WorshipCentral

That's quite a question. It is challenging to try to navigate fresh ways to lead worship. I wouldn't get too afraid of being the same in your musical function; music in the church moves quite slowly from one musical taste to another. I think the best thing we can do as worship leaders is keep ourselves fresh so we can minister from a fresh heart with established, comfortable, and... well.. normal tools like "rocky worship songs".

If I was going to try to mix things up in my church I'd rely heavily on the other leaders who are involved. Try to get input from them, my band mates, and then take some time to chew it over with prayer. There are obvious ways, like keeping the song rotation fresh. It seems for the average weekly meeting time 1 new song a month helps keep things more new.

Did you have something in particular you were considering?

Hey Josh great to see you on here. I guess it comes down to a lot about how you use what you have already. Musically the normal seems to be everyone in the band and singers included have to be playing/singing all the time. When in reality you can make some pretty awesome times of worship by mixing this up a bit. Like starting out with just the piano for a the first verse then building other instruments in after that, and the same goes with singing, start with maybe just the leader and then add some backing vocals in on the chorus. I'm not in any way musical but i've seen it done before and I think it works quite well. Try some different arrangements out in practices and see how it goes.

thanks guys (and hi jordan!)

Marc I think thats a really good point, thanks alot. I think you're right, and when a certain type of worship works, changing it may jepordize the quality of worship in that particular meeting. I think rotation of songs is great because as the style of songs changes, we consequentially will too. this keeps us up to date! I think I was also considering ideas such as acoustic nights for the occasional change, but im not sure.

thanks Jordan. We're working at that at the moment. For example, singers are properly acting as backing vocals now, and not all the guitars always play! I think realising that you dont always have to be playing or singing improves the quality infinitly. Having different instruments leading into a song may be the next steo then!

thanks guys

Josh

Hey Josh, great question. There is an underlying problem here that needs looking at - we're facing exactly the same thing in our church. Whilst I'd agree that changing things around just for the sake of it isn't necessarily a helpful thing, if our congregation has got to the point where they _cannot_ engage with God except through a full band playing rocky tunes then to be honest I think you have to ask whether an unhelpful dependency has been created. Looking through the Bible you see loads of examples of people singing praise to God with much less musical support (e.g. Paul and Silas in Acts 16, Jesus and the disciples at the Last Supper in Matt 25) - would your congregation freak out if you had a service where you only sang acapella? Or with just an acoustic guitar?

I love worshipping God with a full band sound, but I'm also aware that if we 'need' those dynamics to 'get us going' or to sweep us into a big sound, or just to drown out the sound of our voices (cos we're a bit self-conscious) then we're not really modelling the heart of what sung worship is about. We're also potentially discouraging people from worshipping on their own, or in their small groups, because 'it doesn't sound as good as on a Sunday'. Well of course it doesn't sound that good. But that doesn't matter. Paul and Silas probably didn't sound great singing in prison on their own, with only their chains for musical accompaniment, but they did it anyway. And I bet they weren't too fussed about who was supposed to be singing the harmony part, and was it in tune, either.

Sorry for long post, but we've been wrestling with these same things for a while in our church, with the result and starting tomorrow (!) our evening service regular band is going to be replaced with a much smaller setup of one or maybe two musicians and singers, for the whole of November. I'm starting it off, with just me + guitar, no backing vocals - and I'm going to explain for a few minutes at the start of the worship time why we're doing it:

- that each of us has a unique voice to offer to God
- that we need to choose to worship God, rather than allow music to sweep us along
- that with a band there's often less room for contributions from the congregation, both because there's more noise going on so people aren't confident to sing/speak out their own prayers or songs, and also you can't be as flexible with a whole band as when there's only one person leading

etc. Hope that helps. I know Soul Survivor church went through a similar time to this, it was the inspiration behind Matt Redman writing 'Heart of Worship'. Definitely something to think/pray into and discuss with your leadership. It may be that you want to plan in the new year to have a more acoustic month, so rather than just doing it as a one-off you actually get into a bit of a habit of it, and have chance to properly explain what you're doing so the congregation really get excited about the opportunity to worship in a different way from the usual.

Hope that helps,

God bless

Matt

www.RESOUNDworship.org
Free New Worship Songs

Equally, what can also work well, is a complete change in instrumentation, but still keeping to the same songs. So, for example, there have been times when I've led, when instead of it being the usual acoustic, electric, bass, drums and keys, I've used just acoustic, djembe and viola, along with vocals. The songs are the same, but the style is different, but still accessible and not distracting. It did take a little more planning, and a little more practice time, but people enjoyed it and, more importantly, it wasn't a form of music that people don't like. What I mean by that is that I didn't suddenly go all jazzy or hip-hoppy as this can exclude large portions of the congregation.

sorry for being a bit rambly and not very succinct...

hope this helps,

Alex

thanks matt and alex

matt; Thanks alot, thats really really helpful. I think the idea of a whole month could be really effective. I'l definitely talk to leadership about that kind of thing. I think its so important that people aren't put off by what we do, so its one of those things that needs lots of prayer.

It'd be good for us all to be a bit out there and experiment with things such as acapella just to see what the congregations response is. If its bad then (as you said matt) then we can see there is an unhealthy dependancy, and then can work to address that problem. Dont worry about long posts, they're really helpful! Good luck with your worship this month, i'll be praying for it. (p.s . did you lead worship at new wine this year?? i recognize your picture. If not you just look really similar to someone else).

Alex; thats a really good idea. I tried something like that a few months back, but ran into problems when e.g. the drummer didnt want to play a djembe, but wanted to play kit. I will try again though.

thanks and god bless

josh

Hi Josh, I was one of the four worship leaders at the youth venue at New Wine LSE if that's the one you were at as well - Sam Blake was the guy heading up the worship in that venue. Was that the one you were at? Hope you had a good time if so!

Just wanted to pick up on your comment about the drummer not wanting to play djembe... my worship leader attenae went all prickly at that point - I like to really emphasise to all the musicians involved in our worship groups that they are in a place of service. They're not playing for their musical satisfaction, they're not even (I would argue anyway) primarily there to worship God themselves, but they are there to facilitate, encourage and enable the congregation to worship God. Yes, absolutely playing in a band can be fun (and if it's never fun then probably something is wrong!), and yes absolutely we are worshipping God as we play - but I've had issues in the past with people saying 'oh, that's just how I play to worship God' even though it wasn't actually helpful in leading others. Or another classic is the bassist (for example) has his eyes closed in wonder, love and praise, and completely misses the cue to change key. Not cool.

Anyway, this is a bit of a digression from the original topic, but I would encourage you at some point to have a friendly chat with said drummer (probably not on a Sunday) about why he's involved, what he wants to get out of it, what he wants to give - does he see his playing as service? Or just an opportunity for a jam? As I said, jamming is good and definitely should be encouraged at appropriate times, but the thing that blesses me as a worship leader more than anything is when a musician says 'yes, I'll play or not play, or play one note in the whole song, or play loads and loads... I'll even play the triangle if necessary - whatever is going to help people worship most'.
That's the attitude I think we all should be cultivating in ourselves and in others. If you're not in a position to talk directly with the drummer about this maybe get a member of the leadership team to come and have a chat about the heart of being involved in the worship team?

btw - if I've read far too much into this, and actually the drummer had a perfectly good reason for not wanting to play djembe e.g. he's allergic to them (!) that's fine. If it's just 'I don't want to play djembe cos it's boring and not as noisy' (both true) then that is not so good.

Glad you don't mind long posts!! :) and I'm not saying you need to go and have a big convo with the drummer NOW or even THIS WEEK - but maybe bear it in mind in the future - we are servants, following the example of Jesus the servant, and humbly leading people in whatever way is required to look at our great and awesome God.

God bless,

Matt

www.RESOUNDworship.org
Free New Worship Songs

Hey Josh,
Great to know someone else has the same problem, with drummers and djembaes lol. I am alos 17 and lead worship at our youth church once a month... whats good about this is that as young people most are quite open to new ideas. But i also strongly agree with what Jordan has said my band the last few times we have played have started mixing things up like doing chorus's slow or whole soings instead and livening up others going loud and quiet at different times and not using all the instruments allthe time...

We've also done things like all night worship with a small talk about prayer in the middle encouraging people to come and pray, also really focussing on making it a journey of worship. Another thing we've tried is having a choir and worship leader no instruments this also worked amazingly. We've also talked about doing a sort of candle lit service. again quite acoustic...

keep it up

Jonty

A brilliant thread. I get to lead about two in four and am always looking for different ways to mix songs to freshen them up. I don't know much about the church you are in but I would really encourage you to look for some out of the ordinary instruments. We have violinists and sax players at our church and every now and again it is a breath of fresh air to have them in worship, they can add another element and make your worship sound so different.

Drum heavy sundays are also an awesome idea. We even once had a grand piano instead of a keyboard and it worked really well. But keep pushing guys, I think so many people can be blessed by different styles of worship. Recently we even had a rapper who rapped one verse of See His Love as the beginning song and as our church is quite young this was really well recieved, however even the older members of the church really enjoyed it as it was different and fun, and for those who are into rap it really brought the worship alive for them that week.

Keep pushing for God

Nathaniel

All such awesome ideas; really are. I’ve really thought a bit on this topic of effective musical-congregational-worship. It seems to be that it is quite subjective, i.e. knowing what is effective for the community you are serving. If it is subjective, it seems to me that it doesn’t matter what you do musically, because there is such a variation of musical taste allowed in “successful” worship it must mean the formula for success depends on something other than the music: a “X” factor (cue dramatic music). :)

Is “X” keeping it fresh musically? I’ve been all over this thought, and as such have lost any bearing! It seems just as justifiable to say the music should be: 1. fresh and unique as 2. heavily traditional. It also seems justifiable to define musical service to the church as leading worship: 1. personally or 2. objectively. Both could be a service, both could have ups and downs…. sigh… in this world of leading worship there are so often 2 legitimate sides at odds with each other.

That is why I wonder if my most dire service to the church is to have myself in order, that I may honestly praise God in a way they can follow. (Kind of a worship/justice relationship). If that’s the case, I wonder if it matters if the music is the same each week, or if someone messes up or wants to play one instrument over another… I’m speaking in theory, there must be some order… there are definitely attitudes that aren’t appropriate, some of it is easily black and white. But, it’s just so a frustrating conundrum to try to sort out once the black and white fade to grey!!!!!!