I have yet to find an answer to this question. Should the worship team be a set group of people, who have their hearts set on worshiping the Lord, are talented musicians, who sound tight together, and who are gifted at leading people into worshiping the Lord by using music? Or should the worship team be open to anyone who wants to serve, regardless of heart, skill, the ability to play with a band, or the ability to lead others?
Probably the more appropriate question is, Is the worship team there for the congregation, or for themselves? Now, that sounds a little sarcastic on the ‘there for themselves’ part. I really don’t mean it to be. What I mean is that most ministries in the church do a great job of getting people to ‘help themselves’ by serving. One of the best ways to grow in the Lord is to serve. So I’m not at all saying that having people on the worship music team for them to grow in the Lord or as worship musicians is a bad thing. The question I’m asking is, which purpose is correct? Or is there a balance somewhere?
See……hang on a second……I just totally lost my train of thought. The sweet tremolo throb intro for U2’s ‘Electrical Storm’ just came on. Whoa. I mean, whoa. Keanu Reeves couldn’t say ‘whoa’ good enough to describe this song. Okay, no, I didn’t lose my train of thought! ‘Electrical Storm’ type sounds, and sounscapes, and feelings, is the kind of stuff we could accomplish with a set worship team! Imagine a team of worship musicians who played together all the time, were all competent musicians, and who were all worship leaders led by the Spirit on their own instruments. Whoa again. And not for the music’s sake. With this philosophy, we’d be excluding a few musicians, but really giving an amazing worship experience through music to the hundreds (or thousands…but probably nobody reading this blog) in the congregation.
(This is a shot from the music video for Electrical Storm. Ya, I know. I’m the only one who’d ever know that. I love U2 way too much. Nope. No such thing.)
Now, this is where my brain always goes. I always go here…and ‘Electrical Storm’ doesn’t help things. And then I fall back down to earth and remember that the way I got into worship music was by one worship leader taking a chance on me when I was a long-haired, bearded, 19-year-old who looked like he was 35 and barely made it through the ’80’s, playing a BC Rich and a Crate. I mean, if me then were to come up to me now (this is getting Back To the Future-ish), I wouldn’t have let me on the worship team. Wait, confusion. But you know what I mean. So I am the product of the mindset that the worship team is there to grow the team primarily, and to reach the congregation secondarily.
So needless to say, I run things somewhere in between both those mindsets. I do tell people that I think their giftings may be elsewhere, but I also do not run a completely set team each Sunday. In fact, pretty far from it. I see the benefits to running a set team, but I have also seen many lives changed (including my own) due to having an open ministry philosophy. I suppose in a perfect world, we might have a set team, and then also be open for anyone who wanted to serve…but have a training program. But then people’s feelings get hurt…which isn;t necessarily a bad thing. It can be very useful in personal and spiritual growth. But wow, I hate hurting people’s feelings. Some people don’t seem to have a problem with it. But I’m one of those people who, if we’re rehearsing, and I specifically hear the bassist play an F# over our G/B chord, I’ll cut the song before I tell someone they’re screwing up. (Well, not really……but that is my first impulse!)
In a perfect world, everyone would just want to serve the Lord, and if there was another guitarist who helped the worship experience more, they would gladly set down their guitar for him (or her :) ) and lead worship by pouring their heart out by sitting in the congregation. And we’d all love to think that we’d do just that, the opportunity has just never presented itself because you know, we don’t want to brag, but there are few who help out the worship experience more than us. Ya, he may have better chops than me, but is he as tasteful as me? Ya, he may have better tone than me, but can he set the mood like this swell does? Ya, his guitar-playing might beat mine like Jodie Foster did Dwight Yoakam’s hand in Panic Room (that was just on…yikes, that was a terrible movie…did they just cgi the cell phone?), but come on now……where’s his heart at? Now, it might just be me that rationalizes things that way, but I’m willing to bet, as the sensitive musicians that we are, that we’ve all done that a time or two.
(I’m gonna go ahead and go out on a limb and say if there’s a movie with this guy as the villain, ya……maybe don’t set your expectations ultra-high. Although that one-eyed gaze from below the cowboy hat is a little creepy. But in a different and much more frightening way.)
So, being that it is not a perfect world, perhaps the answer does lie in a balance of raising people up in both love and honesty as worship leaders, and yet still maintaining a certain level so as to make sure we nail it in creating an atmosphere conducive to the congregation’s worship.
And I’ll be quite honest……I have yet to find that balance. I think it’s somewhere between a worship experience put on by The Listening, one of the best bands I have heard, and between a worship experience put on by the guy with an acoustic guitar sitting on stage after everyone has left, and six people are kneeling, pouring their hearts out.
Maybe I’ll find it someday…not much luck so far. But hey, if Panic Room taught us anything, it taught us to keep searching for the balance between having a worship team for the sake of the members and having a worship team for the sake of the congregation. No. No it didn’t. Not even a little. I was trying, but it’s very hopeless. What Panic Room taught us is that when you have 2 criminals holding your daughter captive, you should definitely lock the cops out of the house, arm yourself with a sledge-hammer, and try to sneak up behind them. Especially if you’re a 5’2 woman.
Splendid.
Karl.
Guitar for Worship 