Using Tracks

For a long time, I was against using tracks.

Not for any justifiable reason, mainly because I didn’t like being told what to do. And it felt like tracks could potentially determine the structure, style, and progression of a song I appreciated the flexibility of being able to change key or tempo to suit the setlist. But more than that, using tracks felt like lying or cheating - creating something that you were not actually able to reproduce with your given team.

You are likely familiar with tracks, but if not, they are pre-recorded elements that play along underneath the live band. They are often called backing tracks, loops, or simply tracks. They are not necessarily meant to replace instruments, but to enhance and compliment your team, as well as fill in musical holes. This is not a post about the technical side of setting up tracks - there are resources available with far more detail and skill than I could offer in that department. This is not even a post about selling you on using tracks, they are likely not right for every team and every church. What I hope to offer in this post is how to consider and implement tracks if you, like me, had never used them before.

Over the last 18 months, our church has been incorporating tracks into almost every song. And it has surprised me how much I have enjoyed using them. Like most things, there is a learning curve, and it has taken me some time to find the rhythm which works best for our team and our church, but overall, I am really happy with the decision to be using them regularly. There is far more flexibility in use than I had anticipated, and the fuller sound and the opportunity to introduce songs I would not have considered because of the way the production supported the song has outweighed my fear about tracks as lying or cheating.

Using in-ears.

If you are going to be using tracks, at least one person will have to be using in-ears. Because tracks are being played back with a click track (metronome to keep you in tempo and time), at least one person (usually the drummer or worship leader) needs to be able to hear the tempo to follow the track. And because you usually don’t want the congregation to hear a click track along with the song, the best application of tracks is with in-ear monitors. Tracks are just audio being played back, and therefore are not reacting dynamically to the live musicians - they are not slowing down or speeding up based on what other people are playing. You hit play on a track, and you’re into the song.

Start with a click track.

Before you invest a lot of time, energy, money, or effort into backing tracks, start with a click track. Backing tracks will include cues that will count into each part of a song. This is a significant adjustment. So starting with a standard click track will help the team get comfortable with hearing something in their ears apart from one another. It is also fairly low risk - if the team gets off the click, they just need to keep playing until they can find the pocket again - and generally, the congregation won’t be able to tell.

Start small.

Try adding a track to one song in the setlist. How does the team like using the track? Does the sound person feel equipped to be able to mix the song well? Does this feel like something that will work well in your context and with your congregation?

Like many things, there can be a temptation with tracks to go over the top and overboard very quickly. But a good song is a good song is a good song. My encouragement is to let the track complement the song, not overwhelm the song. As worship leaders, we want to utilize technology to enhance and adorn our worship gathering, but never to become the center of the gathering.

When Songs Don't Matter

I know, I know. Last week I wrote about how there are songs for the season, and this week I am saying songs don’t matter.

Let me explain.

Building a song master song list takes a lot of time, energy, and intention. It must be tailored to the congregation, conscious of the skill and ability of the worship leader and team, and be made up of songs for the season, as well as songs with staying power. Your master song list should include songs that are scripturally sound, theologically rich, artistically and musically compelling, and emotively engaging. Or more simply, as one worship leader described to me: thinking songs and feeling songs. Needless to say, this is a task that requires more thought than merely choosing your favorite song each week.

Several years ago, two interns were working with me to plan set lists for the Summer weeks that I would be away. We were reading the passage of Scripture that would be preached, and trying to list a smaller group of songs from our master song list that they could choose each weekend to lead. About halfway through this process one of the interns said, ‘We could sing any of these songs! They all fit, because we are always singing about Jesus, and always preaching the Gospel.’

If we do the hard work upfront of building, refining, adding, and trimming our master song list we lessen the pressure to make our songs fit the sermon week to week, because the reality is that they all fit! And when they all fit, we can refine even more as we look for through line concepts, same text inspiration, and repeated refrains in songs and sermons alike.

Do songs matter? Of course. But they matter less when you do the hard work upfront.

Learning To Lead During COVID-19 (Two Years On)

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, I wrote about learning to lead worship during COVID-19. Two years on I am still learning. Maybe you are too. I hope these brief reflections can at least make you feel less alone, and hopefully encourage you to keep going…

I believe that hard things do not change us as much as they expose us. And our hearts and lives have been exposed by COVID-19 in ways that many of us have previously been able to avoid or ignore.

What do we value?

Whose lives matter?

Are masks a sign of fear, and going maskless a sign of faith?

Are vaccines helpful and useful, or reckless and untested?

Are there only ever two sides and two options?

Is everything black or white?

What is selfish and self-serving, what is foolish and careless?

Can I be friends with people who think and believe differently than me, or must we now become enemies?

Are we going to be discipled by culture and politics or by the Gospel?

The ugliness of my heart has been exposed in the pandemic: my tendency to judge other people, other followers of Jesus against myself and my own decisions. To look for specs through a log.

When I am attentive to the conviction of the Holy Spirit within rather than an outward condemnation of the pharisee within, I can see these places of friction as opportunities for repentance and prayer.

If we are willing these are opportunities for iron to sharpen iron. For the Church to truly be what we already are - one people, one body, made up of every tribe, tongue, nation, and language. This is an opportunity for us to image to the world our unity not through ideology, politics, or socioeconomic brackets, but by the unifying blood of Jesus.

This truly could be an opportunity to display the beauty of the Gospel.

To make obvious our adoption as sons and daughters of God.

My prayer as I look out on the faces of the congregation,

as I run into people as they stumble over why they have not been serving or attending,

as I field questions about why we are doing this, and why we are not doing that,

as we wrestle with what it looks like to love and honor God and care well for His people,

as we stumble forward,

and as I become more aware of my own sin, is:

God give me Your eyes to see these people. Let me grieve over my sin more than over the differences of my brothers and sisters. Keep me close to You, and tender toward especially those who are loud, vocal, and combative in the opposite direction from my own convictions. Give me the compassion of Christ, who ‘When He saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.’ (Matthew 9:36).

May our divisions be an opportunity for repentance. May our divisions turn us to Christ, the One who has torn down the dividing wall of hostility between God and man, who has reconciled us to become people of reconciliation, who has comforted us to be people of comfort. Amen and amen.

Building A Set List

There is a temptation in leading corporate sung worship to imitate form and flow without understanding intention. Too often we can believe that choosing the correct combination of songs, dynamics, and production will create the desired result. Although I do believe there are best practice principles to leading worship regardless of your particular context, these things do not follow a static formula. If your worship setlists feel more like a string of songs than intentionally shaping the morning to form the people, here are some things to consider:

Start with the Text. What is the primary text in the teaching for the weekend? What does it tell us about God? What does it tell us about mankind? How may God be calling your people to respond this weekend? What themes can you pull from the text in not only your song choice, but in the way you pray, choose Scripture, and plan musical dynamics?

Prayer. Before, during, and after - I am convinced and convicted by how easily I can default to intuition, and experience to determine elements for the gathering. In an earlier post, I wrote about three prayers of preparation, you can read that here.

Follow a framework. This is why I like the Gospel Song Liturgy, intention laid in the foundation of your liturgy when you use a framework, rather than reinventing the wheel every time you plan a service.

Consider the team. Who are the musicians and vocalists serving this weekend? How can you accentuate the strengths of those individuals and the team as a whole, and minimize weakness? Do you need to begin communicating parts or specific pieces further in advance?

This week, this month, this year. Our weekend services stand-alone, but build one on another week after week, month after month, year after year. Are you holding the bigger picture of where your people are, and where you’re leading as you plan the service this weekend?

Find the gaps. Songs don’t always communicate or give the language needed for every aspect of our time. What other aspects are needed to fully connect and ground your time? Scripture, liturgical elements like readings, prayers, confessions, silence, and response, as well as verbal transitions, can all be used to direct and focus the flow of the morning.

When your elements for the service are gathered, consider the flow of the story you are telling in your lead through the liturgy. We can inadvertently create a disconnected story when we do things like sing about the resurrection and then sing about our sin and need for a Savior. Songs, rhythm, and keys should move in a structure flowing naturally one to the next as you move the people through your setlist, the morning, and the vision of where you are headed.