I’m in no way an authority on this, but here’s a few things that I’ve learned, observed, and failed at, over the last decade or so. (My dad always told me…watch out for when you start measuring things in decades. lol) All pertaining to the small to mid-size churches in which most of us participate. We all usually take our worship leading cues from the big guys, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Except that you have to remember that playing to a group of 200 casual church attenders on a Sunday morning is worlds different in its application than playing to 4,000 people stoked to hear the preacher they’ve heard on the webcast so many times, and now finally having got to the church early enough to sit up close and be part of the worship pit of which they have a cd in their car.

And worship leading is not really a doctoral science, although we’d like to make it that way. We’d all like to think that leading worship and creating a worship experience of God through music is something difficult and almost unattainable because then that makes us feel like as worship leaders, we are professionals in our field, doing something that the ‘general public’, ‘congregation’, or ‘civilians’ cannot do. Subsequently, we can then sell books on the subject, and…uh…write blogs.  So, take these and use them, modify them, lose some of them, or what-not. Whatever helps your church in the adoration of God through that tiny little musical portion we call ‘worship.’ It’s a very general list, and not all will apply to everyone. But some will, and for some, all of them will.

And fair warning: most of these will probably help people worship God while at the same time decreasing your rockstar status. If you’re more concerned with being ‘a worship leader’, or whatever entity church culture has made that phrase to mean, these will probably do more harm to that than help. These aren’t cool, cutting edge, or even new ideas in any sense. In fact, most of them can be summed up in Lewis’ character Uncle Diggory’s lament of ‘Why don’t they teach logic at these schools.’ They’re just to try to help the people who don’t happen to be on stage at the time, to connect with God.

1. Click Track

Tempo is one of the most important and yet overlooked factors. It can take a so-so band, and make them sound professional. In every studio I’ve ever worked in, the click track ruled all. No one cared how well you played or even if you could play at all; as long as you could follow a tempo. I can almost guarantee you that after two months of playing with a click track, you won’t even recognize the sound coming from your team. It’s one of those subtle things where you can instantly tell a professional team from a non-professional one. You just know which is which, even though you can’t say why.

You can use a click track even if your church does not have in-ear monitors. Get a couple of cheap headphone preamps, run wires to your band members, and ask them to bring their ipod headphones for one ear only. A little ghetto, but it will work. Or, just run them to yourself and the drummer, and anyone else who may be starting a song. At the very least, practice with the click track in the monitors, and then have just the drummer on it for the service. It will take some getting used to, and you will probably have to practice with it a few weeks before using it live. But every band I’ve ever introduced this for has hated it for about two months, and then suddenly shifted to hate playing without it.

Once it’s there, you don’t have to be a psycho about it; certain songs can go without it, and if you start to pull away from it, shut it off. It’s just a tool…but a great one.

2. Choose Songs People Like

Seems super simple. But you’d be surprised how few worship leaders do this. Instead, songs are chosen according to how cool they are, how new they are, how good they sound, how technically challenging they are for the band, where the worship leader feels God is leading that week (inexplicably usually to a setlist of 5 songs off his newly released Tunecore album), or a myriad other reasons. And most of those can be valid reasons for choosing certain songs. But as any touring band will tell you, the easiest way to get people to sing? Choose songs they like. Imagine that. I see so many worship teams pounding laboriously away week after week on the latest Hillsong 12-minute ‘epic’, because it’s new, or they saw on a blog (that was probably embellished) that it ‘went off’ at some other church, or because they themselves like it, and then stress day and night over why people aren’t worshiping. But every time the pastor asks for ‘Open the Eyes of My Heart’, everyone sings like their life depends on it.

There are a ton of different and differing reasons for why people sing to some songs and not to others. And those reasons make for a fascinating study. But in the midst of that study, don’t ignore the pertinent facts staring you in the face right at the present moment. Those facts being, ‘I don’t know why they sing to this song, but they do.’ And if, in fact, one of the main purposes for you to lead worship is to have people sing out and worship with you, then logic says that a good portion of your setlists should include that song. Like it or not, understand it or not. We’re servants up there, not rockstars. It’s like if the hospitality crew found a certain type of coffee that everyone raved over, but kept buying different coffee because they themselves liked it better, or because the hospitality team was tired of the same coffee, or because Mars Hill blogged about this coffee being the number one factor in church growth. No, just buy the coffee people like. You’re a servant, at most a shepherd. Never a super gifted musician, orator, or leader that the church population is just lucky to have.

I mean, in reality, if you find songs people worship to every time? Yikes, that makes your job super easy and super fun! Go for it and worship. To this day, there is a song that I absolutely love and worship so deeply to every single time. Yet every time I’ve done it in a church setting…blank stares. Every time, any congregation. And yet Everlasting God? That I was over 5 years ago? Singing. Worship. Passion. Everyone. Every time. So…Everlasting God.

(Yes, leadership is lonely. Ya, especially if you make it that way. ‘I just don’t understand why people don’t sing. It’s a spiritual battle, man. True leadership is just lonely.’ No, it’s lonely because the melody to your super-epic MuteMath song is unsingable, Db is for Phil Wickham only, and people checked out mentally 37 choruses ago, right when your self-indulgence checked in.  )

3. Get Vocal Lessons

If you’re like me, you need them. There are those out there that just naturally have these amazing voices. But 90% of us leading worship have…decent voices. We can hold a tune, we can match pitch, we can find pitch, and we can hear when a note is too high for us (most of the time  ). So, out of the lack of a better singer on-hand who also played guitar, seemed to love God, and had some extra time on their hands, we were asked to lead worship. (Sorry to be so real about it, but…I can think of about a dozen people just within my area who, if they were attending my church and had some time on their hands when I was first asked to lead worship, I never would have been.) And what is pretty much the one core thing that we as worship leaders are asked to do? Get people to ‘sing with us.’ And if we’re slipping off-pitch, running out of breath at the ends of phrases, going on crazy runs that don’t quite work, singing with awkward tones, breathing in awkward places, logic states that it will be difficult for people to sing with us.

I didn’t take vocal lessons for years because I was too prideful. And once I finally did, I wished I had done it so much earlier. They can only help.

4. Practice, Learn the Music, and Get Rid of the Music Stand

So many, so many, so many, so many worship leaders (myself included at times) do not run through the music on their own before the services. I think most of the time it’s because we’ve done the songs so many times that we assume we know them by heart. Practice them. Run through them. Just this last weekend, I had to take myself out of worshiping mode, because I couldn’t remember the chord progression to a song I’ve done a hundred times. Why? Because I didn’t run through it that week, because I assumed I knew it perfectly.

Right along with that is learning the lyrics. This one cracks me up. Not that I always learn the lyrics perfectly, but I have played with multiple worship leaders complaining about how the lyrics on screen distract from the worship, and how people should totally know this song by heart already. All the while, they’re reading the lyrics off their chord chart (or iPad if they’re super cool). Don’t expect the congregation, who hears the song one time for every ten times you hear and play it, to learn a song if you haven’t.

And then hopefully you can get rid of your music stand. It’s a subtle message that no one really thinks about, but subconsciously it gets through. That the guy or gal asking us to ‘take these songs to heart’ and ‘make this your prayer’ has actually done so himself or herself, so much so that they aren’t reading the songs. Last year, when I was auditioning for worship leader spots, I had a few different churches who wanted me for this one simple fact. How I longed for it to be for my incredible guitar skills, or my awesome voice, or how my very manner just exuded leadership. Nope. Their literal words were, ‘You don’t use a music stand, and you look at the congregation.’ Ya, not so rockstar. haha Not at all what I wanted them to say. But it’s effective.

(Because without a music stand, you too can look like this. Which is of course the point.  )

5. Play to the Strengths of Your Team

Your schedule this week tells you that you’ve got a ’70′s rocker lead guitarist and an ex-metal drummer? Play something upbeat and with a flatted 7th in the scale. Don’t force a song that relies on dotted 8th delay into a band where you know for a fact that the guitarist doesn’t own a delay pedal. Sure, there’s a time and a place for training people and teaching them new musical techniques. But if you want the best possible worship music in that moment, get a quick read on who you have playing that week, what they’re good at, and if possible, tailor the setlist a bit to their skills.

Normally this opportunity presents itself in a much less pronounced manner. There have been times when I’ve just felt that I was being led to play The Time Has Come, when I had a drummer scheduled who had only been playing for six months. It did not work out so well. And I was left wondering, why in the world didn’t I just play Blessed Be Your Name, and do Time Has Come with the experienced drummer the next week.

(This guy’s on your team? Yep, play to his strengths. And yes, I think I am the only person ever to actually like this movie. Hey, it was hilarious and there was music!)

6. Practice So You Can Fill in the Gaps

There will be deficiencies in your worship team. For most of us, our teams are made up of volunteers working 60 hours a week. For a lot of us, that’s us working those weeks too. Nevertheless, we’re the ones with the responsibility. I know that intro is piano, but if you really want to do that song, you need to learn that intro or something comparably workable, on your guitar as well. There is a good chance he will not have had the time to learn it, and in the end, the music is your responsibility.

I’m not saying you should go this far, but something that has helped me immensely, is having the mindset that I should be able to give a decent worship experience to the congregation even if everyone canceled but me, and a great worship experience even if it were just me, bass, and drums. (And sometimes, we know, that happens! haha) That does mean practicing extra hard, learning extra parts, and learning alternate arrangements. And most of the time, nothing this drastic is called for. But what it does help with is training people. If you can handle 90% of the tune by yourself, you can schedule a guitarist who’s not quite there yet, and ask him to play the solo’s, or start the song. And if he doesn’t get it quite right, you know the song backwards and forwards and can either take the solo’s and starts, or variate what you’re playing to compensate. Even if you’re on acoustic or keys.

7. Don’t be Afraid to be Honest with Yourself

If a song isn’t working in practice, and you’ve gone through it a few times, and you can tell that this is quite obviously going to be a sub-par moment in the service, then cut it. There’s no need to force anything, although quite often we inexplicably try to do just that. If it’s not working, cut it and do something that will. In that moment, you have the choice to decide whether that part of the service will be good or bad.

8. Don’t Fight the Pastor

People only have about a 5 minute attention span. Don’t think the pastor’s theme was bad and so introduce 18 of your own. Catch the vibe of what he’s trying to get across and go with it. Maybe he’s wrong…maybe if they’d just listen to you, with your of course ordained position of artist/leader/creative/world-shaker, the church would explode to 4,000 people in two weeks. But that’s not your position, and all kidding aside, even if you unequivocally know that that is ‘your calling’, take a lesson from David in the Old Testament and humbly know your place until God makes that happen.

Your pastor is not perfect; but the time to bring up constructive arguments is staff meeting the next week or a phone call the following evening. When it’s two minutes before service and the pastor says, ‘Let’s do this song instead’, raise one objection, if he overrules it, then play that song. Since you’re also not a perfect person, 50% of the time you’re wrong anyway. And the other 50% of the time, maybe you’re not wrong, but the pastor is going for something different. Either way, petty skirmishes 2 seconds before the service starts are probably the most ridiculous and hilarious of all church-running nuances, and should be avoided at almost all costs.

9. Think Big Picture

It’s not just about worship this weekend, but next weekend too. And the weekend after that. So sometimes, that means not doing the great new song this weekend, because it’ll go better with the message next weekend, and will lose its power if done two weekends in a row. More often than that, it means planning out different approaches on different weekends. An ‘epic’ set five weekends in a row becomes decidedly less ‘epic’ the fourth and fifth weekends. But throw in an acoustic set, and suddenly a regular set the weekend after becomes fantastic. Just as if you don’t want to just map out how one song goes, but all five songs, you also don’t want to map out how just one service goes. Map out many weekends, which sometimes means taking away from some weekends for the good of the overall month, or even year.

(This scene is actually an amazing portrait of how we can lose the forest for the trees.)

10. Get the Band the Songs Early and Correctly

Team gets the songs Saturday night. Sheet music is in the wrong keys, songs are in a format requiring the worship leader’s iTunes password, and half the team doesn’t get the email because the leader inexplicably still has their old email address that they’ve reminded him 7 times is the wrong one. Everyone shows up on Sunday morning, and said worship leader is appalled that no one knows the songs.

No.

Absolutely not. Make it easy on your team. You want them to play the songs right? Give them the chance to do so! Take the time to find the right versions of the songs, convert them into mp3′s, and email them properly. Actually look at the sheet music to make sure it’s the correct versions before you send it. And anything later than 2 days before the service is completely unacceptable. You may as well just go acoustic or tell the team you’ll arrange at rehearsal and switch all the songs to 4-chorders. Even 2 days is pushing it. Now, if you don’t care if the team plays what you want or plays the song the way it’s recorded, then just disregard this one. But for the love of U2 (and that’s a lot of love), don’t send an un-open-able copy of a Shane & Shane cell phone recording of a live song they improvised once at one concert, and then act all surprised when your team doesn’t know it.

11. Learn Sound

I have a theory that I will be expounding upon more in later posts, that the difference between a church people enjoy and a church they don’t is the sound tech. 95% of the service, both musically and teaching-wise, relies on the auditory senses. And we leave that to the volunteer we can’t relate to and don’t really even want to. We spend hours upon hours getting the music right, and then in the end are completely at the mercy of this one person, because he or she is the only one who understands how to make sounds come out of the speakers. So either put out a craigslist ad for a professional sound tech who loves God and also is proficient at an instrument and be prepared to pay them close to what your pastor makes, or learn it yourself and train people. I cannot stress the importance of this enough. I’ve done it myself, and it has done wonders. And recently, I just played with a worship leader friend of mine who has since done it, and it has done wonders for him as well. It’s a lot of work. Do it.

12. No Silence

Ever. Anything you have to do to make no silence, do it. Download my pads for free. Arrange the songs in the same key. Work out transitions so the drummer knows he has the freedom to start the next song while the chord of the prior song is fading out. Anything. Because here’s the thing: you get people to a certain emotional point with a song, and then the song ends. And that ensuing silence, even if only for a couple seconds, feels like an eternity to the congregation. If there’s one thing people can’t stand more than anything else, it’s feeling awkward. And silence between songs is super awkward. And then you’ve in an instant reduced that emotional level back to zero. A good rule of thumb is to multiply every second of silence by 10. So 3 seconds of silence literally feels like 30. So do what it takes to make silence happen only when it is planned.

13. No Insecurity

When we get insecure, usually because the awesome new song we chose just doesn’t go off and people are staring at us blankly, don’t panic. Just relax. People pick up on the vibe when you’re forcing it. Plus, your voice tends to take on an ‘I’m cool anyway’ forcing it tone, and it’s awkward. You start to play a little stronger, and that ruins the tone. All in all, it makes it worse when you’re insecure. In that moment, you just have to remind yourself to mull on it afterwards, but in the moment, own it. I know it’s hard. I suck at this.

(Any excuse to play ‘Don’t Panic’. And think about Garden State. Whoa! No joke…I literally just typed this, and ‘Don’t Panic’ came on in Coffee Bean. I feel…oddly powerful. And yes, I am in a coffee shop blogging on my laptop. Hi, I’m the cliche from 2006.)

14. No Sermonettes

I’m not exactly sure how to say this, so I’m just going to say it. If your gift was preaching, teaching, or even talking in front of people in general, you’d be asked to preach the sermon a lot more often than you are.

15. Thank Your Team

This seems small, but it goes a huge, huge, huge, huge, huge way. Like, kinda huge. When I go play at churches, I am about 200% more likely to play there again when someone says ‘Thanks, really appreciate your being here’, than when we close the last song, I pack up my stuff, and awkwardly leave in silence without anyone saying anything to me. I know this has happened to you guys, and if you’re a worship leader only, you can guarantee it’s happened to your team. And then we wonder why people flake out the next week and decide to go to the river that weekend instead of playing their scheduled weekend.

And if you’re just an amazing person, take it a step further and pick out something that they did during the service that was good, and call attention to it. This can take some work with musicians you’re working with or training, but there’s always something they did that is worthy of praise. And actually, this is hardest with the incredible musicians. Because everything they do is good, and so it’s difficult to pick out just one thing. And then you end up saying, ‘Wow, great job! Amazing, as usual.’ Which, although true, starts to sound to those people as if it’s just the stock thing you say to everyone. But when you take the time to say, ‘Wow, great job! Amazing as usual. When you hit that high register bass riff in the intro of Cannons, I just smiled. Most people don’t even hear that, let alone learn it and are able to play it.’ It just validates what they do, and the hard work they put into learning the song…usually because you asked them to.

16. Love God

It shows. When you’re up there out of sheer love for God, and when you’re up there because it’s Sunday again and you didn’t really think anything of it, it shows. When you’re up there believing every lyric you sing, and when you’re up there thinking about chord changes, it shows. I know we think it doesn’t and that we can put on a show, but people are so much more intelligent than we give them credit for. You know when you go to that concert and there’s that ‘it’ factor? Like, you can’t put your finger on the vibe, but you know it was incredible? That’s them purposefully hitting each note and believing each lyric. And for worship? Man, that should make it just that much easier for us. It’s a pretty rad God we’re doing this for. There’s this odd push in churches right now to ‘be authentic.’ Well, you either are or you’re not. Love God, love others, (Jesus mentions this, I believe), and the authenticity takes care of itself. And that’s infectious, and comes through off that stage more than anything musically that we could possibly do.

And finally guys, don’t be afraid of the nuts and bolts. I know worship leading is supposed to be a spiritual thing, but let’s face it. As long as we’ve got a guitar up there and a team of people, there’s a human element to it. We don’t have to do it this way, but we do. So let’s work hard to do it right. Or as right as humanly possible.  And when we mess up, we thank God for grace, and try again. We don’t say, ‘Thanks for the grace in the midst of my effort, God. So, this next time, I’m just gonna go without the effort.’ Rely on grace, and balance that with loving God with all you are through action and responsibility for helping create an atmosphere where people can let go and worship God. Because in the end, all that really is, is loving people. Love God, love people, and there’s your worship.