The art of life and worship
November 18, 2010 Leave a comment
Here’s a fantastic video for “SMS [Shine]” from David Crowder Band’s Church Music album. This was all done with stop-motion photography. You may need to watch it a couple of times to catch the story. I love this kind of stuff!
For several short segments on how they made the video, search for “The making of “SMS [SHINE]” on youtube.
July 30, 2010 2 Comments
For a long time I have appreciated the ministry of John Piper. He has produced an amazing number of books and resources over the years through his organization, Desiring God. It’s quite amazing that they make so many great resources available for free on their website. I’d encourage you to check it out.
Each year Desiring God hosts conferences, and the promo for their 2010 National Conference looks very cool. Not only do I love the topic, but I love the way it’s creatively presented. Hats off to the folks who brainstormed and created the promo video.
July 20, 2010 Leave a comment
How would you describe the typical artist/musician/worship leader? Aloof? A little strange? Disorganized? An “artsy type”? Even effeminate (only for the guys)? I’ve been involved in worship ministry for around 20 years and have heard all kinds of adjectives used to describe worship leaders. Much of the time it’s been negative. Some of this has been deserved, and I can think of a few worship leaders who have done their part to deserve criticism. (You might even want to check out this hilarious post from Stuff Christians Like, but keep your tongue firmly planted in your cheek.)
But when I think of the many worship leaders I’ve known over the years, the vast majority of them are hard-working, godly people who strive week-to-week to lead their congregations in effective worship. They are committed to their local churches and want to serve their pastor. They are talented, creative, and intelligent. Most of them are also able to preach and teach effectively.
Those creative impulses make artistic types a little different. But those same creative impulses gave us the Mona Lisa, the music of the Beatles, and the great Hagia Sophia. They also give energy and beauty to our worship.
Every ministry has its stereotypes, and those are probably true to an extent. But in my experience, the typical worship leader is a wonderful servant of Christ who sacrifices a lot of time and energy so you and I can worship together each weekend.
May 21, 2010 2 Comments
“Hotel California” is one of the most well-known songs recorded by the Eagles. Released on their 1976 album of the same name, the song tells the story of a traveler who enters a mysterious hotel in the desert, and finds more than he expected. The song has been the subject of controversy because of its cryptic references to what some believe are witchcraft and devil worship. Read more of this post
May 17, 2010 Leave a comment
Here is how I look at music in church: churches are like restaurants, and worship music is like the food they serve. No matter what kind of food your restaurant serves, there will always be someone who doesn’t like it. The problem is that you have to choose something–you can’t satisfy every taste (unless you offer multiple services with different styles).
What happens if you’re a mature Christian who loves your church and wants to support your pastor, but you dislike the music? I have a good friend who hates Chinese food, and I know that if we went to a Chinese place for lunch, he would not enjoy it. What do you do when you’re the person who doesn’t like Chinese food? Here are a few questions for those who want to support their church and would like to deal with this issue in a positive, godly way. (These would apply in a range of situations, whether your church uses a traditional hymn-based style or more modern music.) Read more of this post
May 14, 2010 Leave a comment
The Australian worship band Hillsong United has been around for over a decade, but their popularity has exploded in just the last few years. The band is an outgrowth of the youth ministry of Hillsong Church in Sydney (the church home of another influential worship leader, Darlene Zschech). The band has contributed a great number of songs to modern worship, the most well-known being “Mighty to Save.” Hillsong United’s album Across the Earth: Tear Down the Walls is one of my favorite albums of any style of music. Most churches doing any kind of contemporary music are probably using some songs by Hillsong United. We certainly sing a lot of them in our SLCC Chapel services.
“Hosanna” was written by Brooke Ligertwood (formerly Brooke Fraser) and is included in Hillsong United’s 2007 album All of the Above. It’s a great song because it creatively combines meaningful lyrics with interesting music. I suppose all great songs have both components, but worship songs can be a special challenge because they have to musically and lyrically interesting, able to be learned and sung by the average person, and they have to express a very familiar story in a new, fresh way. That’s a tall order!
Verse 1 of “Hosanna” contains imagery that is almost prophetic, speaking of the “King of Glory coming on the clouds with fire,” with the whole earth shaking. (It’s reminiscent of scenes from Isaiah 6, Ezekiel 1 and Revelation 4 & 5. Here is a link to the lyrics if you want to have a look.) The chorus is a simple expression of praise, and verse 2 speaks of God’s love and mercy washing over our sin. The bridge is a plea for God to “break my heart for what breaks yours,” and is a call to surrender everything for the cause of God’s kingdom. This is a sort of modern version of “I Surrender All,” except with more electric guitars, and a lot louder.
The blending of the minor key tonality, haunting feel and cryptic imagery complement each other well. The song is also a great example of how to effectively use electric guitars (and digital delay) in modern worship music. Many props to Hillsong for a job well done on this one.
Lift up your heads, O gates!
And be lifted up, O ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
Who is this King of glory?
The LORD, strong and mighty,
the LORD, mighty in battle!
Lift up your heads, O gates!
And lift them up, O ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
Who is this King of glory?
The LORD of hosts,
he is the King of glory!
(Psalm 24.7-10)
May 9, 2010 3 Comments
This morning in our services on Mother’s Day, one of the guys on our worship team performed a special. (Side note: For those who are wondering, a “special” is a song that is performed, as opposed to songs that are sung by the whole congregation. I have no idea why we call it a “special.” I have heard some specials that were not very special.) About halfway through the song I looked back toward the sound booth and realized the words of the song were projected on the back ceiling. The band could see them, but they were out of the line of sight of the congregation.
This, in short, is a simple yet very effective way to address the problem of having your nose stuck in a music stand on stage.
Back in the old days of contemporary worship (the “old days” meaning just a couple of decades ago), worship teams were tied to a music stand that held paper music that was copied from a songbook or hymnal. If you were a guitar player or worship leader, you might have a chord chart consisting of only words and chords. This is how I led worship for many years in a former ministry: a control sheet (detailed order of service) and a bunch of chord charts sitting on the stand. For a long time I put the chord charts in a notebook and would have to flip the pages every couple of songs. Our worship team vocalists did the same thing.
The problem with being tied to the items on your music stand is that it puts an emotional barrier between you and the congregation. When you’re constantly worried about playing the right chords or singing the right words,you can’t focus on the more important task at hand. You are more concerned about the technicalities of worship leading than the spiritual dynamics of what is happening in the congregation.
I should point out that is a small but important distinction between the worship team and the worship band. The worship consists of the worship leader and the vocalists (or worship choir, if you use one). The worship band, of course, are the instrumentalists. It’s almost inevitable that the band will have some form of sheet music or charts. While they should be well-rehearsed, there’s no critical need for them to memorize their music. (But as a general rule, the better they know their music, the more fully they can enter into worship. The instrumentalists are leading worship through their example.)
The worship leader and vocalists, on the other hand, should try to remove any barriers that keep them from engaging with the congregation and with God. (When the worship leaders aren’t engaged, the people in turn don’t engage in worship very well.) At our church, the vocalists don’t use music stands at all, but we have the words projected on the back wall. (This is a mirror image of what the congregation sees, except in the case of special music as noted above.) It does mean you need to have your vocal parts memorized. But once you do this a few times, it’s no sweat.
Even when I play guitar on the worship team, I do my best to have all the music memorized. I still use a music stand to hold a control sheet and chord charts just in case, but even as an instrumentalist I find it very freeing to not rely on any charts or written music. (This would probably be impossible for instrumentalists that rely on sheet music.)
Even when I’m in situations where there is no projection in the back of the sanctuary, I try to rely on the music as little as possible when I’m leading worship. I have found the extra preparation to be well worth it because I can focus on actually leading worship instead of getting bogged down in musical details. I certainly don’t do it perfectly, but once I started doing this I began to enjoy leading and playing even more.
Questions: How can you help your worship team (and yourself) commit more of their worship set to memory? Has your church considered installing a projector in the back of the sanctuary just for the worship team? If you already do this, how it is working?
February 20, 2010 Leave a comment
I’m kicking off the “Great Songs” series with the song that has meant a great deal to me over the last couple of years: “Magnificent Obsession” by Steven Curtis Chapman. Steven is a tremendous singer, guitarist and songwriter, and this one is a gem. The song was released on his 2001 album “Declaration,” on my personal favorites. If I could choose one song to take with me to a desert island, this would be it; it represents my heart perfectly because I want my life to be defined by the pursuit of Jesus.
What makes this song great? The honesty, poetry of the lyrics, artistry and performance, the music, message – it’s the whole package.
Below is the album recording as well as a low-fi concert version. Enjoy!
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3.7-11)
January 12, 2010 10 Comments
For those of you who to go church regularly and participate in contemporary worship, I have a question for you: Have you ever noticed that worship leaders and those who are singing and playing on stage sometimes close their eyes? This occurred to me tonight as I was leading worship at our Convocation service at St. Louis Christian College. I was on stage with the worship team and during the last couple of songs (“Holy, Holy, Holy” and “Revelation Song”) I noticed myself closing my eyes.
This has always seemed to be a natural response for me when leading worship, especially during slower, more intimate songs. But what does closing your eyes really accomplish?
I can’t speak for anyone else, but when I close my eyes or step away from the mic for a few moments it’s a way to focus on God and the meaning of what we’re singing. I guess it’s also an attempt to shut out my view of the people facing me. When you’re on stage with a guitar and a mic, and lots of people are in the congregation, it’s very hard to escape the notion that on some level it’s a performance. When I close my eyes I remember that this is for God, as well as the people.
I don’t claim to be anything special when it comes to leading worship. In fact, I feel a little bit rusty these days and have been longing for the opportunity to do it again week to week. But one thing I do know: it is tempting to overestimate the importance of the human factor in worship. It’s easy to “pump up” the crowd when you know the songs they love and what kind of things will draw a response from that particular group. But the point of worship is not to get people excited, it’s to help us re-tell and re-call the Gospel, which is the content of worship.
Worship leaders are like dinner hosts–we prepare the table and invite the guests, but it’s God who provides the actual nourishment. I think if we faithfully serve what God has provided, it frees us from having to rely on manufactured emotion to make worship worthwhile.
So if you see me on stage and I close my eyes while I’m supposed to be leading, it’s because I’m trying to remember that despite all the appearances of modern worship, it’s not a performance.
November 19, 2009 Leave a comment
This semester (which is just about to wrap up) I’m teaching a course called “Theology and History of Worship.” Yesterday’s learning topic dealt with sacred space in worship–how the people, furniture and symbols of worship are arranged to best allow people to engage with God and one another. I had planned on doing a lecture, but then decided to approach it a different way. Since the lecture would be based mainly on the reading they had done (I would be reviewing the main ideas and adding more info), wasn’t this a little redundant?
I came up with this instead: I wanted them to put into practice the things they had learned through the reading, and what I would briefly review in class. I had them get into 3 groups, with this assignment: design a worship space for a particular area and tell us why you designed it that way. What are the theological and practical reasons for your choices? Group 1 designed a sanctuary for an urban church meeting in a leased office space, Group 2 designed a space for a suburban church plant, and Group 3 designed space for a rural church youth ministry that emphasized the arts.
The results were interesting, and the students took it more seriously and engaged in the process more than I expected. A couple of the groups were very detailed in their designs. I was pretty impressed.
I’ve only been teaching for a few years, and have a lot to learn (trust me on that one, or just ask my students!). But one of the things I do know is that active learning (participation and engagement) allows students to interact with and process what they learned from reading and lectures. The lecture format can be done effectively by some teachers and for some topics, but I am learning some new, different, and often more effective approaches to help students learn.
By the way, here is good quote I used in class: “Space, it has been argued, needs to be redemptive space. It needs to reflect the work of salvation, which we celebrate. Therefore, adequate space for gathering, for the hearing of the Word, for the celebration of the Eucharist, and for music and the arts that accompany these acts is a priority. The major shift that has taken place in worship space is the shift from longitudinal space to a more centralized space, a space in which the worshipers become participants. ” (Robert Webber, Worship Old & New, 146)
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