A Blog For Worship Leaders Who Lead Normal People In Normal Churches ||| RealWorldWorship.Org
In this series I try and address different aspects of the practical side of playing electric guitar in church music. This week we’ll talk about cloning effects pedals.
Whether you know it or not you probably have one or more cloned pedals on your pedalboard. What are they? Where did they come from? What does it mean? Let’s talk about it.
WHAT IS A CLONE?
Over at the 9Marks blog there’s an interesting post about giving up our preferences in church (read it HERE). While it was primarily written for pastors and church leaders, I felt the lessons for worship leaders was pretty obvious even before he used worship music as an example.
One of the things I had to learn when I started leading worship was how to take a compliment. God is gracious to use us as tools and instruments to bless and minister to his church, the people then in turn will often respond to the ministry and the minister with a thankful heart. How we respond to this makes all the difference in the world, both for us, and for the church we serve.
This post isn’t just written for the worship leader. It’s for every member of the church’s worship band and community.
I vividly remember the night. I was driving home from work in the summer of 2000. I had just graduated from High School and my car only had an FM radio. Then it happened, a song I’d never heard before came over the airwaves with sound that was both ground breaking and familiar all at the same time. This being the dark ages of technology, I had to sit in my parked car for three more songs to find out who this band was. The song was Yellow and the band was called Coldplay. On my lunch break the next day I walked over to Sonic Boom records in Seattle and purchased the album Parachutes. Within two weeks, everyone I knew seemed to have a copy. That was 13 years ago.
Since then, Coldplay has grown and established itself in the mainstream musical consciousness of the Western World and beyond. Even if you’re the type of Christian who has a personal conviction not to listen to secular music, you have heard Coldplay. You often hear about Christian bands ripping off U2 (I’ve written about it HERE) but the truth is that they’ve been influenced by Coldplay just as much. Yet, again and again, I’ve been in a worship band practice and said “it’s kinda like Coldplay” and received nothing but a blank expression back. It’s been 13 years.
I’m not sure how helpful this post will be. It’s not even something that I do intentionally anymore. But maybe, somewhere out there, this will help someone out.
Every church has prodigals; people who once professed Christ and dwelled with us in community but who are now wandering, rebellious, and living wild in the world. Several years ago I was leading worship at a church where I did not have a long history, but almost weekly I would hear someone mention a prodigal son or daughter of the church who had “popped in” out of nowhere. Some of them stayed, some of them did not. After a while I realized two things. First, for whatever reason, in that season of the church’s life there was a returning generation of those who had wandered. I didn’t know why or how long it had been happening or it would last, only that it was going on. The second thing I realized is that not every prodigal was being recognized. If this many were being noticed (and hopefully embraced and ministered to) how many more were slipping in and out (it was a fairly large church).
The Gospel Coalition had a great discussion about Hymns and Church culture. I recommend this video as well worth 10 minutes of your time.
Here’s what I took from it:
A while back, I had a conversation with a lady from another church. When she found out I was a worship leader, she asked what worship music I listen to during the week? It’s kind of a tricky question to answer. I find the hip-hop of artists like Lecrae and Thi’sl to be very worshipful. I find that I worship Jesus to heavy metal bands like August Burns Red and War of Ages. But I really doubt that this very nice older lady would find any of these artists helpful for her. I also doubt that the heavy metal or rap worship would go over well at my church.
Why? Because the question of what worship music I listen to is a question of personal worship. This is the music that I listen to on my own that helps me to worship Jesus and turn my heart and mind towards God. What about when it’s not just me, but a whole church full of people? What music and expression should we use towards the same ends. The problem we come to is when confuse personal worship with corporate worship.
Continue reading “Personal Vs. Corporate Worship Pt. 1: The Church As A Whole”
We need new words for things. One of those things is Song Worship. As a culture in the West we have limited worship to singing and singing related activities. I’ve heard bass players, and soundmen and overhead slide operators all complain about how they can’t “worship” when they serve in those capacities. Music and Song is only one small way that we as christians worship Jesus.
I have a great love for the folks at Calvary:The Hill. If you live in the Seattle area and are looking for a church home then check them out.
One of their main worship leaders Riley Taylor recently put a post up at their blog about his struggles with music and worship leading that I think it worth your time to read.
Riley says:
I saw an article on the Worship Links blog about the legalities of secular music in the church. I thought it was a worthwhile topic and since they only talked about the legalities, I’ll try to cover the broader issue. More and more churches are playing “secular music” in their services. It’s happening both with the live band on stage, and in the background music. What was once unthinkable to many is now a common place in churches all across the Western World. What’s going on? Why is this happening? Should we be worried or is it no big deal?
Real World Worship 