So Lee Green wrote a rhyme around the entire Gospel story and we used The Door as the instrumentation behind it. You’ll have to forgive some of the instrumentation mistakes, I hope it doesn’t ruin Lee’s incredible, powerful, convicting and moving words. Hopefully we’ll be doing more collaborating going forward, love me some Lee Green!

Related posts

• Video: “Nothing But the Blood” Live @ LCC by 9 iPhones (5)
• Video: “Abortion & Redemption” spoken word by Burgundy Hubert feat. Our Rising Sound (Live) (11)
• Video: Radiohead performing In Rainbows live! (3)

Nothing but the Blood from Life Connection Church on Vimeo.

Related posts

• ORS Music: “The Love of God Is Greater Far” Live at Life Connection Church (6)
• Working “Reason” into worship, drum loops, synths and other crazy things (6)
• Video: Spontaneous Baptisms on Easter at Mars Hill (2)

[via PoorlyDressed.com]

Related posts

• Top 5 things I miss about 90s worship (18)
• Reformed contextualization FAIL (2)
• Presbyterian vs Catholic Church Sign Debate (171)

1. Tighter set -  bands are playing fewer songs so they have more opportunity to experiment and perfect their arrangements.
2. Familiarity – Congregation gets to connect with songs better and have a chance at memorization so they spend less time staring at the lyrics and more time focusing on Jesus.
3. Freshness – when new songs come in, older songs are getting pruned instead of an ever growing rotation. This takes the pressure off the band for introducing new songs so they don’t feel like their work load gets larger and larger.

The last point is important because we want to keep bringing in new songs but typically it’s at the expense of an older song that just doesn’t seem to be relevant anymore. That’s not to say we don’t play any old songs, because we do. I’ll bring back older songs, hymns that bring diversity to the set and a freshness to the set as a whole.

So how many songs are in your rotation? And it would be great if you could describe in the comments what kind of worship band organization you use, praise band, multiple bands or something else.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Related posts

• Poll: When a worship leader speaks a lot during worship you are… (13)
• Poll: Is it ok for non-christians to play in worship bands? (22)
• Poll: Have you ever left a church primarily because of music style? (10)

Why use a click?

I don’t want to assume we all know and appreciate the benefits of a click so I figured I’d start here. A click insures your band plays a song in the correct time and keeps your band in the correct time through the duration of the song. Without using a click it’s very easy to mess up both, either you start the song too slow or fast or you speed up and slow down in the middle of the song. Additionally, now that your band is all synced to perfect time you can use loops or visual effects like a timed lyric presentation.

How do you start using a click?

1. Drummer must get comfortable

If your drummer has never played with a click or metronome before this can be a difficult transition. You’ll quickly discover how good or bad your time is. Some drummers have a great internal clock and are just naturally able to keep great time. Others it takes a lot of practice with a click to stay in time. So first step would be some individual work with the drummer to make sure he’s comfortable and able to play with a click.

2. Monitoring setup

Monitoring requirements will vary greatly depending on factors like if you’re going to use loops, use timed visual effects, use click cued intros, etc… Some bands use in ears for all musicians so they can hear clicks and cues, others only have some players/singers with in ears. Quite simply the goal is to send the click to isolated(in ears or headphone) monitors for whichever players/singers need it and keeping it out of the main house mix so the congregation doesn’t hear it.

At the very minimum the drummer obviously needs the click in their in ears/headphones. The rest of the band would just have to follow the drummer closely and stay on his time because he can’t come off the click. This may be a major adjustment for bands that are used to speeding up(unknowingly) and the drummer typically sped up with them, but that wouldn’t be the case anymore.

For that reason I would strongly suggest the drummer and band leader have the click in their monitor. That will really help stabilize the band time wise. Even in this case you still would have musicians and singers with no click which can get tricky if that musician or singer is performing without any drum/band leader accompaniment. They could easily get off time, so what ends up happening is your drummer has to keep time on stage with the sticks and that just stinks and could ruin the vibe.

So we’re left with the optimal solution which is everyone in the band on in ears, everyone who needs the click has the option to have it sent to their monitor mix. This is the setup my band uses and it’s fantastic. We have quite a few songs where we all come in on 1, vocals and band. We’re able to hit these intros with no problem and without stick hits or other distracting cues. All our cues are isolated from the congregation and we know just where we are in a song.

3. Phase in

Start simply and slowly. Getting comfortable playing to a click takes some time and depending on the skill level of the drummer can take a looong time. Use a click in practice for a while before you start using it live.

Later this week I’ll post on various methods for creating click tracks and playing them live.

Related posts

• How to sync two live bands (0)
• Proper perspective of creativity in worship, why worship band members are so easily offended (4)
• New music: Flagship (Brigade) – live videos (0)

How easy/difficult do you find it to break out of the song/set when using loops?

This was one of my main concerns when I started using loops. How was I going to be able to leave room for spontaneity? What if we absolutely needed to repeat the chorus again? Am I going to feel chained to some arrangement and wish I could break out of it live?

I’m going to use an oxymoron to describe what I’ve done but it’s the most descriptive phrase I have.

Planned Spontaneity

If you’re done laughing I’ll explain. There are typically two camps on the topic of spontaneity in worship.

1. Very little practice or preparation goes into the worship set and the band just follows the worship leader wherever he goes in the song.
2. Every part of the song is rehearsed and there is no room for improvisation vocally or instrumentally.

I try to find some balance between the two. I think you must have a mindset and heart that God will speak and lead you in the planning, preparation and practice just as He would during the actual worship set. When you get out of balance on this you over emphasize one place to the exclusion of the other and you act as if the Spirit leads only in preparation or only in execution. So if we believe God can and does do both how do we accommodate this musically and specifically when using loops?

I’ll play, practice and most importantly pray over songs and see where there are good spots for instrumentals, breakdowns, extended refrains, etc… If it’s a slow song that may be used in ministry time it would most likely be the end of the song that can loop over a few bars until ministry time is coming to an end. There are a few ways to so this in Ableton, I won’t get into the technical details in this post, but it can be done dynamically where a section loops until you tell it to stop.

If it’s a song being used in the middle of the set it’s more likely a breakdown in the middle of the song where there’s an opportunity to sing out what God has put on your heart, but that time is more strategically assigned. Perhaps it’s a 12 bar breakdown, so you got that amount of time to say whatever you felt led to say. Putting these kind of parameters I’ve found is very helpful for the band and congregation. I think a lot of times bands don’t realize that their extended spontaneous riff moments don’t come across nearly as good as they think. Quite often they are confusing, uninteresting, repetitive to the point of exhaustion and it can cause a disconnect between the band and congregation.

The more planning you do around these times the better. The Holy Spirit won’t leave you because you’ve tried to put some musical structure around your “spontaneous” moments. Many times my band will practice the breakdowns musically so we know exactly what’s happening, what we’re all playing and get the instrumental side real tight. But I’ll give my vocalist freedom to sing what she feels led to sing, or I’ll lead it or we’ll both kind of weave our vocals together. Many times a melody we’ve done spontaneously will get incorporated into the song as a permanent piece if it went over well.

Rarely if ever, will I give instrumental freedom to the band, that is just ripe for disaster. It’s not that I don’t trust my band’s taste or ability, I just want us to put the work in practice where we find what sounds best and we can all count on each other to play just that live, don’t surprise me. My bass player isn’t going to be happy if the drummer all of a sudden surprises him with a new groove he just fell in love with. If it’s that great of a part, then prove it in practice and let the band work off it.

Thanks for the question. I hope I answered it at a strategic level. I’m going to start a series soon on how to get started looping that takes care of the technical side. Stay tuned.

Related posts

• Loop available: “Our God Reigns – Delirious” (Updated) (6)
• Why should I consider using loops in my worship service? (6)
• What do you lose when using loops in worship? (4)

Have you found any sense in which [using loops] might add to people not engaging since they’ve “been there, done that” exactly the same way last week?

There are quite a few factors that come into play when talking about congregational boredom in worship.

1. How many worship leaders does your church have and how similar or dissimilar are they stylistically?

It would be my hope that churches would raise up leaders to lead with the musical gifting and talent they have and not try and shoe horn every musician into the same musical mold. Sadly this often isn’t the case and week after week, service after service you hear different people singing the same songs with the same inflections, same arrangements, same riffs, same fills, same same same same and that’s neither interesting or inspiring.

2. How large of a rotation does each worship leader have?

I don’t think you need a large rotation, in fact I’d advise against it. In my church I lead every week currently and I have a regular rotation of about 30 songs and we do 5 songs every service. That means we do each song about once a month and I’ve found that to be a pretty good sweet spot. There is still familiarity where people know the song but it hasn’t been beaten into them every other week where they get sick of it.

3. Level of excellence. Quite simply, great music isn’t boring.

Lazy, uninspired, copy cat arrangements with little musical creativity can get very boring very quickly. This is one thing I think loops help address. You can spend a lot of off stage time writing parts, looking for new elements, textures and sounds for a song that you couldn’t do with live instrumentation.

Just looking over my iTunes list at all the great songs I listen to, the play count reaches the hundreds for some. The congregation over the span of a year may sing the same worship song 15-20 times. That’s nothing compared to how we listen to music normally. If anything I’ve noticed the congregation wanting to sing the same songs more often than I do.

After introducing loops to the band and congregation about 10 months ago I’ve noticed an anticipatory attitude in the congregation. They are eager to hear how we’re going to play new songs and how we’re going to remix older ones. They get excited about the new things they hear and are introduced to. I know not all congregations will respond that way and I feel somewhat spoiled in that sense so it’s up to each leader to use wisdom in how they do this. But I hope to encourage you all that stretching yourself in creativity can be done in a way that stays relevant to culture but doesn’t isolate your congregation or lose them to boredom.

Related posts

• Top 5 things I miss about 90s worship (18)
• Top 5 things I dislike about being a worship leader (14)
• The benefit of not letting your band hear songs you are covering (1)

Move in Creativity

Worship leaders need to push themselves, stretch and reach creatively. You’ve been blessed with a musical gifting, you’ve been called to lead a body in that art, you serve a creative God who is deserving of all praise and you have been appointed to reach the lost. The culture around you is moving creatively, music is not stagnant, if you stand still you make yourself increasingly irrelevant to the culture around you and isolated in your church bubble. The tension between leading a congregation and staying relevant to culture musically and reaching the lost is intense and we shouldn’t ever shy away from it.

It’s a challenge and balancing act we probably won’t ever get right, but we have to seek God in it and not just rely on where we feel comfortable.

Raise the level of musical excellence

Loops help raise the level of musical excellence in at least a few ways.

1. Repetition in arrangement

Now this might be a reason many don’t consider loops due to the thought of playing a song with a set in stone arrangement. First off if you use Ableton to play your loops you aren’t set in stone on the arrangement, you are more set in moldable clay. Secondly if you come from an environment where there’s a lot of spontaneous elements like sermonettes and random prayers and such in the middle of your set then you’ll have a harder time programming loops, it’s not impossible but much more difficult.

Playing with a set arrangement makes your band much tighter and actually allows for more creativity within the parts because there’s less to worry about in the overall song arrangement. Musicians know when you’re moving from verse to chorus, what gets repeated and what doesn’t, so your band spends less time staring at the worship leader wondering where to go next. Additionally not only will your band spend less time staring at the worship leader but so will your congregation. They will know where the song is going without you singing intros to each section or waving your arms and can worship with much less band distraction.

2. Instrumental and Tonal Diversity

The church has been accused of many things, but being musically diverse is not one of them. A problem all bands will face is how do we make this song fresh, we’ve played it a lot, people are tired of hearing it played like this so how can we breath life into it. There are things you can do arrangement wise of course or changing the tempo and overall feel that may work, but that ignores the greatest tool you have. Introducing new tones, sounds and textures does a lot more for reviving songs than any arrangement change could do.

Introducing these new instruments and sounds not only helps songs individually but also prevents sets from becoming monotonous tonally which causes tired ears. Tired ears occur in the congregation and band when your set has no tonal or instrumental diversity. The same frequencies are being hit continually and eventually people’s ears stop hearing what you’re actually playing, in other words they unintentionally tune you out.

Spending time programming loops allows you so much room in experimentation and creativity. You have an avenue to add texture and layers to your songs that you’d never be able to do with your live band configuration.

3. Playability

Your loops will be mistake free, have perfect pitch and perfect time. I don’t care how much your band practices you’ll never accomplish all 3 of those. This assumes you actually take the time in your loop programming to insure they are mistake free, you’re playing the correct notes and you are quantized.

There is an added risk layer and learning curve for those who don’t regularly play to a click however. You may find a lot of your past mistakes are now being exposed with a click or that your harmony you always sing is actually flat now that you have some accompaniment in the loop. There is also risk of computer melt down, but that’s why we only recommend Macs here.

Feedback

I hope those loop skeptics out there at least consider what I have to say here. I’d love feedback from skeptics and supporters of loops on any pros of loops that I’ve either misrepresented or missed. In a follow up post I list the cons of loops and why some shouldn’t consider introducing them. Have you considered using loops? Why or why not?

Related posts

• Loop available: “Our God Reigns – Delirious” (Updated) (6)
• Do loops leave any room for spontaneity in worship? (2)
• What my late night of sequencing looks like (1)

I think this is a great idea but unfortunately it looks like a bit of a hack. First off it only works on Windows and the design, at least aesthetically, is pretty poor. It looks like a crappy modified Myspace page quite honestly. So while I think it’s a good idea and something a lot of bands would find useful, including mine, it needs a lot of work. The fact that they are charging $39.00 for this is laughable. Spend 5 minutes and you can capture an email database with someone’s desired songs in Zoho and distribute the songs yourself for free.

Anyone used this and disagree?

Related posts

• Video: “Nothing But the Blood” Live @ LCC by 9 iPhones (5)
• Life In Stereo now opening for John Mark McMillan! (0)
• Won’t using loops cause a congregation to get bored? (0)

This one question I am asking various worship leaders and pastors. The context is what’s next in corporate worship but beyond that no guidance has been given for appropriate response. Part 5 of this series is Christian City Church Worship Pastor Andy Bennett’s response.

Christian City Church in San Diego celebrated their 3yr anniversary this past Sunday night by recording a live worship album. Andy’s band House Red was on stage leading worship comprised completely of original songs. We’re blessed to have Andy take time and respond to this important question, here is his response.

1. It’s not about “The Gig”. It’s about God’s House. It’s about the fact that Jesus carried a cross for us, so we will praise Him and worship Him with everything we have. People are always surprised that none of our musicians and singers are paid. Many of our team members have been involved in large scale recording and performing projects, but Praise and Worship at church is totally different.

We are servants way before we’re musicians. Moses was faithful in ALL God’s house, not just the parts that he enjoyed. Its the same with people in praise and worship. Whatever we can do to make church the most mind-blowing place on planet earth. That’s what God’s house should be! A lot of worship teams are comprised of “hired guns” who just come in and play at church on a Sunday, whether or not they are members of that church (or any church for that matter). Jesus pointed out the difference between hirelings and sons. We are raising sons in our church, not bringing in hirelings. Its an honor to play on the platform in the house of God, not something you need to be paid to do. People will do a lot more for something they believe in than they will for a paycheck.

2. No Compromise on Excellence. How many times have I been in church and seen a dance, “drama”, mime, song, poem, “song of the Lord”, skit etc that is of such poor quality that I would not dare bring any of my friends to see for fear of them laughing and walking out?! We go to the movies and are rocked by special effects, brilliant acting and enthralling storylines. We pay to see artworks that are masterfully painted and sculpted. We go to the theatre and see extravagant singing, dancing and musicianship. Then we go to church and the shrill, off pitch wailing of the worship leader makes you cringe. You try and push through the barrage of noise to be able to worship God in the midst of the cacophony, but struggle to feel anything but frustration at the fact that the music is so off putting. But we excuse by saying, “Its for the Lord”, as if that’s an excuse for shabbiness. Or we say, “that was so anointed”, like there’s some indefinable (more like incomprehendable) reason for having someone who cannot hold a tune to save their life lead God’s people in His glorious worship.

We only allow people on stage who are able to contribute to a sound and atmosphere that is musically excellent. Just because someone is a volunteer doesn’t mean we can’t expect something big from them. After all, they’re not doing it for us, like some kind of favor. It’s our service to the One who has redeemed us by His very own blood. God only gave us his best. He didn’t look around heaven for a shabby old angel with a busted wing and send him down to do the dirty work. He showed us His extravagance by sending us His only beloved Son, perfect in every way. We can give nothing but the very best back to Him as His awesome church!

We are constantly verbalizing this culture in our church, so people end up serving where they have some kind of strength, wherever that may be.

The way the message is communicated often becomes a bigger message than the message itself. Shabby communication – unimportant message. Excellent communication – a message that’s worth hearing.

Related posts

• Proper perspective of creativity in worship, why worship band members are so easily offended (4)
• Worship leaders: Play songs your congregation doesn’t like (33)
• Won’t using loops cause a congregation to get bored? (0)

Our music is certainly not traditional, pop, contemporary worship sounding so I was very nervous how this next step was going to be received. It was a big step forward for the band and the church. My fears have been laid to rest and I got a good nights sleep last night, which often isn’t the case Sunday nights. This set list is part of Fred McKinnon’s Sunday Set List:

1. Rain Down – Delirious
2. I Am A Temple – John Mark McMillan
3. Gloria – Tim Smith (Mars Hill) arrangement
4. Our God Reigns – Delirious
5. Who You Are – Desperation Band

I Am A Temple was the only song that did not have any loop with it. I liked the raw rocky drums, electric, bass for that tune, it’s as it was meant to be.

For anyone who was at LCC this past Sunday how did you think the worship music went?

Related posts

• Sunday Set List – Sick Day (5)
• Sunday Set List – “My Soul Sings” and “Where You Go I’ll Go” (3)
• Sunday Set List: “Skeleton Bones kickoff” (8)

1. Wind instruments – There are a lot of flute and saxophone players out of work in ministry. I mean there has to be a line around the block for those guys collecting worship band unemployment checks. I really do miss those soft flute intros and funky white boy sax solos that just took the songs to a whole new power pop level. I think it was every worship pastor’s holy dream to get Kenny G saved. Can you imagine how powerfully the spirit would have moved? Unfathomable.
2. Streamers and Banners – At its peak churches were removing rows of chairs just to make room for this tornado of twirling silk. They should have been surrounded in caution tape cause they were dangerous. Those wooden dowels were like holy swords waiting to impale you or gouge your eye out in accordance with scripture. I dunno about you guys, but you give me a banner team and a hard core sax solo and that’s heaven on earth. I never could get a beat on the males who joined the banner wavers though…that always gave me cause for concern.
3. Transparencies – Who can forget the giant glowing box sometimes strategically placed smack in the middle of the stage for the backup singers to operate. I honestly miss the feel and even smell of those transparencies, shuffling through the accordion folder to find the songs and get them all lined up. Was there ever a professional way of handling these? I certainly am familiar with the bad way, the blank transparency with dry-erase handwritten words and the operator who seems to always make the slide appear upside down no matter how many times you try to explain mirrors to them.
4. Percussion – Rain sticks, triangles, cowbell, congas…what isn’t appropriate for a worship song? Even the rocks will cry out, and Lord knows we tried to see what beating a rock with different sized sticks would sound like. The big churches share in culpability for this pandemic, but the smaller churches took it to a new level. I mean really, who isn’t qualified to play percussion? As long as you have a heartbeat and 2 hands you can beat things with, you should be on stage right?
5. Constant 3 part Harmonies – Picture with me if you will, vocal arrangements as a mixing board with sliders for each singer. Usually you’d think of these sliders moving up and down as the song progresses through the arrangement, layering nicely in parts, muted in others. Well back in the day this picture was more of a giant switch. Vocals are either all on or all off. Hey those words on the transparency aren’t for looking at, if you got a mic and there are words up, sang those things sister! Oh and you know your part, it’s the same harmony you do on every song, it’s easier that way and we also took the liberty of color coding the windscreens so you know which mic is yours.

I need some help, what’s this list missing?

Related posts

• Won’t using loops cause a congregation to get bored? (0)
• Top 5 things I love about being a worship leader (3)
• Top 5 things I dislike about being a worship leader (14)

This past Sunday I had a meeting with my worship team that would have been absolutely disastrous had any of my team not been a mature Christian, being discipled and united in vision. Perhaps some other time I’ll blog about that meeting, which was one of the most amazing moments I’ve ever had in ministry. For now I’ll talk about why I think it’s important that if we are leading a congregation in worship that only mature, discipled, called and gifted Christians do that.

The criteria we use for any position of leadership uses this set of criteria in order of importance:

1. Character
2. Calling
3. Gifting

Anytime we get those 3 things out of order we put our self in a dangerous situation. I’m not even going to discuss the practical problems and dangers though they are many, instead I’ll focus again on what’s more important and that’s the spiritual problems. I’ve played in a lot of worship bands and many of the times not all were mature, discipled, called Christians. Some of those were gifted and effective musically but none of them had a chance of being effective spiritually because we were modeling that gifting was more important than character and God’s calling. If confronted with that we surely would have said, “no no we don’t believe that“, but then why are we modeling that?

Some might say, “but we’re a missional worship band so for us it makes sense.” To that I’d say then it’s even more important for you to get this and not have non-Christians on your band. Because now the lost is looking at you, and from experience, here’s the 1 question they’ll have that you’ll never be able to answer:

• How important can it be to give your life to Christ if that’s not even a requirement to lead in the worship of that same Christ?

Please re-read that question if you didn’t get it the first time. Now re-read one more time. Worship leaders, let’s model what’s right, let’s not compromise in what’s most important in the kingdom to which your worship band should be leading people to. I’m not promoting legalism, maybe there’s some confluence of circumstances that it makes sense, I’m just saying let’s examine the heart of the issue and keep an eye on what’s most important.

Thanks everyone for all your feedback, I value it greatly.

Related posts

• Poll: Is it ok for non-christians to play in worship bands? (22)
• Won’t using loops cause a congregation to get bored? (0)
• Top 5 things I miss about 90s worship (18)

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Related posts

• Poll Wrap Up: Non-Christians in worship bands? (12)
• Won’t using loops cause a congregation to get bored? (0)
• Top 5 things I miss about 90s worship (18)

Through all that junk my mind keeps returning to the more important questions, “Did God accomplish what he wanted to accomplish? Was He glorified today through it all?” I dance around those questions with all the other peripheral things that bugged me like the mix, the lighting, the missed notes, the fact that I can’t drink water fast enough between songs without creating awkward transitions etc… There is great value to organizing those thoughts and making sure we improve in those areas, but I keep returning to the most important questions today. The answer, God moved powerfully and I believe accomplished what He set out to do and God was glorified.

So for today I’m going to let that answer stand alone, I want to thank God for His faithfulness and just praise Him for it. Maybe tomorrow I’ll start organizing what all sucked and how much of a hindrance the band was. But for today, God is good and that’s all I’m focusing on.

I’m curious what the mind is going through in other worship leaders and pastors the day after. Do share.

Related posts

• Won’t using loops cause a congregation to get bored? (0)
• Top 5 things I miss about 90s worship (18)
• Proper perspective of creativity in worship, why worship band members are so easily offended (4)

They had a huge impact on me as a young Christian. The first time I heard Did You Feel the Mountains Tremble my entire view of worship music changed. It implanted a word so deep in me and set my life on a different course. I’m so grateful for their service, their hearts, their passion and desire to see God glorified above all else. I wish them well in the next chapter of their lives.

Let’s hear your Delirious stories and how they impacted your life.

Related posts

• Delirious releasing their final single ‘Love Will Find a Way’ (0)
• Won’t using loops cause a congregation to get bored? (0)
• When and where you can buy John Mark McMillan’s new cd (1)

John Davis founded the band, led on vocals and guitar. Incredible songwriter, incredible rock voice, killer guitar work, what else can you say, dude was just a flat out rock star. He also lived the life of a rock star and hit rock bottom. One night, prior to the release of their last album, while driving to his parent’s house Davis pulled over and prayed to God. John said he felt God answered him right there and it was life changing for him. John sobered up and soon left the band.

John’s latest solo album Arigato is awesome. It has a lot of the Superdrag grit but lyrically he’s all about talking about the greatness of God. It’s amazing to hear modern day Damascus road stories and to see the fruit of that experience lived out in someone’s life. Go check John out on myspace, I’ll be working on getting an interview with him. Oh and Superdrag is reuniting and releasing a new cd….yes!

On January 8th, 2008, John Davis announced on the Superdrag news section that the band is reunited indefinitely, stating that “Superdrag’s original line-up will reconvene in the recording studio in February to begin work on our first new recording project together since 1998′s Head Trip In Every Key.”

Related posts

• Worship leaders: Play songs your congregation doesn’t like (33)
• Worship Evangelism and why it isn’t working (7)
• Why should I consider using loops in my worship service? (6)