very unique about music. While we’re all ‘a kingdom of priests’ (1 Pet 2.9) today, not everyone has been set apart (1 Chronicles 25 style) musically or for the Levitical type of calling. Some have, so we mustn’t overlook music when talking about worship. I’d argue that God is doing so much through music and worship, we need to focus more energy and time in this direction, growing in our character and gifting.
I have grown heartily sick over the years of the “as long as your heart is right nothing else matters” attitude of some people towards musical worship.
From a spiritual perspective, I am called by God to be the best that I can be, which means striving constantly to improve the skills that I put at his disposal as a worship leader. I am no Eric Clapton, or Tim Hughes, but I wouldn’t be prepared to stand up at the front of a church and lead if I felt I was anything less than technically competent and expressive as a musician.
And for a rhythm guitarist like me, a well-developed, natural sense of rhythm helps disguise a multitude of “sins”.
From a human perspective, the music is very often responsible for creating the first impression a visitor, or potential new member, gets of the church. If they walk away thinking the music is rubbish, does that diminish the chances of them coming back?
For those people, the fact that the musicians’ hearts are right probably isn’t anywhere near enough.
I believe that there is a difference between ‘praise’ and ‘worship’ in the Biblical sense (which is our source of reference isn’t it?). Marie wrote an article on true worship a while back, and this article: http://www.experiencingworship.com/articles/general/2009-8-True-Worship-.html makes it clear that true worship is ‘humility’. What this post is talking about is praise, and whilst we should do our best, Glorifying God in everything we do, I am very encouraged by Brian’s comment at the start of this post; some of our praise is too much like entertainment to me, somehting God finds wasteful (see Tozer article http://lovestthoume.com/Books/RRchapter8.html)
I think that to many people these days want to dance around the Biblical model of worshippers and a leaders of worship. They were skilled and were trained to improve their skills.
Very, very few people can simply let go and plug in vertically during our time in musical worship if the guy/gal leading sounds awful or if the band is all over the place. It’s simply not going to happen. The worship team then just becomes a road block.
If a church has the “it’s all heart” model for their worship team/ministry, they’re most likely doing a big disservice to their church body and they are certainly NOT following a Biblical model of worship. EVERYONE should be lifting up the Lord in song but generally, only a select few should be leading people in worship.
To clarify here: I’m saying people with solid vocal, leading and playing skills.
Together in worship,
Ken
i also agree with your comments, in my small church on the isle of wight so many people have made that “as long as your heart is right” comment when i have had something to say about sung worship. as the “worship leader” in a church of around 50 members i am left isolated for much of the time as the attitude seems to be “if it sounds ok” let them get on with it. i do believe your heart has to be in the right place, but God is wanting us to do our bit as well. to any other small church worship leader that has logged on, its a tuogh job when no one seems to be listening but, if you know for certain this is where God wants you, then persevere.
We have one singer with heart and skill. When she is unavailable, we have four others to choose from: two with heart and lots of room for growth in their skill, two with skill that, for whatever reasons, sing like they have no heart at all.
It’s true that the two with heart will provide the occasional distraction of a flat note or awkward entrance to a verse. But they sing with their hearts connected to the songs and to God, and their growing skill requires them to put more effort into practice during the week. The other two can just show up and nail the songs perfectly, and that’s exactly what it feels like. Almost like musically trained dead fish leading worship.
Obviously, we’re encouraging everyone to grow in all these areas (that’s part of the beauty of the church and the music ministry), and we want the combination of integrity of heart and skillful hands (Ps. 78). But I have come around to favoring the less-skilled singers with hearts for God over the more skilled singers with seemingly no passion for Him — the worshipers over the singers.
Last week, one of the not-naturally-gifted singers with heart led our worship, and it was amazing. She had made up for in prayer and practice and reliance on God what she lacked in natural ability.
Good point Allen! I left out one KEY component in my 2 cents worth; a passion and a heart for leading people is absolutely imperative. Skill has to be coupled with heart.
Unless your church is blessed to the point of having technically skilled and spiritually gifted / led musicians available to cover all ‘gatherings’ then you have to accept some compromise.
In our small church I play acoustic and my wife sings. Neither of us are technically skilled enough to cut an album but we are it – the alternative is the mp3 player! To start with it was sketchy but we practise regularly and over the months we have improved to the point were we see people being more comfortable and responding more than they do with the remoteness of the mp3 player even though that’s the wonderful worship of Matt, Tim, Dave, Chris etc plus band. In other words the congregation seem more able to push beyond our technical shortcomings and in joining with our physically present hearts enter deeper into worship than they do with better technical worship but remote hearts.
We share a viewpoint as well as a name, Mark.
It’s worth pointing out that music has a very special place in the human psyche (the Bible calls the psyche our heart). Paul Scanlon from Abundant Life in Bradford deals with this issue very thoroughly and thoughtfully in his talks entitled “The Thinking Heart”, if you want to find out in depth what I am talking about.
When we sing our worship it is, for many people, the only time that our “internal commentary” is quiet before God. Our voice can speak at up to 300 words a minute but our internal commentary rattles off at about 1000 wpm. When I sing it is the only time that the two are in sync. If I listen to a sermon/ Bible reading etc. I constantly weigh up what I am hearing, giving my internal culture a greater weight than what I hear. When I sing I am focussed on the words and emotional/ spiritual/ corporate context rather than filtering them through my own belief system first. When I first heard this concept it made sense of the numerous times that I have had an “aha” moment while worshipping. Sung worship gives us the opportunity to actually listen to what God is saying to us, rather than the “edited highlights”.
As worship leaders and musicians we must treat this wonderful responsibility with the skill and excellence it deserves. If we are prepared and in touch with God then he will be able to lead His people in the worship time. If we are just playing the “pop pickers top ten” then even if they are played excellently they will not be loaded with all of the potential that God has planned.
Musical skill, in submission to God’s will and plan, is a precious thing. Musical skill that doesn’t recognise this necessary submission can only be, at best, great music.
God has a plan and purpose. Sometimes that has to be for sub-optimal skill in preference to empty beauty. Our job as worship team people is to recognise God’s “now plan” for our church and, while striving to give God the best, ensuring that our quest for musical perfection doesn’t get in God’s way…
Desire to grow in skill and knowledge of a craft is a sign that you’ve discovered something about your life’s purpose.
Thanks for all the great comments, folks! I’d love to hear if any of you have any more tips/stories about tricks, courses or approaches to developing skill, understanding etc?
I recently asked a friend to teach me the beginnings of ‘Sol-Fa’ (it has other names too, you probably know it as Do Re Mi). It’s a powerful tool, and I’m making it one of my summer goals to try and get fluent in it. Anyone else got tips?
Using Sol-fa is always a tonic…
Seriously though, it is a good way to train your ear to hear happy major scales and if you add the chord scale in (C Dm Em F G Am Bthingummy, oh you know the chord that modern choruses never use, and back to C again) you can train your ear to hear the structure of the music and so facilitate improvisation and transposition. “You tube” is full of bits to help you but they are very hit and miss. Some are just rubbish but others are pretty good (Maybe a blog about useful resources on the web to complement the excellent teaching DVDs that Musicademy produce…? ).
If you know you are called to be a worship team member or leader in your church then the best thing to do is to ask God to help you choose the best things to learn. I tried this and ended up learning bass guitar, which was not on my bucket list. I now play the odd professional gig and teach both guitar and bass as a visiting teacher in a school. This simple prayer of a young Christian has obviously had a profound effect on me and my ministry over the ensuing two decades. Richard put it well. God released me into a big open space that I didn’t even know about…
Mark – we actually have a DVD in editing at the moment. Its going to be a “How to play by ear” series. We felt it needed a lot more than a simple blog post!! But there are quite a few blog posts in the Guitar Archive on the topic if people want to have a look.
Great comment Mark B – let God lead you into how you ought to be developing next.
Re Sol Fa – its not just major melodies, as you can use it with any mode and with accidentals (well, so I’ve heard, haven’t actually mastered that yet!) The ‘by ear’ DVD sounds good Marie.