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Beyond the details:
Lessons learnt
- Wale Adenuga
These last two months have been eventful for me. We
hosted Lenny Leblanc, had a benefit concert and had to
be with Bob Fitts in Kaduna, Abuja and London doing some
workshops and concerts. In the midst of all these
activities, I learnt a number of things that are causing
me to reset my processes the way I do my laptop when it
starts acting up.
Lenny has over 30 years experience both as a secular
musician and worship artist. He has had outstanding
success as a secular artist with one of his songs being
played on the radio over a million times. Men, if my
song has been played 100,000 times I don’t think you’d
be able to talk with me. But then it was after such
success that he got saved and started doing strictly
Christian music. Isn’t this an uncommon switch? People
who are doing “gospel” want to switch to secular. More
often than not, the switch is made not with the motive
to win the world, but to make a name for themselves.
One other thing I learnt from Lenny which he didn’t
verbalize was the fact that he didn’t throw his weight
around. Hey, I knew some songs he wrote like There is
none like you and Above all. But between the time I
first met him and now, I got to discover he wrote some
other great songs. For instance, we were at Lighthouse,
Kaduna and Victor Richman [an extremely talented
saxophonist] did the song, Down at your feet O Lord, is
the most high place, in your presence Lord… As we went
for dinner we went over the evening’s service and that
was when I knew he actually wrote that song. Three weeks
later, Bob and I were talking about Lenny, and that’s
when I got to know that Lenny wrote the song, You are so
faithful. Here’s a guy who has written these songs and
more and yet was just so simple.
I will also like to add that the best artists are not
the most popular. Time and chance happens to people.
While in Kaduna and Abuja this past one month, I got to
meet some amazing musicians and worship leaders who will
silence a lot of us who have CDs selling by the
thousands in the market. These guys don’t just sing
well, they’ve also got a measure of the anointing on
them that I rarely see on those of us in Lagos! I
believe one of the things I will be working on the
future is engaging these special people.
Another lesson I learnt springs from a question someone
asked at the seminar hosted by Lighthouse, Abuja at
which Bob Fitts and I were facilitators. A brother
wanted to know if it isn’t important to make music in
church so excellent in order to attract secular
musicians. While it’s good to dispense music skillfully,
a secular musician who needs to get saved needs Jesus
not excellent music. He’s already had a lot of that from
where he is coming. That same weekend, I met a dear
sister who had been a staunch muslim from a wealthy
northern family. She lamented how muslims are peeved
with churches whose overriding message is prosperity.
They just don’t get it. That’s what they left behind in
order to pursue the real thing – Jesus! The lesson here
is this: the means to an end should remain just that –
the means. It should not be exalted to the position
where it’s highlighted as the main thing.
Before Lenny and his team made their way to Nigeria, Tim
Wright, his sound engineer had sent me a technical ryder.
A ryder is simply list of equipment required and how
they should be arranged on stage. The equipment required
were not out of this world but then the average church
in Nigeria didn’t possess these grade of tools. Anyway,
in most of the churches they went to, they got the kind
of equipment they wanted. And God’s presence was
manifested in each meeting.
However, the meeting in Kaduna stood out. Here’s why. In
all the other churches, Lenny was provided with a full
octave keyboard. Lighthouse could only provide a 61 key
Roland keyboard. The drums if I remember were Thunder
brand instead of premium brands like Premier. Brad and
Will didn’t get the great sound they were used to from
their personal monitors. But guess what? At the end of
the meeting, you didn’t need to walk in faith to know
that God was there! The guys on Lenny’s team had this to
say: this is the best worship experience we have had in
all of our lives! Here’s the lesson: good equipment is
certainly a necessity but they don’t determine how
intense our encounter with God will be.
When I meet Matt Redman, I will ask him to consider
upgrading his song to include truths like:
I will bring you more than a song,
I will bring you more than a Mackie mixer
I will bring you more than the latest Yamaha motif full
octave keyboard
We will bring you more than choirs with tight vocal
arrangements
Because all these things in themselves
Are not what you require
You search much deeper within
Through the way things appear
You’re looking into my heart.
You can read Wale's
blog
http://waleadenuga.wordpress.com/
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