Questions To Consider

One of the things that our team has spoken about is the need for a deeper dive into our songs and services apart from a weekly service evaluation. And that would open up questions, and facilitate discussion for our whole team around the purpose and movement of our gatherings, apart from song choice, and how each of us can play a part in moving our services in the same direction.

One of the things that sparked these categories in my mind is Mike Cosper’s 10 Questions to Consider at the end of every year. I appreciated how he was able to open a view of the gathering wider than song choice and simply judge a service. The categories below are certainly not exhaustive, but will hopefully fuel deeper thought:

SONGS

• What new songs are we singing, and how are people responding?

• Which songs consistently have high responses (loud singing/participation, comments, humming in the bathroom)?

• What holes are in our master song list (content)?

• What are we singing too much (themes, songs, style)?

• Is the liturgy balancing an awareness of the people, while continuing to lead toward a direction that more closely embodies our values and mission?

COMMUNICATION

• Is it clear?

• Are we equipping our verbal communicators to understand and navigate the movement, tone of the morning, and the moment while still being themselves?

• Are the announcements leading people in worship, and moving them toward mission, not just giving them information?

• What has been confusing?

• Where have we dropped the ball (for the congregation, for the team, with visuals, with helping equip those on the platform knowing how to effectively communicate)?

FORMATION

• What is missing?

• What is stale?

• Are the ordinances being thoughtfully navigated (within the service and by the communicator)

• What has been surprising?

What would you add?

Here are some other similar resources you may find helpful:

Don’t Judge The Service.

Service Evaluation.

10 Questions to Consider.

Choosing A Key

Choosing a key is a tricky business in this world of corporate sung worship. Trying to land on a key that allows men and women, young and old, competent and tone-deaf to sing out their praise to the Lord is nearly impossible. Like many things, you can likely find resources online that coach you through the key-to-key range that is best suited for congregational singing, but I am not a theory teacher, and this is not that post. Rather in this post, I want to offer a few points to consider when it comes to choosing a key:

1. What is comfortable for your range? Who is going to be leading this song? If something is out of range (low or high) for the vocalist who will be leading the song, it will automatically become more difficult for the congregation to follow along.

2. The original key. Many worship songs these days end up on the radio, which means they are likely pitched higher than even the worship artist would play or lead them live. Just because you can sing something in the original key doesn’t mean you have to. That being said, sometimes putting something in the original key can make it a lot easier for musicians and vocalists to learn their parts.

3. What else are you playing? A larger consideration for me in choosing a key to a song is the other songs surrounding it in the setlist. Now, this is not something I have to worry about as much using tracks and pads to smooth transitions, but I want to be able to move seamlessly from one song to another. As a guitar player this means thinking about things like - will I need to change a capo? Retune my guitar? If it is not in the exact same key, what are the transition chords I need to play to move me into the next song?

4. What key will be on the edge? Where can I pitch this song to encourage people to be right on the edge, and have to really sing out, but still be singable enough that they simply stop singing because it feels completely out of reach. I think about this with lighting in the worship gathering as well - I want it to be bright enough that people can see one another, but dark enough that they don’t feel exposed in their worship.

5. Consider the song. People will often give modern songs a hard time about the anthemic octave jump from one part to the next, but truthfully, if you sing a lot of hymns, the melody range can be just as significant. The only difference is that we have become familiar with these melodies in such a way we do not notice the jumps.

Ultimately, there is trial and error involved. One of the reasons I like Co-Leading, especially with men and women on the team, is that you can choose keys for a man to lead that will be comfortable for men, and choose keys for a woman to lead that will be comfortable for women. We need to be willing to serve our congregations, serve the song, and be willing to sacrifice some artistry - just because you can sing that high doesn’t mean this is the right place to make that known.

The Most Important Part Of The Gathering

What is the most important part of the worship gathering?

My Anglican friends would likely say the Eucharist.

My extroverted friends would likely say the time of fellowship.

My musical friends would likely say sung worship.

My worship-leading friends would likely say sung worship as well.

My reformed, gospel-centered friends would likely say the preached word of God.

Most pastors would likely say the sermon.

My charismatic friends would likely say what is unexpected, or surprising.

Whether we realize it or not, every portion of our corporate gatherings is formative. We are shaped in subtle and significant ways by years of repetition. What we emphasize, and where we place the most resources (time in the service, staff, money, etc) is likely what the churches we serve value most. But if everything portion of our gathering is retelling the gospel story, if every part of our gathering is intentionally placed to form our people, then each component has a role to play in the importance of our formation.

What is the most important part of the corporate gathering? It all is important.

Quotes [Part 4]

I like to spread out my ‘quotes’ posts - but these were too good to hold on to for much longer!

WINFIELD BEVINS

“In many ways, worship is theology in motion.”

JOHN ELDREDGE

“Modern worship bands not only need to be extraordinarily talented musicians, young, and beautiful, but their live events employ multimedia to keep your attention as well. Now church service compete with concert-level staging, lighting, special effects, and films. The terrible, unspoken assumption creeping in is this: if you’re going to find God, if you’re going to have more of God, it’s going to come through some amazing experience, something totally wild and over the top. Or we think that once we have God, the proof will be an over-the-top life. Not true. So unhelpful, and immensely unkind. This expectation actually makes those deeper experiences of God seem inaccessible for most of us.”

OSWALD CHAMBERS

“We have the idea that we can dedicate our gifts to God. However, you cannot dedicate what is not yours. There is actually only one thing you can dedicate to God, and that is your right to yourself. If you will give God your right to yourself, He will make a holy experiment out of you - and His experiments always succeed.”

ROBERT E. WEBBER

“Worship does God’s story! In worship, we remember God’s story in the past and anticipate God’s story in the future.”

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Scheduling a Team

If you are leading in a context where you have enough musicians to serve on a rotation, then considering how to schedule a team will become an increasingly more regular part of your weekly responsibilities gearing up for a weekend.

Of course, you need to think through the practicalities of how you communicate with a team. What kinds of rhythms and expectations to set with the team, you will also need to think through some of the intangibles.

Intangibles like:

What voices sound the best together?

What team members can complement one another’s style of playing?

How can I balance stronger musicians with less experienced musicians?

What are the rhythms for serving that work best in the lives of our team?

How will these songs work with the specific team that will be tasked with leading the setlist in a weekend?

As my team has grown, my month has a similar outline:

• Two weeks before a new month, I send my whole team an email letting them know to enter any blockout dates for weekends they will not be available to serve.

• I start listing out songs that I think will work with the sermon text, determine any new songs, and begin to get a 30,000-foot view of the services a month at a time. This helps me keep an eye out for things like Baptism, Communion, or special announcements that need to be included in our gathering and will shift the time, or amount of songs in a service.

• The week before a month begins I schedule my team via Planning Center. As people confirm or decline, I know there will be specific spots to fill, and as this happens I have a better sense of how to tailor the set list to fit the team.

• Every Tuesday I email the team who is serving to confirm for them the set list and song keys.

This pattern has taken time to develop, and in every place I have served as found a unique rhythm. Consistency is key in your scheduling and communication. But because people are not widgets, you have to invest time into being a student of your team, to serve them well in your scheduling.

If you’re looking for other resources for your team, you may find these posts helpful as well:

How to build a team without musicians.

A team of worship leaders.

Identifying and developing new leaders.

Making space for new leaders here and here.

Trust In Worship

There is a tremendous amount of trust required in leading people in sung worship. Most people are only singing aloud during a commute to work or their morning shower. Apart from singing ‘Happy Birthday,’ when are the vast majority of people singing corporately?

But sung worship is not just a physical act - it is spiritual as well. We are putting words in the mouths of our people for them to know, understand, and respond to the person and work of Christ.

When God’s people are gathered in sung worship they are following our lead - are we trustworthy? Have we invested in the secret place before coming to this public platform? Have we spent time with these songs to be able to lead them with as few distractions as we can manage? Will we provide the people with enough direction that they can relax and follow, or will they feel consistently unsettled because we seem to be unaware of anyone besides ourselves?

As it does in any relationship, trust is built over time. Time and familiarity will either serve to strengthen or undermine the trust you have with the people you lead. So be consistent in your serving on and off the platform. Be gracious with and toward your people knowing that there is a significant amount of trust required in their relationship with and toward you.

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.

Using In-Ear Monitors

I used in-ear monitors for the first time in high school. And although they are incredibly common, it is often an added expense that many small to medium-sized churches cannot justify. If you are new to in-ear monitors or are exploring what that may look like with your team, I wanted to share a few things I’ve learned over the years.

Practice before implementation.

Like most things, new can often mean scary, or bad. You and your team need to get used to using in-ear monitors before feeling the pressure to implement them. Don’t set them up and try them for the first time on a Sunday morning. Set up a separate rehearsal time, and use a mid-week rehearsal to test them out on a song or two. Just because you have them does not mean you need to make an immediate switch.

Set a team up for success.

One of the things I see when trying to implement new gear, new rhythms, or expectations for my team is the more I can work on the front end to set them up for success, the more likely they will be to embrace a change. With in-ears that could look like making sure that everyone understands how to mix their ears (is there an app, a piece of hardware, will the sound person be mixing?), understanding how to have a solid mix in general (start at zero, gradually layer in - starting with you, and your instrument, and bring everything else to a comfortable level around that).

Get the right gear.

Part of setting the team up for success is getting the right gear. Provide your team with quality headphones or earbuds. Don’t expect them just to bring a set of Apple earbuds they found in a junk drawer at home. If your team is used to floor monitors - or no monitors - in ears will be a significant adjustment. Spending a little bit of money on an ambient/crowd mic is an easy way for your team to not feel like they’ve gone from being able to hear everything and everyone, to only themselves.

Set the vision.

Many people do not like change. Why are you making the adjustment? Why are you asking people to learn something new? If you help shape the why, the what is often softened when the team is on board.

Thoughts On Writing

It has been said, ‘Write what you know…’ or others have said, ‘I write so that I might know…’ There is no doubt that words are formative. As followers of Jesus, we should not be surprised about this because God spoke the world into existence with His words. Jesus is the Word made flesh who sustains the universe by the word of His power. And God has given us His Word through Scripture.

Words are important. And personally, I believe that writing is important. That even if you do not consider yourself a writer, there is value, benefit, and importance to writing in, and for your unique context. Yes, write songs, but also write liturgy. Write in the language of your people, write to stretch them and grow them, write so that the trues of Scripture, deep doctrine, and beautiful devotion may inhabit their hearts, minds, and lives.

When considering writing, here are a few things I believe are worth considering:

Write all the time. Writing doe not just have to be pen to paper, it can also be exploring good writing, filling your own heart, mind, and life with things that are good, beautiful, and true.

Keep writing. I use my iPhone Notes app constantly. Lines, lyrics, phrases. Maybe they will turn into something - like a song, a call to worship, a blog, a responsive reading, a prayer, or devotional writing. Maybe those words are just a place for me to make sense of my own heart, and pour out my own praise. But keeping a running list of words, phrases, or quotes that have impacted me, can often jump-start a more intentional or focused time of writing.

Consider the purpose. If it is a song - is this a corporate worship song, a song of personal devotion, or something just for fun? What is it that the people of God need to hear? What is it that I just need to be able to say to God - or that He wants to speak to me?

Where are the gaps? As I am trying to bridge Scripture, songs, and liturgy, what words will help paint a clearer picture of the truths we are declaring? Does that passage of Scripture, Song, or pre-written liturgy already exist? If not, how might I prayerfully, and intentionally allow God to shape my words to fill in the gaps?

Are you feeling a need, a conviction, or a desire to write? How might you bring those desires to the Lord and allow him to shape them to bless, serve, equip, and challenge you, and those you lead and serve?

23 July: Liturgy + Set List

• PROMISES

  Call to Worship: Psalm 36:5-9

  One of the lies we are tempted to believe is that everything hangs on us. That we feast on the abundance of our own house. That we feast on the abundance of our own effort, labor, and work. And one of the reasons it is essential to make gathering with the people of God a weekly habit is because God in his kindness uses His Word, His Spirit, and His people to confront and expose the lies that we believe, and the lies that we live. We gather this morning acknowledging that in God there is no lack, no need, and He invites His people to feast on the abundance of His house, and drink from the river of God’s delights. He is good, and generous, and kind. Let’s sing to him together…

• GOODNESS OF GOD

• I SHALL NOT WANT

  Sermon: Exodus 20:14

  The Apostles’ Creed

  Communion

• NOTHING BUT THE BLOOD

  Benediction

Don't Jump Off A Bridge

“If everyone else was jumping off a bridge, would you do it too?”

Maybe that was something you heard growing up. The truth is, we are just as susceptible to peer pressure as adults as we were as children. And even as worship leaders, we can feel pressure to participate because it is what everyone else is doing. Song choice, style, format, aesthetic, technology - just because ‘everyone’ is doing it doesn’t mean you have to.

So much of what we do is gray, and requires a knowledge of our people, our culture, and our the communities in which we serve. As worship leaders our decisions about what, why, when, and how should be measured over and against the mission, vision, and values of our church and a philosophy of ministry.

I am incredibly grateful for the way technology, and the internet gives us access to songs, churches, worship leaders, training, and artist we would otherwise not know. But one of the downsides to this reality is that we can only see the outworking of another group’s philosophy of ministry. When we simply adopt the songs, style, or aesthetic of another church, group, or worship leader, our services can easily become cheap, karaoke versions of something that was originally crafted with intention. We want the look, feel, style, and response we see on those beautifully lit, and mixed YouTube videos, when our unique contexts look nothing like what we see online.

I am not saying, ‘Don’t use those songs…,’ I use those songs! But do not let what you see, or what others are doing be the single most significant determining factor in the decisions you make as a worship leader. Do the hard work of understanding your people (the congregation), and your team (the skills, gifts, and weaknesses), and allow the mission of your church, and your philosophy of worship to shape the decisions that you make.

Engaging the Holidays

where I serve, is how we appropriately engage, and speak to cultural holidays… or not.

Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, the 4th of July, Memorial Day, the list is endless…

From my observation, many churches fall into one of two categories - all in, or completely ignore. The churches that are all, adapt and orient their service around acknowledging and celebrating these particular holidays. They change their songs to fit, tailor a sermon to match, and have decor and announcements that are designed to highlight the holiday. Those in the completely ignore category don’t acknowledge anything - and apart from the cultural reminders - endcaps at every store, and themed emails from every online retailer, no one would even realize it was a holiday.

Personally, I lean more toward the latter than the former. But I believe there are at least two significant reasons why our people can benefit from acknowledging holidays in our corporate gatherings:

First, when we acknowledge current events or cultural holidays, it is a chance to reframe people’s identity and understanding around the person and work of Christ. To shape their minds, hearts, and affections Scripturally, rather than culturally. To rightly situate the values of the world inside the values of the Kingdom of God.

Second, Scripture tells us to remember. And we are people prone to forget. We should celebrate, but we should also lament. We should rejoice but also grieve. Let’s use cultural holidays to acknowledge not just the joys, but also the sorrows of living in a broken world, as we point our people toward the deeper, truer, eternal hope of Christ.