Unforgotten in the mouths of our children

The song of Moses is sandwiched in scripture with a couple statements about the impact of this worship song to the children(literal) of Israel. First as God gives his directive to Moses in the middle of Deuteronomy 31:21:

[21] And when many evils and troubles have come upon them, this song shall confront them as a witness (for it will live unforgotten in the mouths of their offspring). For I know what they are inclined to do even today, before I have brought them into the land that I swore to give.” (Deuteronomy 31:21 ESV)

Then after Moses writes and recites the song to the people he clarifies the importance of the worship song:

[45] And when Moses had finished speaking all these words to all Israel, [46] he said to them, “Take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today, that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of this law. (Deuteronomy 32:45-46 ESV)

So we see clearly that a very important purpose of this song is to deliver lasting theological clarity and purpose upon the children of Israel. This worship song was meant to confront Israel, turn their hearts back to God, and for this song of repentance and redeemed worship to be instructed to the kids to the point where they’d never forget it.

I love that the point of instruction for the father’s from God isn’t to have the kids watch them live in response to truth. No God has already bluntly revealed their own wicked hearts and inclination to false worship, instead God has them teach God’s truth to their kids. So both father’s and children are aligning themselves to God’s truth, the only true barometer of righteousness. With that in mind there’s 2 points I’d like to focus on:

1. The value of song in teaching our kids theology

It’s been said many times in many different ways that song has a tremendous impact on teaching and framing our theology. I don’t think there’s any denying that and depending on your background it may be that the only thing you know about God is what you remember singing. Whether or not that’s a good thing is another discussion, but the truth is that’s reality and we can’t ignore it. My Dad was a pastor for many years, all through my youth. I can’t remember many of his sermons but I remember almost every song we sung. What I knew of the gospel as a boy predominantly came from what we were singing, song is and was instrumental in my growth in the gospel.

The Song of Moses shows us that song is a gift from God, intended to glorify Him and teach us about Him. Thank the Lord for song but what an incredibly heavy responsibility it is and the church needs worship leaders that aren’t afraid of carrying it. Too often I hear worship leaders shirking that responsibility and excusing bad teaching in song through some belief that it’s just some kind of “musical venting”. Just something they “felt” a responsibility to release but somehow “felt” no responsibility to consider what it communicates about God. I love creative worship songs sung from different perspectives in different contexts, that’s awesome. But know that ultimately you are teaching something about God and it’s either truth and God glorifying, or a lie and destructive. We’re accountable for that worship leaders.

2. Look at me vs. look at Him

The way we live as parents is a huge influence on our children, but the way we use that influence is what needs to be considered. I’d much rather use my influence as a father to continually point my kids to Christ, his accomplishment and the work of the Holy Spirit instead of hoping my influence and works somehow regenerate their hearts. Now I’m not trying to shirk my responsibility as a father to mirror Christ to my kids. It’s absolutely vital we mirror Christ to our children, but we also must teach them about Jesus, pray for them to know Him, sing songs with our kids that teach them the truth about Jesus and make sure we are mirroring our own need of Jesus to our kids.

We can’t just drag our kids to church and hope that through some form of osmosis they are made into the likeness of Christ. A godly environment is important but it’s not enough, godly influences are important but they aren’t enough, Jesus is enough, Jesus is what needs to be taught and aligned to. And if we as parents mirror that truth to our kids, then we’re doing as God commanded Moses, for parent and child to look to God, worship Him and be changed by Him.

Related posts

• Lessons from the Song of Moses (Part 3): “Inclination to idolatry” (2)
• Lessons from the Song of Moses (Part 2): “Confrontative Worship” (1)
• Lessons from the Song of Moses (Part 1): “Revelation & Response” (3)

Know your church, know their inclination

In Deuteronomy 31:21 the Father reveals something incredible not just about his own nature(patience, mercy, love) but of ours as well.

“And when many evils and troubles have come upon them, this song shall confront them as a witness (for it will live unforgotten in the mouths of their offspring). For I know what they are inclined to do even today, before I have brought them into the land that I swore to give.” -Deuteronomy 31:21

Ouch! God is commanding Moses to write this song of intervention and confrontation because he knows their hearts, that not only do they worship other gods now, but their hearts are inclined to continue in idolatry. The Father’s heart for his people is laid bare. Despite his abundant mercy and goodness shown to the people of Israel, they’ll continue to give praise and thanks to other gods. God knows this about his people and out of a heart of mercy and love, he has Moses write a song that will identify and confront the inclination of His people and remind them of the truth of the only true God.

Moses as a worship leader has communed with God, received revelation and contextualized this song for this people. Moses appeals to their specific history(32:7-14), calls out their sin (32:15-18) and sings painful truth of God’s righteous anger (32:19-43). What makes that song so powerful is that it’s specifically convicting to that people because the language is directed right at them. Not a generalized people, with a generalized sinful attitude pointing to a generalized god in the sky. No it’s you people of Israel, committing idolatry and being called back to worship Yahweh. I think the global church suffers greatly from over-generalized, hyper-sanitized worship and this happens because of a few reasons in my view.

First, the momentum(NOT consensus) in modern worship and really with all gifts, is to emphasize its place and value in the global church at the expense of the local church. You get a lot of talented guys that hop from church to church and instead of submitting their gifting to the local church, they’d rather contribute their gifting to the global church. And now the gifting is pre-eminent and hell hath no fury like a worship leader scorn when his pastor/leader comes between him and his dreams of global reach and influence with his tunes. No I’m not blasting famous worship leaders, this isn’t a rant against CCM and no I don’t have any particular person(s) in mind. If you feel convicted great, if not, great. I have plenty of friends whom I love and support doing God’s work in the global church worship scene(not sure what to call it).

Second, we fear man tremendously and want as many people to like our songs as possible. We write for the masses and in doing so accomplish the seemingly impossible of writing for everyone but speaking to no one.

Third, worship leaders don’t commune with Jesus, minister to/pray with/serve along side their people as much as they think and their songwriting shows. Be part of your church body worship leaders, pray for them and with them. Be in community, love and serve your people. Only then can you see the idols, the struggles and the places where Jesus needs to be elevated where he’s been lowered.

Was that as tough to read as it was to write? Aye…

Next in series…Part 4: Generational worship

Related posts

• Lessons from the Song of Moses (Part 4): “Unforgotten in our children” (0)
• Lessons from the Song of Moses (Part 2): “Confrontative Worship” (1)
• Lessons from the Song of Moses (Part 1): “Revelation & Response” (3)

Worship songs should be confrontative

In Deuteronomy 31:19-21 we read God’s directive to Moses and God’s intended nature of this song and how it should be received by His people.

“Now therefore write this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the people of Israel. For when I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, which I swore to give to their fathers, and they have eaten and are full and grown fat, they will turn to other gods and serve them, and despise me and break my covenant. And when many evils and troubles have come upon them, this song shall confront them as a witness…” -Deuteronomy 31:19-21

God has seen Israel continually abuse his grace, worship other God’s, complain, be disobedient and unthankful, yet God is about to lead them into the promise land. God tells Moses, using very forceful language, to put a song in their mouths that will confront their wickedness, that will serve as a witness of himself when they undoubtedly turn away again. We must recognize that we are Israel, our church is Israel, we behave the exact same way.

What we need as a church body are worship leaders that respond like Moses. We must hear the calling of God, respond to the revelation in creative song and have the guts to sing against the sin we are engaged in corporately. We must put songs on the mouths of our people that confront our idolatry, that serve as a witness of Christ against our people because we love them. I don’t want to  repeat myself on this point so you can read an earlier post I wrote directed at worship leaders called “Play Songs Your Congregation Doesn’t Like“. As worship leaders we can’t pacify our body’s idols with safe songs that don’t challenge anything in our spirits, if we do that we are petty entertainers, not leading worship of the one true God that won’t co-exist with our idols.

Foundational to that point is worship leaders must know Christ and must know the gospel. Sadly all too often passion and zeal are celebrated to the exclusion of wisdom and maturity. Paul describes us accurately at that point in Romans 10:2 “they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.” We can’t confront idolatry if we can’t recognize it and we can’t recognize it if we don’t know the gospel. Where traditionally the reformed side has lacked passion and a sense of mission, the charismatic side has lacked maturity and a deep understanding of the gospel. Both are crucial to being an effective worship leader.

Worship leaders, I implore you as God implored Moses, put these confrontative songs on the mouths of your people. Interrupt their hearts and spirits and let your songs act as a witness for Christ. Know the gospel, know your people, know their idols, write about it, teach it to your people and sing!

Next in the series…Part 3: Writing in a local church context vs. Global church context

Related posts

• Lessons from the Song of Moses (Part 4): “Unforgotten in our children” (0)
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Worship songs are a response to revelation from God

As the story begins we see how Moses was commissioned to write a worship song to God for the people of Israel. There are 2 key phrases in Deuteronomy 31:16-19 starting at v.16 and ending with v.19 that describe how this song came to be.

16 And the Lord said to Moses, Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers. Then this people will rise and whore after the foreign gods among them in the land that they are entering, and they will forsake me and break my covenant that I have made with them.17 Then my anger will be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them and hide my face from them, and they will be devoured. And many evils and troubles will come upon them, so that they will say in that day, Have not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?18 And I will surely hide my face in that day because of all the evil that they have done, because they have turned to other gods.19 Now therefore write this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the people of Israel.

We see that it all begins with God speaking to Moses, revealing something of his nature, heart, will and plan for His people as well as Moses himself. Then in verse 19 scripture says “Now therefore…”, highlighting the previous 3 verses importance as the basis for his commission to write this song. The song is born out of a response to God’s revelation to Moses.

When our songs don’t begin with revelation, with truth, we’ve set a trajectory for the song that is at the least misguided and possibly much worse. We can’t just know ourselves, our culture and the church, though all of those are important, we must know God. We must love God. We must talk with God.

As I read this story I’m struck that God has just told Moses that he is going to go die (31:14,16) and Moses doesn’t even respond to it. He only responds to the missional call, to God’s directive to “write this song”.  I can’t imagine at that point writing a song that wasn’t all mixed up with myself. That I wouldn’t just emote on paper and have a convoluted mishmash of my life’s greatest hits, regrets, worries alongside a few lines of God’s prevailing goodness. The writing session for this song was ripe for emotionalism, but Moses stayed in the story. He didn’t waste this opportunity and talk about himself, but he humbled himself and talked about the eternal God, who saved these terrible group of people who have constantly betrayed Him and will continue to do so. He laid down a lesser truth(his story) for the greater truth(God’s story).

Songwriters, we need to begin with truth, with knowing God and His story and following His missional call to write. It takes a humble songwriter, a songwriter obsessed with God’s glory and filled with his grace, to be able to lay down a lesser truth for the greater truth. God’s gifted and sent many in the body on this mission to write from several perspectives and that collage can be a beautiful reflection of Christ or a distorted refraction if we and our songs aren’t rooted in truth and true to the missional directive of Jesus.

Next in the series…Part 2: Songs as a Witness Against Our Flock

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• Lessons from the Song of Moses (Part 3): “Inclination to idolatry” (2)
• Lessons from the Song of Moses (Part 2): “Confrontative Worship” (1)

My first experience in this was when I was leading worship at a Vineyard my dad pastored. I was probably only 15 at the time and I wore a hat backwards on this particular day(lame I know). The couple approached my father and relayed how offended they were that I’d were a hat in service and vowed never to return. 15 years later and hearing people leave because of me, my music, or my expression still hurts. I hate hearing it.

Now I’m an elder and worship pastor at a Reformed Charismatic church in the A29 network and I get to hear this from both sides. We are probably the most expressive in our worship of the A29 churches in Phoenix. Lots of hands lifted, tears, clapping, shouting, people on their knees, that kind of thing. We play long and loud worship sets with the lights down. So you’d think this would be fine for Charismatic types right? Well we sing about the cross a lot, we re-arrange hymns, we try and make sure everything is Christ centered and doctrinally sound. We don’t play Jesus is my boyfriend songs and we don’t let people run around crazy with banners and shouting in tongues. So for a lot of Charismatic types, they think we don’t “operate in our gifting” or that we stifle the gifts somehow.

Then the reformed guys that look us up on the A29 site come and see our club looking building, hear the really loud music, see the emotional expressiveness and they get uncomfortable really fast. We haven’t really had one of those A29 families stick in our church and it’s primarily due to me and the music. They love the preaching and teaching, they hear the gospel, but the music just pushes them to a level of uncomfortableness that they just can’t get past.

The temptation for me here is to grow callous and have a “this is the way it is, take it or leave it” attitude. And while I believe that is true to an extent(I’ll explain that below), I want my heart to be soft and my tactics malleable. In practice that means I am constantly evaluating why we do music the way we do, listening to the critique and searching scripture and praying for direction in how we worship musically. There is however some truth to this “being the way it is” and all I mean by that is, God has gifted me and our band in certain ways, gave us a conviction and sent us on mission. We didn’t arrive at that by taking a community poll, but rather by praying to Jesus and having him reveal it. So at some level, yes, this is who we are and I know it won’t appeal to everyone, maybe not even most. But I also know I and the church are still growing in many areas and we have a lot to learn. So when people leave and point to me, I want that to sting, I want to take it to Jesus and see if there’s anything I could have done differently or better.

Recently though a family visited who had found us through A29 and after meeting with the family the father said this to me(paraphrasing), “I loved that the gospel was preached and we felt at home right when we walked in, everyone was so kind. But honestly the worship made me very uncomfortable.” At this point I’m thinking, oh no, I know how this is going to end. But then he surprised me and said, “But I felt comfortable in my uncomfortableness, because it was all Christ centered. I want to thank you for pushing me out of my comfort zone.” To be honest I’ve never heard that kind of encouragement from traditional reformed that visit our church. I was so blessed and humbled by this family’s example of love for Jesus and the gospel that all they needed was for it to be Christ centered and they were comfortable amidst a musical style and degree of expressiveness that made them uncomfortable.

I pray that God would keep me humble and sensitive to His direction in how we worship musically. And that God would protect my heart from bitterness and pride when I hear critique or people leave the church because of me. Not easy or fun stuff, by I’m thankful for it.

Worship leaders, how are you effected and how do you process someone walking out the door with their finger pointed at you?

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1. God had nothing to do with this, this was Satan. or…
2. This is direct punishment for Haitians sin.

It was frustrating and painful to hear people either run away from God’s sovereignty and appoint the power to call creation into action to Satan, or to run from grace and appoint judgment onto Haiti that all nations deserve and are under. It pains me to hear Christians disavowing the sovereign rule and reign of God over all creation, but it also pains me to hear Christians claiming they know why this happened. What a disgusting measure of pride in both circumstances. If you haven’t read Albert Mohler’s post on “Does God Hate Haiti?” I implore you to go read it.

So all of this is happening in my mind as I pray about what my responsibility is as a worship leader in light of what’s happening. It was a very similar feeling I felt after 9/11 and I remember the feeling that the church had no songs to sing after 9/11 because we tend to overlook worshipping in lament. Though the Psalms are full of worship in lament, our churches are usually void of them.

I felt it important for our church to not run from the gospel and hide in either of the extremes I mentioned above. That in light of what’s happening in Haiti we should respond corporately in a few ways:

1. We should grieve and mourn with those in Haiti

Romans 12:15 spells it out clearly, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” Starting out the service with big smiles and happy clappy, dance in the aisles music seemed ill-fitting at best when viewed in the shadow of 50,000 dead with another 100,000 yet to be found. Paul says we should rejoice in our suffering, but doesn’t say we should rejoice in other’s suffering. In fact he says quite the opposite in 1 Corinthians 12:26 when discussing church unity:

“If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.” (ESV)

Before and during our worship set we had a lot of prayer, acknowledging the heartache and suffering. And we mourned with those in Haiti dealing with this devastation first hand.

2. Worship the all sovereign God

The church has to recognize God’s sovereignty in all things. That God’s ways are not our ways, his thoughts are not our thoughts and he has plans and purposes that we don’t see. I don’t see the number of earthquakes God has held back, the hurricanes he’s calmed or the tsunamis he’s diverted. Matt Chandler said,

“The entire universe is built around communicating to you that you’re tiny and you’re fragile and you control nothing.”

We are tiny and God is great, all powerful, all sovereign and all good. This earthquake as well as all creation should point us to God and illuminate his divine attributes (sovereignty being one of them). Romans 1:20:

“For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”

Our worship set was filled with these songs, every song had this at its core. Our God Reigns, The Solid Rock, Whole World In His Hands.

3. Worship the merciful, loving, good God

God loves Haiti, he loves the people of Haiti and his heart is grieved. At the cross we see God’s perfect justice meet his perfect mercy, grace and love. We live in the aftermath of that collision on the cross and our hearts should be eternally grateful. Ephesians 2:4-7

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved– and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

We opened with God of This City, a song I think does an amazing job of communicating God’s sovereign rule, but that things aren’t yet as they should be. That God is still at work.

4. Serve the broken and minister to the lost

If all you have is great context and point of view without your heart being impacted and propelled towards acts of kindness and mercy, then there’s a disconnect with the gospel. My heart is warmed by the tremendous outpouring from the Christian community towards Haiti. There are so many different avenues of service and help happening right now and they all are orchestrated under the mercy, grace and sovereignty of God.

I think it it incredibly important for our worship to not hide from any of these things in this time. Our view of the gospel in our worship needs to be enriched not diluted. We can’t hide from this and we shouldn’t try and cloak God or any of his divine attributes to make it more palatable to the world. I beg my fellow worship leaders to point their churches, their community to the gospel in this season. In devastation and loss their is great opportunity for God to be magnified, for the lost to be pointed to Christ and for the church to be mobilized to show Christ’s love.

One of the songs we did which I really felt God appointed for us in this time is a song by Tim Hughes called “Whole World In His Hands.” I’ll finish with the lyrics to that song.

Verse 1
When all around is fading
And nothing seems to last
When each day is filled with sorrow
Still I know with all my heart

Chorus
He’s got the whole world in His hands
He’s got the whole world in His hands
I fear no evil for You are with me
Strong to deliver, mighty to save
He’s got the whole world in His hands

Verse 2
When I walk through fire
I will not be burned
When the waves come crashing round me
Still I know with all my heart

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4. Unoriginality

This is a delicate topic because in some ways our worship is intentionally unoriginal. We are singing the praises of an unchanging, everlasting God, who gave us the greatest revelation man will ever know 2000 years ago in the cross and chose to make his word known through scripture that should never be added to or subtracted from. So at some level we certainly shouldn’t be looking for anything new there, that content remains the same. But the methods of delivery continue to change and that must be purposefully and missionally original.

Let me define the phrase “purposefully and missionally original” as it relates to worship.

Someone who’s inspired and informed by the gospel through the Holy Spirit to reach a specific people with the message of Jesus in an effective way through music and the arts.

The art in my hotel room was copied all over the country or all over the world, no thought was given to the different contexts it might be displayed in and if there might be a more effective art piece in different areas. The thought being if it worked in Beverly Hills it must work in Omaha, or Denver, or Miami, or Puerto Rico. Seems silly right? The culture, the idols worshipped, language used in those areas is so different.

But how silly are we in the church when we say the same thing? If it works in Australia at Hillsong, it must work in Phoenix, or in Santa Barbara. We attempt to carbon copy the missional expression without doing any of the evaluation or prayer to see if that expression would be effective in our mission field.

Being purposefully and missionally original requires worship leaders to find how best to use music and the arts for the people in their mission field through prayer, study and practice, for the glory of Jesus Christ. All being attractionally unoriginal requires is a CCLI license and a few hours of band practice to cover the latest CCM hit.

I’m not saying that Hillsong or Tomlin won’t work in multiple churches, locations and cultures, I’m just saying don’t blindly assume they will. And then perhaps you can find an arrangement that better suits your church rather than just ripping the cd.

Let’s be purposefully and missionally original.

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The value in bold is how many I have in my rotation. I understand that 78 worship leaders is not a huge sample so there’s probably a large margin of error here. But just play along and lets assume this is an accurate representation.

When I saw over 60 in rotation I was blown away, if that’s the case that means you’re only playing certain songs once or twice a year. At that point I’m not sure why you’d even have those songs in “rotation”. Sure maybe you bring them out for a specific purpose, but rotation? Maybe others are just way more talented than I, and that’s not hard to believe. But here are the problems I see with rotations that large:

1. The congregation spends more time reading words and remembering the melody than worshipping.
2. The arrangement isn’t all that tight and tends to be simplistic because it would be extremely difficult to have over 60 songs arranged in creative ways and not struggle to pull it off.
3. You end up keeping old (possible stale) songs in rotation longer because you play them so infrequently they seem fresh, though years have passed.

Some benefits I see:

1. Lots of material to be able to build more content focused sets that support message series and such.
2. Keeps the band on their toes.

What benefits and drawbacks do you see from having such large worship song rotations?

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As leaders we can’t be paralyzed by a fear to critique. The root of this fear is really idolatry in that our gifting is our value in the kingdom and when someone critiques it we feel devalued in the kingdom. I’m not trying to go Dr. Phil on you, but seriously why can’t I love my Christian brother and critique what he’s trying to sell me? How far does this go, am I offending someone because I didn’t buy their album?

On a twitter conversation I was having Fred McKinnon mentioned that many people’s policy is:

“If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”

I agree with his assessment and know that to be the case, but it’s way off in my estimation. What a bunch of babied, insecure in the gospel, little musicians we are if we have a policy of, “hey if you don’t like every single aspect of my music and aren’t prepared to just rave over it all, then don’t say anything“.

I’d like to point out an example of a honest review I did of a Sovereign Grace Christmas cd. I was worried how it would be received, but I thought it would be a disservice to Bob Kauflin if I didn’t review it honestly. I tried to give encouragement on what I thought was done well and honest, specific critique where I thought it was not done well. I was probably insensitive on some points and could have phrased things better. But even with that, Bob responded incredibly well, responded with grace. I don’t think Bob started questioning his value to the kingdom or thought I should live in eternal damnation. Bob correct me if I’m wrong

Do you feel like you’re sinning against God or injuring your brother if you critique their music/gifting? Are you afraid to do so? Do you think that’s healthy? Am I an insensitive jerk?

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I created an evaluation form that all band members and people behind the booth fill out. Here are the questions that I ask.

1. Are you doing what you feel called to?
2. Describe your current role in view of God’s calling on your life?
3. Are you able to recommit to the worship team? Why or why not?
4. What area(s) do you need to improve in musically?
5. What’s your practical plan to improve in your area(s) of need?
6. How can your band leader assist in this process?
7. How would you rate the musical quality of your current band? (Poor, Average, Good, Excellent)
8. What can you do to help the band improve?
9. What can your band leader do to improve the band’s overall quality?
10. How would you rate your band’s interpersonal relationships overall? (Poor, Average, Good, Excellent)
11. Do you have any relational issues with anyone in the band?
12. What has God shown you about worship or anything else through your service on the band?

After receiving everyone’s input I’ll follow up with each person personally and discuss their input, where they are at musically, relationally and spiritually. This is a great opportunity to catch issues before they are issues.

Do you have an evaluation process? If so what does it look like?

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Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds

That being said I don’t pretend that there aren’t trials and that there aren’t difficult moments. Here are what I see as the top 5 negatives about being a worship leader:

1. You become #1 or #2 reason why people leave the church

You and the preaching pastor will be the alpha dogs as far as reasons people leave the church, in most cases. As much as I joke about this, it does bother me. I understand that there are plenty of churches, better churches than ours for some and that I have to be true to what God’s called and gifted me to do. But when I hear of people leaving because they can’t stand the music, as much as I try to roll with it, it does sting. Not from an artistic standpoint, that rolls of me quite easily. I know lots of people will dislike my music, that’s not what’s important. But I do have to pray a lot about have I failed as a leader to reach out, teach, relate with, minister to these people that are leaving.

On another level I’m glad I’m not immune to some disappointment and hurt when I hear of people leaving because of me. I don’t want to be some ministry zombie. It doesn’t change the truth, vision and mission I’m charged with, but I don’t want to ignore or neglect what I can do to become a better minister and worship leader.

2. Managing creative types can really stink

Artists, and I use that in the broad sense, are the most sensitive, emotional basket cases on the planet. Heaven forbid you tell them they need to practice more, or that they aren’t in tune, or their song isn’t very good. Who am I to judge them and their God given talent? How dare I quench the spirit! *sigh* I am sooooo blessed to have a team of mature Christian men and women who are all leaders in our church in many more ways than music. For me those days are behind me, although once we start building some more teams, there may be more of those days ahead. I’ve been in some pretty awful situations and lemme tell you, they are all too often the norm in the modern church.

There’s a lot to be said about how you organize and run a worship team and develop artistic talent and spiritual maturity. We’ve done polls on this blog about letting non-christians in on worship bands and such and I’ve learned a lot from my past failures on this topic. I could write a valuable e-book on all the ways not to put together a worship team.

3. As you excel in music, you get accused more of not “getting” the heart of worship

If I were to go up on stage with a junky acoustic, with an average band in support, sing in and out of key but do it with passion, nobody is going to accuse me of focusing on music and idolizing it. But if I practice, prepare, write and do all the things necessary to have a tight great band, get up on stage, sound great and do it with passion. There will be a lot of people that say I don’t really understand the heart of worship and that I emphasize musical excellence to a point of idolatry.

I just find it so ill-conceived that the measuring stick for some looks like, poor music quality = band has a heart after God, great music quality = worship leader wants to be Christian celebrity and doesn’t truly get worship. Let me be clear that I just want to be a good stuard and faithful to what God has placed in my hands. The conviction I feel from God on being lazy, inattentive and wreckless with the gifting and gift of this church body placed in my hands far outweighs your weak accusation, so you’ll have to excuse me while I ignore it.

4. Inability to have a single focus in worship

As a worship leader there’s a lot of responsibilities and trains of thought you have to manage in your head while you are leading a song. From song arrangements, to time management, to engagement of congregation, following where the Spirit is leading, taking cues from the sound booth, signaling your band, the list goes on. When you are the primary worship leader for a congregation and leading 99% of the time you can quickly miss being able to be in the congregation worshiping instead of in front leading worship.

Taking breaks is important and we’re working towards multiple bands at LCC.

5. Walking away feeling completely satisfied

This has less to do with being a worship leader and more about my personality. But I wish I could go through a Sunday, drive home and just feel like,

“Man what a great worship time, sounded great, God moved, the body was united and everything went well.”

Instead, no matter how good it goes I go home feeling like,

“I can’t believe how bad I butchered that one song. The mix sounded like crap today I know it. Lots of strange stares on that new song.”

I wrote a post about the mind of a worship leader the day after that explains a lot of my thought process.

It’s something I’m trying to get balance in, but I am super critical of myself and it’s not often I leave with a satisfied feeling and I’m never completely satisfied. But I do rest in that God will accomplish what he wants to accomplish through these weak hands, I have confidence that His faithfulness, not my talent, is my shield.

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Personally I don’t like to talk a lot when I lead worship. I open in prayer and that’s usually the only speaking I do in a set. I may sing some prayerful phrases in a ministry time song or such, but rarely if ever do I do a full talking breakdown. I leave that to my pastor to come up at the end, who’s much better at leading a time like that.

As with everything there is some balance required here. There’s a time to pray, talk, be silent, sing, play…but I agree with the results here that excessive talking is really distracting and annoying.

Feel free to browse our poll archive and vote in any you’ve missed.

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Is there anything that you feel you lose when using loops?

There are certainly some things that have been lost since I started using loops. Though not all of what I’ve lost is negative, some are quite positive changes. Here are some of the things that come to mind when I think of things lost when making the change to using loops.

1. Time

Programming loops takes time…a lot of time. I was naively optimistic about how much time it would take me to get from 0 loops to a full set of loops. If I’m composing a loop fresh, a totally new arrangement, one song can take me a good 10 hours of work. Depending on how quickly an idea forms and I’m able to create the sounds that are in my head it could take a lot more. For a song that I’m simply recreating something I like or a mix of new ideas on top of recreating something, it may take me 4-5 hours. Even now there are a lot of loops I have posted that I have new ideas for and that I plan to rework and re-release.

I try to work on a new song every week. This is in addition to any practice time with the band, songwriting, arranging sets, etc… It’s a huge time commitment and I’d caution everyone to weigh the commitment appropriately.

2. Comfort

There’s a certain comfort level when playing only live instruments. Everyone is just following the worship leader and there’s really not too much room for error, just watch the signals and it’s easy right? When playing with loops there is a big increase in room for error and not just in frequency of error but in magnitude. With loops, you can have absolute train wrecks if you get off time, forget the arrangement, not to mention software failures.

Even when we’re playing songs correctly, inside I sometimes panic and have inner monologues while singing that go something like, “wait is this the second or third repeat? Oh no I’m I totally lost right now? this is going to be a nightmare!” It was a lot worse when we first started, I was so nervous. Now the band is much more comfortable, we have all the arrangements well memorized and haven’t had many train wrecks(I can only think of 1), but the risk is just a lot higher when using loops.

3. Flexibility

There’s no question about it, you will lose flexibility. Everything takes planning, everything requires thought and work. I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing and in almost every way this has raised the level of excellence in my music and in the worship in general at my church. But there are the times where you’re playing a new song and something is hitting in the congregation you didn’t foresee and you wish you would have done another repeat in your arrangement. Now you can adjust the next time, but had you not been on a loop you probably would have signaled the band for another go around the block.

I don’t pretend there’s no cost to using loops, but for me and my band, the benefits have far outweighed the cost. As you get more comfortable programming and using loops the cost lessens and the benefits grow. Projects that used to take you 10 hours start to take 5 hours, you get more comfortable on stage and stop panicking internally and as you plan more you see the structure raises the level in the band.

Soon I’ll be starting a more technical series on how to get started with loops and how to use some of these techniques. Thanks so much for your questions and feedback.

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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.

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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.

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