A guide to Worship Leading (I)

Following on from our Worship Group Identification, I’ve been inundated with quite literally a question about the art – if I may call it that – of Worship Leading.
In fact, maybe art is the wrong word. Sometimes, as we study the interface between psychology, physiology, musicology and theology at which Worship Leading takes place, I think it could even be a science. So distilled from the experience of being, meeting with and frequently sacking worship leaders – here is my advice. Some of it’s practical, some theoretical. But I hope it’s all useful and thought-provoking. I feel this may be the first in a series, so today I’m just going to be focussing on two areas. Secondly we’ll look at worship leading from a musical perspective. But being aware that some worship leaders don’t play musical instruments, I’m going to start with Newbie Management.

Managing Visitors

You know how it is – somebody turns up whom you’ve never seen before. Now, you’ve been busy at the front sorting out the last-minute nervous breakdowns, fist-fights and panic attacks which will occur in the Worship Team before any act of worship. So you don’t know whether the newcomer is a visitor, or a potential first-time visiting member. And you also don’t know whether the newcomer has been welcomed by a regular member of your fellowship or not. What do you do?

1. Bring them up the front. Very important. Whoever they are, bring them up the front. Ask them to introduce themselves to their fellow worshippers. Feel free to ask them where they’ve come from and whether they’re likely to stay long.  Ask them what great thing has happened to them this week, and if it doesn't sound too great then push them for another.  Ask how they feel God is blessing them on a scale of 9 to 10.  If they have left another fellowship, ask whether they were previously keen tithe-givers. Men in particular love to be paid attention to in this way.

2. Allocate them a buddy. Once they’ve retreated to their place (oddly, people tend to move much faster back than they come to the front) – ask someone to “look after them” for the occasion.  I normally try to get Burton Dasset to do this, as conveniently he can then follow them around for the rest of the morning forcing Gift Aid forms into their hands.

3. The Freelance Prophet  Now, particularly for seaside congregations and for communities that have a fair turnover of pilgrims, like our own, we have an issue with what I call “Freelance Prophets”. Particularly at the more spontaneous fellowships, where people may be invited to bring forward “a word**”. The Freelance Prophet will rush to the front, convinced that they have been chosen this very week to impart something special. And unaware that last week, another Brummie Pentecostal came forward and said exactly the same words of encouragement. Which I guess may be telling us something…
Now that the Moot House has been completed, we like to invite Freelance Prophets down the front to the special “Freelance Prophecy” spot just in front of the Worship Focus. Then we pull the trap-door lever. We always fish them out of the brook at the end of the Ceremony – although by that time they can sometimes be down in the duck pond.

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Music

Again, I can only scratch the surface here. I’d just like to give you some ideas on keys and segues on this occasion.

Key Changes – between songs
Very important, this. When modulating between songs in two different keys, there are different approaches. One is to work through the change in practice with the Worship Group. You can find a great deal of advice on the chord sequences that will lead you from, say, G#m to F (as frequently happens in my experience). This will enable you to move smoothly through a number of intervening seventh and other bridging chords, and leave your congregation – or, as I prefer to think of them – “punters” perfectly prepared for the next song.

Alternatively, assuming you’re a guitarist or keyboard player, just bash out a few random chords and then kick straight on. Spontaneity is, as we all know, the most important aspect of worship. And with luck your fellow “band” members will catch up at some point in the next song*.

Key Changes – within songs

Crucial to any invocatory experience is what we might call the study of “worship dynamics”. Given a situation in which, for example, the worship is really taking off, or the punters seem a little stodgy and worship-leading is rather like stirring treacle – or, actually, any other case between these two – the best thing you can do is modulate in the key a full tone above what you are currently playing. Professors of Worshipology call this “knocking it up one”.  Or they do round here.  I realise it may have other connotations in other places.

It’s really important that you have some awareness of where your fellow band-members are, especially if you have a horn section. If, just after a chord shift, you hear the whispered words “double sharps”, or you become aware that the sax and trumpet players have formed a lynch mob, you will know that you have gone into a very wrong key. Best bet is to wrap it up quick and hand over to the preacher.

By the way – the concept of “knocking it up one” is subject to the Law of Diminishing Returns. If you do it once, you can add excitement and drama to the song – a sense of rising spiritual temperature. If you do it twice you may hit a key that the horn section can’t cope with. If you do eight times, three things will happen. Firstly you’ll end up in the same key you started from, just an octave higher. Secondly you’ll have sung that song at least eight times through. And thirdly you may find some members of the fellowship have turned blue and are laying around the place. This is not to be confused with any spiritual experience, and we suggest getting some medical help in before the victims get any closer to God than they really want at the this time.

Broken Cadences

Finally for the musical section on this occasion is the concept of a “broken cadence”. I’ve no idea if this is the right term, but it feels like it should be. As you are moving into the final cadence of a song – maybe everyone’s feeling like they’ve really “broken through” and are at one with the Divine – don’t play through to the last chord of the song and then finish as everyone expects. Just leave it hanging there. If you’re in C, and the last chord before you end is a G – just stop in G and leave it. If you really want to make the point, go for a short walk at this point.  If you get it right, some congregation members may fall over due to applying the musical and spiritual brakes so sharply, and then you can claim they’ve been slain in the Spirit.
* Annoyed band members very rarely physically assault the worship leader actually during an act of worship. And so far it has never resulted in anything worse that a few scratches, in my experience.
** “A” word implies the singular. If only.

Oddly enough, Banksyboy has been thinking about Worship songs today as well.  Go and have a look!  (NB  merely suggesting you go over there does not mean I agree with him.  Though I do.)