Profile of a worship leader II

Heart & Skill - striking the balance

by Wale Adenuga

A worship leader is skillful but is wise enough to apply his skill in such a way that he will not intimidate or oppress or even seek to impress the people God has given him the opportunity to lead.

Skill is good

Worship leading does require skills. Like my pastor would say, it’s not just about opening your mouth and singing. At least for starters, the person leading worship must be able to carry a tune. Be able to pitch the songs rightly. Understand the groove of the music.  Know what songs to sing as well as knowing when to. Keeping to time and rhythm and so on. But the extremes that are present in some settings is that you have people who lack these fundamental skills. And that’s because in some instances, they are the only ones available and this usually happens in young or small churches. In fact, the situation you have in most young churches is that some pastors make a call from the pulpit for anyone who wants to join the choir. What happens is that the choir becomes open to the good, bad and the ugly. That approach may be excusable when the church is less than 70 people but it should be discontinued once the church has more than that number of persons in the congregation.

Because change is the name of the game, this type of worship leader must seek to improve himself, otherwise he won’t be relevant in the future. He or she should not just rely on the anointing. The anointing actually finds better expression through one who is skillful.

Everyone will agree that good and quality music has the ability of attracting people to church. When I was in the university of Ife in Nigeria, I got born again in my third year and I used to attend a fellowship that met in the main bowl of the sports centre. After a while, it was only my body that was present at those meetings. My soul and spirit was connecting to another fellowship meeting that held behind us. And that’s simply because of one thing: the groove that emanated from there. I won’t tell you that God led me away from my former fellowship to Christ Love fellowship (CLF). I walked by sight and also by sound. But I tell you, that decision enabled me even to walk by faith more, because my time in CLF ended up being life changing. Always keep this in mind: people walk into your church by sight not by faith. They come back most times when they like what they see and hear.

There’s nothing as amusing as singers who cover up for their poverty of skill by saying, “please don’t listen to our voices or the melody, just listen to the words as we minister.” Never say that again! If you don’t want us to listen to the melody, then just read out the words!

Too much skill alone is not good enough

The other extreme can be found in those people who are extremely skillful. They can read music, they know about vibrato, legato and all the other tos! Some even adlib every line and phrase. I get mails from different people who want me to teach them how they can be a better adlibber during the time of worship leading. Adlibbing is only good as long as it is introduced at the right moment. For me food with no salt at all is better than one that is over-salted.

Too much skill without a heart of worship is like over-salted food. It’s of no use at the end of the day. It makes the whole worship experience unfulfilling and sometimes anti-climatic for those in the congregation. Also keep in mind as Chris Bowater said, “skill does not break the yoke.”

Striking the balance

For worship leaders, they must be able to strike a balance between being skillful and having a heart to worship. When that balance is struck, then you won’t lead worship to impress or oppress people. An apparent lack of skill and over expression of same can both become a hindrance during a time of corporate worship. Living on this earth has made me to appreciate the futility in making some kind of impressions. For instance, I may buy a gold silk tie for $100 and really desire that I come away with an impression on a Sunday morning. But do you know at least 95% of the people in church won’t remember what color of tie I wore one week down the line.

Balance is found in expressing your gifting to the extent that it does not become a distraction to the people you are leading. Most times when you lead worship, you are unable to put everything you have on display, simply because it’s not necessary that you do so. One of the greatest attributes every worship leader must possess is self control. Incidentally, that’s a fruit of the Spirit. (Galatians 5:22-23) A number of worship leaders are silently unhappy with their church leadership’s stance on the time allocated to the time of corporate worship, especially when the “spirit is moving”. It’s important to know the following:

-         The spirit stops moving when authority is breached

-         The Holy Spirit does not need a long time to move. After all, it’s not as if He is       just dragging Himself out of bed to come for your church service!

-         You are only uncontrollable if and when you decide to be. The spirit of prophets are subject to the control of prophets (1 Corinthians 14:32). Before you get too spiritual, a prophet is simply someone who’s got a message.

Pursue simplicity

Be simple. Sometimes as human beings, we need to move from being complex to being simple. It’s pretty much like people who frown a lot. We have been told it requires less effort and energy to smile than to frown. Likewise it requires less effort to be simple. Simplicity may mean doing songs on affordable keys for all and sundry to sing on since it’s not everyone in the crowd that is a Stevie Wonder. Sometimes, the vocals and instruments mix are sometimes just too loud. The congregation can’t even hear themselves worshipping. We aways need to hear ourselves on stage – that’s why we have monitors. The congregation also need to hear themselves sing. Here’s one thing for every worship team to remember: we are there for them (the congregation), they are not there for us. Sometimes we need times of silence when just the voices sing. This of course must be timed appropriately. But I have had the privilege of ministering in a number of churches with their musicians. And it’s amazing how many musicians find it difficult to stop playing for a few moments even when I say let’s just have only the voices sing.

Tim Hughes in his book Passion for Your name writes “The sign of a truly great musician is not what they play, but what they don’t play. An essential component of music is space. … When musicians overplay you are left with a messy wall of sound. By the end of the second song, people start reaching for ear plugs.”

Simplicity could also be evidenced in the kind of songs we sing and how we sing those songs. In my church for instance, we try to be all inclusive. A number of songs we do are written by us. We also do lot’s of Integrity, Hillsongs and Vineyard songs. I deliberately shy away from infusing a lot of R & B twists that is common with artists like Fred Hammond and Kurt Carr during our worship time. That’s simply because we have decided that we are not transiting to a black American church and even though that feel is very cool, it does not sync with the music culture of our local assembly. Of course, we have done music with such feel during the time of special music ministry.

The process of balancing heart and skill is never a one-off practice and that’s simply because worship leading is a dynamic responsibility. And here’s why: people change, the Spirit is not static and our hearts like water, can be in diverse states at different times. Hence, striking the balance between heart and skill has to be done consciously. When that balance is in place, the worship of our Maker becomes attractive and His people find themselves adoring their Redeemer without unnecessary hindrances.