The
quandary that churches without a worship leader often find themselves in is
that they don’t always know what to look for. They might know what leadership
qualities to look for given that the search committee will likely consist of
leaders, but typically this group of leaders doesn’t have a musician or singer
who is knowledgeable about music on their team. As a result, they won’t know
what to look for in those areas.
But just
to make sure we’re on the same page, the leadership qualities that you want to
look for are:
- Someone who clearly loves God
and people
- Someone who is gifted and
called to be a leader and therefore has leadership, administrative and
organizational skills.
- Someone who has a sense of
humor can really help, especially to lighten things when difficult decisions
and situations arise.
- A great communicator.
- Has a strong theological
foundation for worship
- A good teacher
Before I
discuss the musical styles, let me say something about this last point, because
it is often missed. Do you want the quality of your church’s music department
to improve? A worship leader who cannot teach may be able to tell the worship
team that they are at level A and need to go to level B, but does not have the
ability to equip the team as to how to get there. This would have been akin to
Moses coming in to tell the Children of Israel that they needed to go to the
promised land, but to not know the first thing about which direction to even
point them in.
The
inability of a worship leader to teach can bring frustration as a result. The
best such a worship leader may be able to do is to work within the limits of
the current team and not try and grow them musically. Unless your worship team
is a group of top-notch singers and musicians, this is not an option. And if
you’re a non-musician leader, it is difficult to even make his judgment. It’s
true that anyone can know what they like, but a well-trained, knowledgeable
worship leader can hear a worship team and immediately hear their strengths and
weaknesses, being able to formulate a plan to raise the bar of musical
excellence in the spirit of giving God our best.
Now, what
are the musical gifts to look for in a worship leader?
- Can sing and/or play either
guitar or piano
- Music reading
- Can play by ear
- Knows music theory
- Can sing/play in the style(s)
that best suit your church’s vision
- Can use a computer to
communicate and create/distribute charts.
Many of
the above points may be optional for your church. You be the judge as I expound
on each.
1. Can sing and/or play either guitar
or piano/keys/organ
Worship
leaders that can only do one or the other are very dependent upon lay people to
lead worship. This can work under rare circumstances, but I wouldn’t recommend
it. I’ve found that most churches that have a worship leader without one of
these critical skills, usually regret their choice later on as problems arise.
The most
obvious problem is what the worship leader might do when the key layperson
doesn’t show up. Furthermore, such a layperson can come to feel that they are
being taken advantage of if the worship leader is getting paid. This can cause
unnecessary divisions and strife.
I have
seen worship leaders who are successful that play other instruments besides
guitar and piano. They still suffer from the layperson dependence, but if they
are knowledgeable about music, and don’t lean on one particular musician, but
instead rely on the band as a whole showing up, the potential for acrimony is
greatly reduced. But rightly or wrongly, there seems to be a cultural
expectation that a worship leader, especially a more contemporary one, should
be able to play guitar or piano.
If I had
to choose between a worship candidate that could only do one or the other, I’d
opt for the worship leader that plays an instrument but can’t sing. This type of
worship leader is more likely to understand the inner workings of music at a
level where they can best equip the team. It’s also usually easier to find
plenty of lay people who sing at your average church so as to mitigate the
absentee layperson problem.
But a
worship leader who can only do one or the other, is more likely to be strong at
developing the side they are good at on the worship team, but neglect the
other. The vocalist worship leader is often going to be great at working with
the singers and choir, but will miss critical details to develop the band. The
instrumentalist is likely to be great at developing the band but poor at
developing the vocalists. This can cause factions on the worship team as one
subgroup will feel neglected and the other favored.
If your
worship leader can sing, it is important that they have the ability to sing
harmonies. This is even critical if they can’t play an instrument because all
they will have left for communicating to the worship team is their voice. They
will need a very good ear unless they can at least plunk out a few chords or
notes on an instrument as a reference point. Fortunately, many vocalist only
worship leaders seem to be able to do this.
2. Music reading
Music
reading is probably most important if your church is traditional or has some
sort of blend, however it is definitely useful to all styles. This skill is
particularly helpful when the worship leader needs to learn a new song, can’t
play by ear or doesn’t have a recording, and only has a score or lead sheet
available to them.
Music
reading is probably more important for keyboard players than guitarists so much
so that usually if your worship leader candidate can play a keyboard, they have
most likely already learned to read music at some level.
Because of
the nature of the guitar, most guitarists never need to learn how to read
music. Since most contemporary worship music is in a chord chart form, this is
perfectly fine for the contemporary worship leader. But where I’ve seen this
become an issue is when this worship leader needs to do a hymn that they have
never heard before. If this worship leader can read music, they can figure out
the melody from a hymn book and go from there. Otherwise, they are left with
finding a recording and creating or finding a supplemental chord chart.
3. Can play by ear
Playing by
ear is another skill that is not absolutely necessary but helpful in ways that
the non-musician might not realize. A worship leader who can play by ear will
not have to bury their head in a music stand to watch the music go by. They
have the potential to look at the congregation as they lead which makes for a
more effective worship experience.
I say that
they have the potential for this, because the worship leader who plays by ear
still has to know the lyrics of the song that they might be singing. If your
church projects lyrics on the back of the wall, or a screen within the field of
vision of the worship leader, no distracting music stand will be necessary for
them in most cases.
Secondly,
playing by ear helps a worship leader to improvise and be spontaneous. This may
or not be a priority for your church depending upon your church’s vision of
worship.
Finally, a
worship leader who can play by ear can draft their own charts for the band
simply by hearing the song. This is such an advantage when charts are otherwise
not available.
4. Knows music theory
This is
not a necessity, but a worship leader that knows music theory is better
equipped to communicate to the worship team. Music theory is a language shared
by musicians, which describes music. Not all musicians know the language, but
for those that do, the communication process is much more efficient,
essentially allowing for practices to go smoother.
It is much
easier for a worship leader to be able to tell the team that they need to
suspend the V chord in the song when it appears at the end of the verse, than
to have to tell the keyboard and guitarists to play a D suspended, tell the
rest of the instruments to make sure that if they are playing harmonies that
they don’t play the F#, and show the harmony vocalists what this note sounds
like.
Granted,
in almost all cases you’ll have people on the team that don’t know music
theory, however a good worship leader long-term can equip the team with the
necessary language music theory provides to make communication more efficient
and therefore make practices run smoother. I believe it’s ultimately better to
raise the bar as long as you equip everyone to reach it, rather than to always
stoop to the lowest common denominator.
5. Can sing/play in the style(s) that
best suit your church’s vision
A lot of
lay leaders, being non-musical type of people, might miss this. I’ve seen this
symptom emerge in many churches that I have visited. You will have a worship
leader whose vocal style is ideal for southern gospel or classical, leading
contemporary worship. This often happens because that worship leader was at the
church when it was more traditional. At some point, the church made the
decision to contemporize the worship.
The non-musician laypeople may have the ear to hear that the something doesn’t
sound right, but they might know what it is to even realize that it’s the
worship leader’s style not fitting the new contemporary vision.
Ideally,
you want a worship leader who is versatile in many styles but most everyone has
limits. I’m a pretty versatile worship leader, but even so, I’m not cut out to
sing southern Gospel or classical. I can play these styles and lean on other
vocalists, but if those styles are the heart of your church, I’m not the best
candidate for such a church.
6. Can use a computer to communicate
and create/distribute charts.
Some might
judge this as an optional trait, but computer skills are critical to most
efficiently organizing and leading a worship team. In one e-mail, I can send
out a hyperlink to a web site to all of my worship team members. On that web
site I have uploaded the lyrics, multimedia slides, MP3s for downloads and
listening and chord charts. Without such skills, I am left with making
individual phone calls and with trying to hand deliver music to each
individual.
Musician-speak
I want to
briefly mention some things that are often missed when preparing a worship team
for excellence. I have found that the difference between “good enough” and
excellence is usually not found in identifying one showstopper defect. It is
instead found in a worship team that is able to focus on a bunch of small
details, each one of them when viewed in isolation can seem so small as to be
inconsequential, but when viewed as a whole, make a huge difference. I often
see many established worship leaders missing these details. As I have heard
their teams, the things on this list usually are the culprits:
- Vocalists (lead excluded) who
sing all the time
- Musicians who play all the time
- Vocalists who constantly
harmonize
- Vocalists with too wide of a
vibrato
- Vocalists with too much
vibrato
- Vocalists/musicians out of
tune
- Lack of dynamics
- Poor mix
- Musicians who play over top of
each other instead of leaving room for others
- Guitarists and keyboardists
who use sounds/tones/patches that don’t suit the music or its style
- Poor vocal enunciation causing
words to be difficult to understand or giving the music the wrong style
- Musicians playing the wrong style for the music
- The wrong instruments used for the style of music being presented
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