Worship Leading: December 2010

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

The Top 5 Worship Leader Tips

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I have been leading worship in small and large meetings around the world for the last 25 years, and I believe it is time those of us who are experienced encourage others who are following! The purpose of this article is to share with you my top five worship leader tips, ideas and techniques that I have proven again and again on stage, in hope that it will encourage you in your ministry if you're just starting out.

Worship Leader Tip 1: Choose Your Songs Carefully

One of the best worship leader tips I can offer is that you choose your songs carefully. One of the classic mistakes young worship leaders make is that they choose songs that they like, rather than ones that the audience enjoys. Only ever introduce one new song, and make sure all the other songs are known and loved by your congregation. In fact, even if you lead poorly, if you have chosen the right songs that people love and enjoy (and know) then you'll be popular!

Worship Leader Tip 2: Keep to Time

If you want to avoid criticism one of the best worship leader tips I can offer is that you keep to time. To go grossly over time is disrespectful of your pastor and also your congregation, but young worship leaders often get so caught up in what they are doing they think that everybody is enjoying it as much as they are. So whether the worship goes well or badly, always make sure you keep to your allotted time.

Worship Leader Tip 3: Blend Your Songs into a Continuous Experience

Blending your worship songs into each other provides a continuous experience for your listeners, and one that they will enjoy far more than a series of stop-start songs. If you are competent musicians, try to select songs in a similar key that allowed them to be run together, and if all goes well your audience will lose themselves in worship!

Worship Leader Tip 4: Read your Audience

One of the most important worship leader tips I can offer is actually a skill that you need to develop. It is important that you learn to read your audience, so you can see if they are with you or not as you worship, and you can encourage them along the way. Many novice worship leaders are worshiping on stage, but the congregation are yawning and checking their phones! You need to read your audience and lead you audience into a deeper experience of God.

Worship Leader Tip 5: Get Some Training

One of the most important worship leader tips is to get some training. There is some great worship leader training courses, and many of these are far less expensive than attending a conference! However, because you can read the material many times over and slowly but surely apply to your own ministry, the right sort of worship leading training can make a vast difference in your ministry.

As a long-term and experienced leader, I have many ideas and techniques that I've made available to the young worship leader. If you take the time to study the right material, you can supercharge your leading by incorporating the right worship leader tips into your own ministry.

Hymns and Worship Leading- The Perfect Match

OK, true confessions… I am a modern worship leader and I LOVE Hymns! Hymns are great. They are majestic, and many contain more theology than the average sermon these days! Old folk love them, conservative folk love them, but many younger ones have thrown them out (along with everything before 2000) when they are worship leading. Gee, they even think the Beatles are uncool (such ignorance!).

Somewhere in the middle cries the voice of reason. Now granted, some hymns are funeral marches, long, slow, boring and brain-numbing. Some contain rubbish theology and some are just plain irrelevant in both use of language and subject matter. Some are practically unsingable, except to 13th century monks! However, in amongst these types of hymns are some of the greatest songs ever written, and some of the most majestic songs you could ever sing when worship leading!

Now, if you are young, and don't believe me, check a few of them out. Hymns like, "And Can It Be," "Holy, Holy, Holy," "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" and "How Great Thou Art" are awesome. As worship leaders, we need to be considering these songs for inclusion in our worship services, because there is an amazing level of worship and teaching in the songs.

My preference, both personal and of my church, is that we sing at least one hymn every Sunday service. If you are creative and musical you can play it in such a way that it is exciting and awesome, and you can venture into the very presence of God using these old songs. On top of that, the old folk in the church will be thrilled. So you win either way. Trust me, guys; there are some great songs you cannot live without in the hymns section!

But if you are going to do a hymn, don't make it into a funeral march! The older folks will love hymns done in a new and a fresh way, so pray and ask God for some innovative ideas to make the hymn into a modern masterpiece. Then watch God unite all ages as they worship Him using this old but new song!

Caution!

One word of caution, especially to the conservative evangelical denominations. There is a huge tendency to have the worship songs, with the modern beat and instruments, and then insert the token hymn for the oldies, doing this with only an organ or a piano, played in a traditional yet boring style. I strongly caution you against this, because this only promotes the “us verses them” scenario, the “your music verses our music” polarizing we see in churches.

The best way is to just roll from the worship into the hymn, seamlessly, and using a similar modern style. The majority of older folk will appreciate the fact that you are including their song preference, and making it your own, and trying as hard to make it special as if it were your own style of song. Thus, you can use well played hymns to join hearts in worship, rather than having the separate song for the oldies.

Hymns should provide a wonderful theme to unite the old and the young in your church, but there are keys that will help you bring these grand old songs to your church in a new and fresh way. Our calling in worship leading is not to stay stuck in the past, but to draw the very best of the past into the present day and adapt the best of Christian heritage to today's modern worship.

If you want to learn more about worship leading with hymns, I am giving away a free report entitled, “Arranging Hymns For A Modern Church”.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

7 Steps to Becoming a Worship Leader

Last Sunday I started my new tenure as music director in my new church, and it made me think how important it is to set your leadership in the correct way from the outset.
As a worship leader, you have two distinct directions in which you must lead. The first is that you must lead the congregation into worship, into a greater sense of God's presence, but the second aspect of worship leading is that you must lead your band and singers in a way that promotes unity, and in a manner of excellence. In this article, I would like to do with the second aspect of leadership: that is, how you lead your band and singers.

There are many different styles of leadership, and some are more effective than others. Many people try to lead by enforcing rules and regulations, and while people are babies, there is a pervading sense of fear and read within the band and singers. This is not the style of leadership that I recommend when it comes to worship leading.

When worship leading I much prefer to be an inspirational leader, that is one who leads by inspiring others to greater heights, and does not drive them into submission in a climate of fear. The question is, as new music director, How do you quickly and effectively begin to inspire those around me to follow me as leader. He has a few suggestions that I believe will yield much fruit. If you take them to half and make them part of your worship leading style:

1. Pray effectively. You need to be praying for each individual member of your band and singers, you need to pray before every practice and service, and above all, you need to pray that the Lord will prosper them, their gifts and their lives as they serve him in worship.
Most importantly, make sure you pray together often, because prayer brings unity in the Spirit

2. Get organized. If you turn up at music practice, and you do not have a clear direction for the band and singers, they will very quickly lose faith in your leadership. You need to be prepared, choosing the songs in advance, knowing the type of arrangement is that you wish to pursue, and knowing who it is on your team for that week so that you can structure the songs effectively.

3. Make sure that you listen to your band and singers. If you wish to start on the wrong foot in worship leading, staffed by completely ignoring their opinions, and you'll certainly set up a dictatorial style of leadership, which in the end will not lead to inspirational worship leading on your part. The members of your band and singers must feel that they can offer opinion, and I always start by redirecting this to them. I tell them that I value their opinion, I encourage them to offer opinion, but I also state that this does not mean that I will always accept and act upon their opinions regarding the worship. But they need to feel that they have a voice, and that they get a hearing from you.

4. Keep a fun atmosphere. People love having fun. Most often, my band members and singers tell me that music practice is one of their most enjoyable nights of the week, because whatever I do I keep the farm, light-hearted, but still serious and productive atmosphere. Plus, my group sees that while I can have fun, and be a really nice guy, I still have a serious agenda and can make the tough decisions is necessary.

5. Do not tolerate disunity. I can put up with many things in my worship team, but disunity is not one of them. If there is tension between the members, if there is ill feeling between the members, all directed at myself, this must be dealt with effectively. I tried to do this, based on Biblical principles, so I start by talking to them privately, if this does no good. I will talk to them directly in front of the band. In my experience, I have only ever had to do this once, because I believe most problems can be solved one on one. Number six don't play the manipulation game. Sometimes one member of the team will threaten to resign because they are uncomfortable with changes you have brought in. If this happens, smile sweetly, wish them the best, and accept the resignation, even if they are a key person of the team. If people are genuinely uncomfortable with changes you've made, then approaching you are talking to you is the correct avenue for first resolution, not resigning on the spot. Most often an early resignation like this is an attempt to manipulate you.
In the same way, be straight with your team members and do not manipulate them. You don't like being manipulated, and either today.

6. Introduce major changes with care. Sometimes when you take over as worship leader, the band really needs a change of focus, a change of direction, a change of format and a change of worship leading style. Other times, the team has been doing pretty well before you became worship leader, so any changes you introduce to a successful worship team should be more gradual. If you are introducing changes, make sure your pastor is in agreement with these, and asking to support you as you introduce these changes. Also, make sure that at least half of your worship team is excited by the changes, otherwise you may have real difficulty in making these changes stick, and may alienate most of your band.

7. Have a good knowledge of music and arranging. I have written the entire worship in a nutshell manual to help worship leaders lead effectively by giving them information that they can apply to their worship leading. If you have good musicians and singers in your group, some of these will have little patience for a worship leader who cannot communicate on the same level as them.

If you want to learn how to become an inspirational worship leader, then please consider purchasing Worship in a Nutshell. And doing the job properly. It could be the best money you ever invest in worship leading.