Worship Together Blog

Question: How many songs?

How many songs do you do on average in your services each week?

Ending on the 4 chord

A really simple way to dip your toe into free worship is to end a song on the 4 chord. If you are playing in the key of G, that means ending on a C chord, or better yet a C2 chord, which is a C chord with an added D note.

Continue to strum the chord and encourage your congregation to speak out the names of God. You and your worship team may have to help get them started - "Almighty", "Everlasting", "Jehovah Jireh", "Prince of Peace", etc. You can even alternate back in forth between the 4 chord (C) to the 5 chord (D) for a little variation.

While listening, try and pick out one of the names that seems to fit what the Holy Spirit is doing at the time. Begin to sing that name of God back to your congregation making up a melody on the spot. You'll get better at this the more you do it.

It might take a few tries to get your congregation on board, but after awhile it will become a meaningful part of your worship. As with any worship element, don't do it the same every time. Try and mix it up. You'll find some things that work and others that don't.

Let's worship!

Worship Band Rotation

Have you ever had your pastor or a church leader approach you after a service asking why you have the same people up there every week? Little do they know, the reason everything has been flowing so well lately is because the band finally starting to gel. We all know that leading becomes a whole lot easier when your band knows what it means when you are stomping your foot for a build or throwing your guitar neck up to signal the end of a song.

I've led worship at a wide variety of churches over the years. At some it was consistently the same group, and at others there was an entirely different band and LEADER week-in and week-out. Most of the time though this was dictated by church size, how many players we had and if the pastor  wanted the same person on the platform each week.

We'd like to see how you're handling rotating your team, so here's a few questions for you...

• Are you flooded with talent or putting up audition fliers at the local coffee shop?
• How do to you handle rotating your team? Are there members you can't do without each week?
• How often do you get to step down and be in the congregation?

Worship Mythbusters @ RichKirkpatrick.com

I met Rich at the Re:create Conference here in Nashville a few years ago and have been very encouraged from reading his blog. Over the past few months he's tackled some of the myths that surround us as worship leaders and offered some pretty fresh and interesting ideas that I've been refreshed and encouraged by.

So head on over and checkout the Worship Myth-Busters series at RichKirkpatrick.com

Church Gear Swiping

Dear church music gear swiper,

This is a plea. I am calling on your sense of kindness and compassion. Please stop swiping gear from different worship venues without letting someone know or bringing the item back once you are done.

When I was rehearsing for worship last Wednesday night I realized that the monitors weren't working, so I went to the soundboard to investigate. I noticed you had swiped 2 cables that connected the soundboard to the monitor sends on the snake.

I corralled one of the students who helps out with sound and blamed him for the swipe. He assured me that it was you and he went and swiped the 2 cables back that I needed from where you left them!

It seems like every time I lead worship, someone is scrambling around to find a music stand, guitar stand, mic cable, or a hundred other items. I'm beginning to think that you are a modern day church "Robin Hood" who is stealing from the ministries who have gear and giving the stuff to the ministries who don't.

About a year ago, you were swiping my music stand every week. I would find it in your Sunday School class and swipe it back, only to find it missing again the next week. I even put a "Do Not Remove" sticker on it, but you disregarded it.

Last Christmas, the church bought about 12 poinsettias to set along the front of the stage. By the time Christmas rolled around, we were down to about 6. Every week we would loose a couple of them. "Why? Why? Why?". If you needed a poinsettia, I would have bought you one!

I've been assured from season worship pastors that there is someone like you in every church, finding interesting things and moving them to places where no one can find them. Please stop before all my volunteers quit or the church has to purchase a gun vault to lock up everything between services! :)   

How do you start your week?

As worship leaders Sunday's can be our most rewarding and also most exhausting days of the week. Every Monday we begin our week with a devotion and prayer time with the entire staff at the office. It's a great way to just take a few minutes to slow down before things get crazy.

What do you do on Monday's to clear your head and refresh your spirit for the next week?

New Service - New Songs

About five months ago I started leading worship for a more traditional church here in the Nashville area that wanted to incorporate a more contemporary service.

This has been a slightly challenging experience for me because I am used to a congregation being more familiar with what I consider to be a few "standards",  or favorites, such as "Here I Am To Worship", "Blessed Be Your Name", "Above All", "Open The Eyes Of My Heart", "Heart Of Worship, etc. This has not been the case though, as these songs are still new to many of those in the congregation.

I have taken the approach of teaching a new song almost every week. This is coupled with me learning one or two new hymns every week and chording them out to be a little more modern.  This give and take seems to be working well.  The service is growing and people are excited and are responding well, but this does prompt a few questions:

1. How many new songs do you introduce a week/month?
2. How long should it take to introduce a modern worship style in a more traditional church?
3. What can we do as worship leaders to bring the congregation along without alienating them?

Worship Band Rehearsal - Part 2

Continued from prior post...

4. Make sure your rehearsal is at least 3 hours. Seriously people, unless your worship band is going on tour, this is ridiculous. The last thing your volunteer musicians want is to spend an entire evening away from their famliies for a worship rehearsal that should have ended after the first hour. If you are only introducing 1 new song (see point 2), then you should be able to run through that song 2 or 3 times, practice your known songs once, spend some time in prayer, and still be done within an hour!

5. Consistantly show up late and allow others to do the same. It's amazing how much this is just expected and tolerated among musicians. When people are consistantly late, it says to everyone else "my time is more important that yours". As the leader, if you refuse to deal with this, eventually everyone will begin showing up late. Then your rehearsals will run long (see point 4).

6. Give everyone only words with chords. It's amazing how many worship leaders bring only lyric chord charts to rehearsal. Playing a new song with a chord chart is like fumbling around for the light switch in a dark room. Companies like www.praisecharts.com or www.ccli.com/songselect/ can help you with charts. If you are committed to only using chord charts, at least allow your band to hear the song in advance.

These are not a sure fire formula for success, but if you follow these suggestions, you will navigate safely through the dangerous field and avoid many pitfalls that others (including myself) have painfully experienced!

Blessings on your ministry!

Worship Band Rehearsal - Part 1

One of the most asked questions I hear from worship leaders who are just starting to lead is how to organize and facilitate worship band rehearsals. This sounds fairly simple, but it is a pretty pasture filled with land mines!

I've been involved in worship, either leading or as a musician, for the last 12 years and I've had all different experiences with rehearsals, good and bad. If you want your band to run screaming from the building, vowing to never play their instrument again, here's my top list of surefire irritations.

1. Don't prepare anything in advance. Nothing is more frustrating to the band than for the leader to show up with a big stack of song sheets, plop them down on floor, and ask "so what do y'all think we should sing this week?". Part of the leadership role is to discern in advance which songs should be sung that week, pull appropriate charts (I'll talk more about this next), and show up at rehearsal with a thought out plan. This doesn't mean you can't make changes, but at least everyone has a starting point.

2. Introduce 5 new songs. When the new Passion album releases, you must resist the temptation to introduce half of the songs to your band the next week. I suggest not introducing more than 1 new song per rehearsal. Your church will thank you as well :).

3. Create unique arrangements for every song. There are some exceptions to this no no. If all your songs are charted specifically for each instrument, all your players read music, and the song is new to your church, then I say go for it. However, if your band plays mostly by ear and chord charts, you're going to have problems. Also, once people learn the standard way to play or sing a song, playing different arrangements is difficult for the band and for your church to follow.

More to come...