I had the great pleasure recently of interviewing Ryan Delmore of Vineyard Music and 5 Cities Vineyard. Ryan has a new cd coming out in October entitled The Spirit, the Water and the Blood.

In Part 2 Ryan and I discuss more on his band experience in the church and outside the church, we riff a bit on worship band improvisation and how the Vineyard has cultivated that atmosphere in its worship bands. I also asked Ryan about his songwriting technique and if he has 2 creative avenues, one for the church and another less creatively binding avenue for songs that might not be intended for corporate worship. His answer was humble and profound and I think is something a lot of new young worship leaders should pray on.

“If I get a good melody, or some good chords, I don’t wanna waste them on something that doesn’t point people to God.” -Ryan Delmore

If you’re a worship leader that plays outside the church in other bands I think this statement is a challenging one. There’s much more to that answer in the interview so listen up!

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• Vineyard recording artist Ryan Delmore Interview - Part 1 (5)
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• Ryan Delmore Interview - Part 3 (0)

What’s Next?

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.

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• Proper perspective of creativity in worship, why worship band members are so easily offended (4)
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I grew up on late 80s and 90s worship music. My father was a worship leader and later pastor at a Vineyard which was cutting edge worship music in those decades. I remember those years fondly and here’s what I miss:

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?

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• Proper perspective of creativity in worship, why worship band members are so easily offended (4)
• Poll: Is it ok for non-christians to play in worship bands? (21)
• Poll Wrap Up: Non-Christians in worship bands? (7)

Last week we kicked off a poll asking “Is it ok for non-Christians to play in worship bands?” So far the results are very interesting, 50% say no it’s not ok, and the other 50% either say yes it’s ok, or in some cases it is ok. You know you have a good poll question when you split 50/50 in the results

This past Sunday I had a meeting with my worship team that w