Worship Ministry: A Course In Overcomplication

Hey you, worship pastor guy! I have some questions for you. For all of us in ministry, actually. Has worship ministry gotten too complicated? Have we been working so hard to make it easier that we've inadvertently done the opposite? Do we need the BPM of every song to be robotically the same from start to finish? Those are just a few to whet your appetite. Keep reading for a thoughtful if not somewhat cynical examination of worship ministry in the modern era.

Have you ever been in the middle of a task and suddenly realized you had made it more complicated, difficult, or tedious than it had to be? I was bent over spooning wet dog food into my good boy's bowl the other day when it hit me... I can pick up the bowl and put it on the counter, putting the job at a more accessible elevation for a man, saving my back unnecessary strain in the process. See, that bowl is down there at small canine level but I'm not a small canine. I'm an average-sized man. I won't belabor the point here. You get it. We all do things in inefficient ways, and we do so for many different reasons, but the worst reason of all is to do so for the sake of efficiently.

In worship ministry, we've come a long way from the days of pipe organs. Let's look at a few ways this is true:

1. We're in a place where we can give brothers and sisters who are gifted musicians and singers a way to serve God in a manner that is extremely meaningful.
2. We have in-ear monitors to help control the sound in the room and give volunteers more control over what they're hearing, thus boosting their confidence, which helps them do their job with more excellence. 
3. We have confidence monitors that give vocalists a safety net in case a lyric slips their mind.
4. And we are closer than ever to matching the popular style of the world outside the church, which isn't a bad thing.

Looking at number 4, we've all heard the stories of how some of the old hymns were lyrics set to drinking songs. There were reasons for that decision. For one, those melodies were singable enough that a tavern full of drunk men at various stages of coherence could follow along. It eliminated the task of finding a good melody which, for some of us, has proven to be of unicorn-class elusiveness. But I think the most brilliant aspect was that you could actually get men singing! If you're a worship leader in a modern church, you know how difficult that can oftentimes be.

So, we're doing great, right? We've come so far but, with all our advancements, we may have inadvertently gone a little overboard. Not speaking at all of hearts, because I think most ministry folks are really trying to do the right thing but, as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I'm being cheeky, of course. Hell is not in the equation here, but the point stands. Having the right intentions doesn't always lead to the right outcome.

One right intention we should have in worship leadership is to accommodate our volunteers. One aspect of that is honoring the time they choose to invest. How we translate that can often be "how do I make their jobs as easy as possible?" What we're seeing here is a right intention leading to a false question which will end up with a very wrong outcome. It is not our job to make it easy. Doing anything well is hard. Even if you have a natural gift, it takes a lot of time and effort to get to the point where it has become effortless.

Now, let's get into some specific examples.

Click tracks

There was once a time when musicians were encouraged to practice at home with a metronome. Over time, the practice would result in a solid internal metronome. On stage that didn't mean a robotically static BPM, but it did mean a tighter team. Nowadays, because of the introduction of in-ear monitors (a good thing), we have the ability to cram all kinds of things into our volunteers' ears. One of those things is the click track. I'm starting here because this is the most ubiquitous item I want to talk about, and because it's the one I'm the most sympathetic to. 

Observe the shift that has happened. 

Old: Practice at home with metronome leading to strong internal sense of tempo on stage.

New: Practice at home (maybe) without a metronome but instead the metronome is always on in your ear on stage leading to a precisely correct tempo but the musician never develops an instinct for tempo. 

The overall result is a better "performance" but the volunteers don't have to work for it and never grow in that area.

Is this a good trade-off? I don't know. Again, this is an issue I have developed a slight sympathy towards. I know these days people have less and less time to practice at home so having this tool available can help alleviate some of the stress put on the team. But I also know that people having less and less time to practice is more because we have more and more distractions in the form of entertainment than it is because we truly lack the time. The time is there. We're just choosing often to use it for frivolous purposes. Myself included. This, as with all the subjects in this entry, makes me think about David when he was purchasing the property on which the temple would be built. He was given the option to take it for free but his response was that he didn't want to offer to the Lord that which cost him nothing.

Is that the position we're forcing on our volunteers when we cram click and guides in their ears? They don't even know they have an option. David was offered the land for free but he chose to pay for it because he didn't want to offer to God a thing that cost him nothing. We are telling our volunteers that not only will it cost them nothing, but they have no option to pay.

That brings us to the next item.

Guides (a.k.a., vocal cues)

If click track is akin to training wheels, then vocal cues are like your mom holding your hand and leading you around. Or maybe a leash. Both analogies hold up.

This is a tool that we never needed but have convinced ourselves we can't live without. The so-called "necessity" of guides can be eliminated with practice and communication. If your volunteers have the set early enough and know the sequences (that's on you, worship leaders) then they have the opportunity to work for the win on Sunday. When you know the songs, you don't need a voice in your ear telling you where everything is supposed to happen. 

This one, out of all the "tools" worship leaders use, boggles my mind the most. If the team practices at home and the leader communicates during rehearsal, the guides are not only rendered useless, they become a nuisance. But the main argument against guides is that, unlike click and the next item, backing tracks, I don't believe it ever crossed anyone's mind before the introduction of in-ear monitors to have someone telling you each part of the song as you played. It's just weird that people think they need this. With click, I can see someone wishing there was a way to pipe the metronome into their drummer's ear, and with tracks, well...karaoke is a thing, so... But the guides are just--stupid. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a prank that took an awful turn. But, but, but... guides become more of a necessity when you introduce...

Backing Tracks

I'm just going to say it: backing tracks were created for worship leaders who can't lead effectively because they aren't called and gifted to lead worship but they're doing it anyway. If you want any kind of proof you can go online and watch Phil Wickham lead worship for a packed room with just a guitar. And it's not just Phil. I'm not in his league vocally or instrumentally but I've led worship for several hundred people with just a guitar or a guitar and cajon many times, and not only were those services just fine, they were among the sweetest, most authentic times of worship I've ever been a part of.

Backing tracks add a layer of artificiality that is off-putting to anyone who knows they're there. When you have just a few instruments on stage but what the church is hearing is essentially the recording with worse vocals...well, they know. If we're going to have half or most of the band be pre-recorded tracks, why don't we just make a Spotify playlist every Sunday? If the end is excellence to the exclusion of authenticity, then what's wrong with that?

One "worship teacher" on YouTube insinuates that if a worship leader or a church is unwilling to assimilate to the cult of Ableton, they don't care enough about growing their church and seeing the Gospel reach more people. Who's going to be the one to tell him that Jesus, Paul, etc., didn't have Ableton? Churches grow for two reasons: 1) They're pleasing people. 2) They're pleasing God. I'm not saying we can't have excellent worship music in church AND be pleasing to God. Excellence is actually what God desires from His servants. He wants us to be excellent in our serving. That not only removes the requirement of automation in worship, it actually excludes it in most cases, because the more we automate the less we're striving for personal excellence.  

This discussion, up to this point, has been extremely one-sided. My side, to be specific. And to be even more specific, the side I was on almost three years ago. My stance has evolved ever so slightly in those intervening years since I wrote the above (and for some reason never published), but I will be writing a Part Two on this topic soon outlining my current understanding of the topic of automation in worship ministry. Stay tuned!

Until then, 

Peace, love, and a third thing