I know a lot of you would like to read something other than the massive blog tome I’ve been cranking out on The Christian & the Business World, so here’s a few questions to get you thinking in a wholly different direction.
The background is that I have returned to the throne—the drum throne that is (what they call the little seat a drummer sits on.) Started playing again in the worship band at the church I now attend. My first “gig” with them was this last Sunday, June 12.
Anyway, the questions are:
- What do you think is the most important need for a worship band to address?
- What do you feel is routinely missing in today’s modern praise & worship music?
- What two or three things can a worship band do to make sung worship more worshipful for you?
Thanks in advance for the answers. You can bet I’ll be thinking about them and how our own worship band can improve in these areas.
Blessings for the weekend!
My answer to all three questions is “Depth.” Now, I’m a fairly young guy. I love having a praise band and, quite honestly, would have great difficulty going back to a traditional-style worship service. However, sometimes, the praise band engages me only emotionally and not intellectually.
How about some modernized hymns thrown in to the mix? Or even unmodernized hymns, artfully woven into the worship time. Hymns can take you out past the breakers and out into the sea. Wading and body surfing have its place, but we need to go deeper in our worship.
Hymns are not the only place to find depth in music, but there is a wealth of them and they’re easy to find. I have sung some modern hymns that go deeper. And we need more depth in our praise.
I wish I could offer some more practical ideas, but these are just some thoughts I’ve had from the “pew.”
Another quick addition: I want to learn something about God when I worship, and not just tell him how much I love him – over and over and over again.
I like hymns.
Violin music. With or without voices.
Piano with flute is good.
A capella.
No sense that feel-good talking is trying to manipulate me to feel a certain way.
“Bands” that don’t drown out the human voices. I grew up with a capella 4-part harmony.
No organs.
No drums that overpower the other instruments.
Not six repetitions of the same short phrase. Two or three once in awhile is ok.
More complex concepts than I’ve seen on an overhead in the last ten years.
Sorry. Sounds like a hard job. 🙂
I actually prefer worship teams that sit on one or each side of the stage, instead of facing the congregation. It’s ok if the leader faces the congregation. It’s hard to think of God when I’m looking at ten people, sometimes doing very distracting things. 🙂
The female members of the team need to dress modestly. And not do full body sign language.
Yes, it’s a hard job. 🙂
Dan, I think the thing missing from a lot of churches with modern worship music is a proper understanding of what worship is about. We do not worship to call God down and make us feel good. We worship because God is worthy. We worship to give to God. If the Spirit renews you in some way, that’s a blessing, but it is not the reason we worship!
I responded to your comment on my site, but I don’t want to track back. I want to trackback a seperate post I will probably put up sometime tommorow regarding my comments above. However, I wanted to alert you to my very self-serving “Top 5 drumming performances” post since you requested it. hehe We are definately an unusual category among musicians and the Church.
I read a good blog on this somewhere, about problems with seeker-oriented worship, but can’t remember where.
I do believe worship should be seeker-centered, myself. But the Seeker it should be focused toward is God.
O victory in Jesus,
My Savior, forever.
He sought me and bought me
With His redeeming blood….
Dan,
Glad you asked, first the most important thing for the musicians is to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. To watch and see which direction the anointing is moving in, and to go with the flow. Second, as to what’s missing. I think it’s our zeal, we want control, this should be given to the Lord. We would then be free to open up and “get into” what-ever the Lord is doing without restraint. Third; what can be done. Take off the limits of how long, or how many times, or what kinds of mucis, and so forth. The band is critical as the leaders of worship, they should be zealous and free to whole-heartedly make a joyful sound, and to stir up the saints to presence of the Lord.
Be Blessed,
Pete
OK Dan,
Time for you to weigh in now. What do you think worship is? A synthesis of all of these comments? (which I thought were very good by the way).
I would throw my two cents in, but unfortunately I don’t have two cents to throw in as I have never been involved in the praise band type of worship.
So, I am ready to learn.
In my humble opinion.
The most important need a worship band should address, is the need to enter into the presence of God. You don’t do that by exchanging hymns for contemporary music, you do that by seeking God’s face for the presence of God, and anointing of the Holy Spirit to come upon the song, hearers, and the whole session in which praise is engaged.
What is missing in today’s modern music is the Spirit. We’ve got pretty music, oh yes. But “we want to be more amused rather than amazed.” -Leonard Ravenhill.
The two things that can make worship more worshipful to me, is
1) the presence of God falling upon the whole place because men and woman of God decided intimate, heartfelt sessions of prayer and seeking God’s face was more profitable than anything else. And
2) songs with meaning intead of monotonous lyrics being spit out into nothingness. I want to hear songs that help me speak words of praise TO GOD in melody. The most meaning songs to me are simply prayer in melody.
YBIC,
Gerry
1. Relevance to the rest of the service…scriptures, sermon, themes.
2. Theological depth.
3. Pray with team before, during and after service. Let the congregation sit down once in a while…so that those in wheelchairs and the elderly feel included. Don’t use worship music as mass hypnosis…keep it in the moment and fresh.
There have been times when I felt the Spirit truly guided and times when I felt I was being indoctrinated or brainwashed and that there wasn’t much difference between this ‘worship’ and a Nazi pep rally.