Mastering the Art of Song Leading in Church Worship
In this engaging session, Eric dives deep into the significance and mechanics of song leading in church services. He clarifies that his goal isn't to recruit new song leaders but to highlight the purpose behind song leading, its impact on worship, and practical tips for the role. Eric outlines his approach, emphasizing preparation, selecting the right pitch, and the importance of congregational engagement. He also touches on thematic song selection, minimizing distractions, and encouraging appreciation for the effort put into leading songs effectively. Through detailed explanations and examples, Eric aims to inspire both current and potential song leaders while enhancing overall congregational worship experiences.
00:00 Introduction and Purpose of Song Leading
00:27 Goals and Objectives for the Session
04:31 Scriptural Basis for Singing
10:31 Practical Tips for Song Leaders
12:23 Common Distractions and How to Avoid Them
18:17 Preparation and Mechanics of Leading Songs
27:18 Understanding Song Starting Points
28:00 The Importance of Starting Together
29:11 Leading with Confidence
29:42 Adjusting Tempo and Congregational Engagement
32:02 Supporting the Song Leader
37:05 Building a Song Service
47:57 Homework and Final Thoughts
Okay, so Reagan asked if I would be willing to, we've been studying how we can improve in our service and various access aspects of our service to the church. That's the word I'm looking for. And he asked me if I could teach about song leading. Now before you run out, I'm not gonna try to convince y'all to be song leaders.
I mean, I don't want to be song leaders. No no, just kidding. I'm not gonna try to, no, no, no, no, no what are, my goal tonight is to cover what the purpose of song leading is, what we're trying to accomplish, some of the mechanics of it. And I have some overriding goals, so I'll just list those out.
So, for people who don't lead singing at all, or on a regular basis, maybe, just maybe, you'll be inspired to give it a shot, right? You'll think, yeah, this is an important work, this is something that I feel like if I gain the tools and knowledge, I could do this, and so I may want to try it. So, if that happens, great, nobody's going to twist your arm to force you to do that.
But if not, what I really want you to do is get a greater appreciation of what the men up here are trying to do as we lead singing, because It's not everybody I know of that goes up here have put a lot of thought into what they're doing. Everything is done with a purpose. And so we're trying, we're trying to lead the congregation to worship.
And if you can understand what we're doing, that'll help you worship better. And it'll allow you to help us out a little bit. You're like, Oh, okay, now I know why he's doing this. Let me, You know, support him in that. And for song leaders, just the kind of a reminder of things that you probably already know, and then maybe also give you an opportunity to share some of your thoughts as we go through this.
At the end I'll have, I'm trying to leave time for question and answer, but if you have a comment to make in the middle of what I'm saying, raise your hand, that's fine. Tonight, I'll divide, the way I've divided this up, it's going to be about, about 16 percent scripture and 84 percent opinions, okay? That's what, that's what we're Most of this is opinion.
We're gonna talk about what the scripture says, but then the rest of it's like, okay, how we best accomplish that, and that's just man's opinion. It's gonna be a lot of Eric's opinions. You can take it, you can leave it, you do it however you want to. This is just how things that I've learned over the years from other people, things that I've figured out on my own.
So feel free to throw away. So the scripture says X, but we're just going to say what's the best way to accomplish that. So just be patient. If you don't agree with me, that's fine. I don't care if you agree with me. If you think there's a way I can do it better, I do want to know that. So if you say, if you don't agree, you don't have to say it in here, but at least let me know ways we can improve.
So very briefly, I wanted to go over well, this is basically the, how we're going to go through the class. I'm going to do some, get some biblical direction. Give some additional thoughts and opinions that I have about things and they were to go actually through the mechanics of leading And what I mean is what do you do before you get the service?
What do you do before you start the song? What do you do during the song? What are we trying to accomplish? It's not going to be in depth. Try to keep a high level R. J. Stevens singing school spends a whole week, multiple hours a day studying this and we're trying to cram it all into 60 minutes. So it's not going to be very in depth.
We're not even going to look, sing together, look at music. I'm going to try to keep it very high level, but, and then we're going to, I meant to get then we're going to talk about how to put together a song service because that's a huge part of leading singing is picking out songs and, and that's how you're going to help people worship better.
There's, there's methods of doing that. Some better than some, than others. And so we're going to walk through that so that when you show up to church, when you show up to worship, and the song leader has put together this song service, you know that he's put thought into it. There's probably a theme there.
These songs are connected in some way. And so that will help you worship to see what we're trying to accomplish. I keep clicking next and have a few questions or comments. And then we do have homework. Don't panic. There's homework for everybody. I'm not going to force anybody to lead a song. But for next class, we're going to have some homework that you need to bring back to class.
And so we'll talk about that. How am I doing on time? Okay. All right. Let's look at what the Bible has to say. And I'm just going to, we're not going to read all the scriptures that has to do with singing. Everybody here knows the verses on singing. But Like some of the purposes and benefits of singing are, as you look at the scriptures, are, you know, teaching one another, admonishing.
So we're trying to teach each other what God's Word says, to remind each other what God's Word says, trying to admonish one another to do better. That's in Colossians. We reinforce the indwelling of God's Word. That's kind of a weird way to say it, but. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, singing.
Alright, so this is a method of allowing the Word to dwell in you. And so singing is a part of that. It's Ephesians 5. 20, we're expressing gratitude to God. So speaking to one another, Psalms 10, Spiritual Songs, and he says, giving thanks. And so this is a way of expressing our gratitude towards God.
There's, it encourages fellowship and unity. So in Ephesians 5. 19, you know, there's a one another aspect to this. We're singing to one another. He doesn't say, go sing by yourself, psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. There's something that happens when we come together and do it together that is special beyond what, I mean, yeah, if somebody's happy, let him sing.
James says that, but there's something special that happens when we're together. It promotes joy, James 5, if anyone's cheerful, let him sing praise, even in trials. In Acts 16, you got Paul and Silas singing. In the midst of trials, it helps us focus our hearts on God. In Hebrews 2, 12, Jesus says, I will tell of your name to my brothers in the midst of the congregation.
I will sing your praise. And so it has to do with focusing on God. Romans 5, 19, I will praise you among the Gentiles and sing to your name. So it's about glorifying God. And so this is what singing is supposed to do. And a song leader or a worship leader is a facilitator to help the church to do this during the worship service.
You might ask, well, does the church have any, does the Bible have anything to say about song leaders? Well, not much. The closest that I know of is in 1 Corinthians 14, and in the context of spiritual gifts and how we ought to view those, how they ought to view those spiritual gifts how they should think of the importance of those gifts and he talks about love is even greater than all these gifts and then he kind of shifts to.
how a worship service should be conducted in the context of these gifts. So there should be some order there. And then 1 Corinthians 14 verse 26, he says, What then, brothers, when you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation, that all things be done for building up.
And so when they're in their worship service, you know, you got a guy who says, I want to speak in tongues. And he got another guy who says, Well, I want to. revelation I received, and the other guy's like, I got a hymn I want to lead. And so you've got all these men wanting to use their gifts in God's glory, and he's trying to get them to do it in an orderly fashion.
You know, he says, you're speaking in tongues, just let a couple people do it in their own turn, each in turn. Same thing, only do it if people are there to interpret it, because it doesn't do any good to speak in tongues if nobody understands it. Thank you. If you're going to prophesy, just let two or three guys do that.
And again, let them do it in turn, one at a time. While he says, especially he says, if one's talking, let the other be silent. When the next guy talks, let him, you know, he's got to be real specific about this. Prophesy one by one. And then, you know, God's the author of confusion, not the author of confusion, but of peace.
So. You know, just from this passage, and this might be a guy who's inspired with a hymn. It's very likely that's what he's talking about because of the context. But, so let's say a guy's like, I've been inspired with this hymn and I want to share it with the congregation. Maybe that's the context. But we can, I think we can take from this that only one song leader should lead at a time.
Shouldn't be two guys up there trying to lead two different songs. It should be done in an orderly way and then assuming that the same principles apply to song leading as the others, every, people should be able to understand what's being sung. You don't speak in tongues when nobody can understand it.
Well, you wouldn't sing a song in Spanish when nobody can understand
it. Cohesiveness together? Cohesiveness together? Yes, that is a goal that we're trying to accomplish as we're singing together, yeah. We wouldn't want to sing songs that are impossible to sing. So, you know, we're, we're trying to keep these principles in mind as we go through this. I was going to go into the history of this.
We have an early writer that talks about Christian singing. And they, in typhonal singing where you have the singer, the leader would sing a phrase or sing something and the congregation would respond. And that's how typically their singing would go. The leader would sing something and they would respond.
It could be a call and response. It could be a question and an answer. It could be a repeat, repeating what he said, but that was generally how things were done. So here's my thoughts about this. Each person in the congregation has a responsibility. To obey these verses about singing, right? Everybody are going to have to answer to God about how they obey these verses.
People should actually be singing, not just mouthing the words. They should be actually praising God, not just saying words. They should be actually teaching one another through song, not just mouthing the words. But we really should be engaged in this, and etc. And each person sitting in the pew will either benefit or miss out, depending on how, how They obey these verses.
Now, as a song leader, I have an opportunity. Right? Yes, you have a responsibility to worship no matter what I do, but my opportunity is, I can lead in a way that helps the congregation, or I can lead in a way that hinders the congregation. And it's really no different than, like, teaching. Like, you know, if you're preaching, everybody has a responsibility to listen to the sermon and get something out of it, but the preacher's trying to present it in a way that's easy to digest so that you can understand it, have something to take away from it.
It's the same way with song leading. And yeah, we want our singing to be beautiful, but why do we want it to be beautiful? Not because we just like the sound of it, because the better our singing is, the better our worship experience can be. If it's just a bunch of noise and nobody knows what's going on, yeah, I have a responsibility to focus.
But, you know, it's going to be a lot harder for me to do that, so.
So, I need to very at least avoid things that will distract from worship. So, it, and this is something I take very seriously. Like, if I do something up there and I feel like that has distracted someone from worshiping, that bothers me really bad. Because, like, I can imagine someone's, like, really engaged in thinking about the words, and they're really worshiping God, and then I do something that pulls their attention away from that, and I feel like I feel like that's a responsibility.
That's something that I did to prevent somebody from worshiping. I feel terrible about that. And so I don't think most songwriters feel that way. That's why we put a lot of thought into what we do. We're trying to conduct this service so that I don't pull you out of that moment where you're having communion with God, you're having a communion with their brethren, but the very least, we don't want to do things that hurt.
Beyond that, we want to find ways to enhance the worship, to make it even better, and I think that's what. So, here's some examples of things that could distract, you know. Announcing the wrong number. You know, dumb stuff like this is like, be really confusing if people turn to a page and you start singing a different song.
Like, it's going to take time for people to find it. Singing it too low or singing it too high is distracting. Singing it too slow or too fast could be distracting. Too loud or too soft, or I can't hear the sound of the air I'm trying to follow, that could be distracting. Facial expressions, if you miss a note, that's fine, don't make facial expressions.
It's distracting because it's not about you, it's about about not distracting. Excessive movement, now there's got, you, we'll talk about movement's important, but don't move so much that it's distracting from people who are trying to worship God. It has to be intentional and, and to help motivate them.
Anything that draws attention to myself in any way, really, I need to be present enough that people can follow me and worship, but that's enough. People should forget that Eric standing in the pulpit. other than me keeping the beat and they can hear me singing, if they start thinking about, oh, Eric's doing this or Eric's not doing that, I've messed, ruined the opportunity that I've been given to provide them an excellent worship service.
Even something like coughing in the middle of a song, that's distracting. You're like, well, how can I help that? Well, sometimes you can't. I'm just saying things like that are distracting. Drink lots of water. We'll talk about that. Drink lots of water. So your well, your vocal cords are very lubricated while you're singing, right?
laughing, or a song choice can be distracting, or starting before everybody's ready, or before anybody's ready, or singing songs with questionable lyrics, where people have to think, Hmm, is that really, is that really scriptural? That's taking them out of that worship moment. Even if it's a song that's really scriptural, if they have to pause and think, One example is one of the new songs we led that I've led, and the original, the original verse in verse 4 says Jesus, you are man.
And I thought about that, and I was like, is Jesus man? And I talked to Harold, I talked to Reagan, I talked to some people about, is Jesus still a man right now? I know he was a man, but is a man now. And the first time I sang it, that's what I was thinking. I wasn't thinking about the rest of the words on the song.
I was stuck on this idea, is Jesus really man now? There's a scripture that says he might be, you know. So I changed the words, we don't sing it that way. I changed it to Jesus you were a man, because I don't want people being distracted by that at all. That's important to me that people can. Worship without being distracted.
So here's the mission statement. Oh man, where'd it go?
All right, I was going to give you the example Where's my alarm going?
And here we go. This is what I want to show
Way behind schedule. Okay Our mission statement is to help the congregation have the best worship experiences possible while worshiping through song That's what we are trying to accomplish while we're up there And the guiding principles is we only want to do things that will help and do nothing that will hinder or distract them from worship.
That's the guiding principles on everything, the rest of everything I'm going to talk about tonight is based on these things. So, if I go up here and I blow a pitch on a pitch pipe, that's, that's purposeful. That's not just so we can sound pretty. That's because of the guiding principles. We want to do things that help people worship and not things that distract them.
Yes, sir. A
good song that he
sang, he said, Now we're going to raise this a half step on the last verse. And I thought to myself, and it was already a high pitched, I sing tenor, it was already a high pitched song. And I thought, this is going to be a disaster. And sure enough, it was. Nobody knew what to do. He was singing it up here and people were trying to find it.
And stuff like that is just not wise to do. Mm. There might be some congregations you can get that, get away with that on if they've practiced it, but if they've never practiced it, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. Alright, I was going to talk about nerves. We can skip that. I mean, the more prepared you are, the less nervous you're going to be.
That's just the general rule. And this is going to sound bad, but if you're wanting to be a better song leader, I'm very critical of others. And I don't mean that in a negative way. I mean in like, I'm watching people to say, what do I like about what they do? And what is it that I don't like about what they do?
Because I'm trying to learn how I can be better. So if somebody does something that I like, I take note of that and I say, I want to do that. So Owen is a good example. I've learned from Owen because he looks around, he makes eye contact. There's things I like about the way Owen leads that I've tried to do better since he started leading.
And I really mean that. There's things that people do that I don't like. I'm not going to bring that up. But you know, there's things I'm like, I'll never do that because it's distracting to me. I don't like it. So I think it's fair. Not to be negative towards people, but I think as trying to improve and see what is distracting to me and what helps me to worship.
But anyway. And ask your wife, she'll be glad to tell you how to do better on it.
Okay, let me Now, my slides are all messed up. Let's go through the mechanics of actually leading. Oh, I actually have handouts for this. Yes. Exceptions,
and we can be intimidated by that. We can, we can, we can take from this, and if we, if we travel, we go to a small church, there might be one or two men there, And I've had them ask me, say, Sir, I'm the only man here and there's three or four women. Are you willing to help? Yes. Or if you move to another congregation, and it may not be as gifted as Timberland.
Right. And You jump in there, just, so, be ready, be prepared. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. I was, I meant to mention that, in the purpose of learning these things, because someday you may have to do it, you know. I've been to churches where there's just one guy there and he does everything. And yeah, thank you.
Any other comments? Jump in there. So the stuff you do before starting the song is probably the most important part of leading. I mean, yeah, it's important while you're up there to keep the congregation together, but to me, the preparation is more important. That's going to help you do all this. So all the work you do to prepare, all the stuff, getting the congregation ready to sing and once you start the song, yeah, there's important stuff that happens, but it's basically keeping people together.
And we'll talk about that, but There are things that need to happen before you get to that point so that you're prepared to do that. So, I have this little handout. I've given this to the young people before when I've taught this. And these are just things you can kind of stick in your Bible or your songbook to remind yourself.
But, you know, first you're going to just look at the song and say, you know, how am I going to lead this song? Like, what tempo am I going to do this in? Do I want to sing it soft or loud? How am I going to, how am I going to beat my hand? If that's what you want to, you don't have to do that. How am I going to pitch it?
Um, Is there any comments I'll want to make? And you're also studying it to see if there are any surprises in the music. You know, if you don't practice, you just picked a song random and you start singing, you might realize, oh, there's parts of this song I don't know. Or there's parts of this song that there's a funky repeat that I didn't know about.
Or, you know, It's too complicated for me. There's a lot of pauses or something that I don't know how to handle. So it's, it's important that you study your songs ahead of time to know what takes, you know, what you're going to get into practice them. And then before you, I, I'll recommend before you even come to services, you do some warm up exercises for your voice, if that's just singing songs or singing scales or whatever, just to, especially in the morning, it's the worst time to lead singing because you're, you still got morning voice and it's like and, and just drink plenty of water before you even come to services, drink a lot of water and then praying is super important.
Now, I think a lot of people probably do this, but. You know, I've been lead singing for a long time, but I still, before I go lead singing, I have a little bit of nerves and, and I pray. These things, I pray, please help me lead this congregation in a way, and don't let me get in their way, and help me to do this.
And I'm not worthy to lead these people in worship, so please don't let the focus be on me, please let the focus be on you. And these are the kinds of things I pray as I'm sitting there getting ready to go, because I want God to get the glory and not me. And when I finish leading singing and people are like, oh, I love when you lead singing, that's super embarrassing.
Yeah, I'm like. After all these things, I just wanna run up to the car and talk to people because I really, I honestly don't want them to focus on me. I want people to walk away thinking I had a great worship service tonight today or this morning. So, anyway, prayer I think helps with that. It gets the focus off of you, helps you be less nervous because you're not really focused on how well you're doing and you know God's there and you're, anyway, I could keep talking but I need to move on.
Okay, so now I'm up here. I've got my song picked out. I'm ready to lead. I say feel free to comment, but keep the comments to a minimum. You know, you're not there to preach a sermon. You're there to lead a song. I think it is helpful to make comments. We'll talk about that later. We're talking about putting together a song service.
If you're trying to help them understand what thought you're trying to accomplish, but make comments, but make sure everyone can hear you. Use the mic. If you're announcing your songs or you're talking, speak loudly, even if, you know, even though there's mics, there are people who have soft voices. Speak loudly and clearly into the mic.
Announce your numbers clearly. Now this is going to seem excessive because we have things on the screen, but this is a good habit to develop. Announce the songs clearly, repeat the numbers in multiple ways, because 70 and 17 sounds very similar, right? It's hard to tell the difference between 17 and 70.
And then you're saying 70 and a baby screams, or you're saying 17 and somebody coughs, and people didn't hear what the number was. And so repeat it multiple times, loudly and clearly. Here it's not important if it's on the screen, but there are people here who can't see the screen. They use books exclusively and they need time to turn the page and get there.
They need to know which song we're singing so that when we start, they can start with us. And we want everybody to worship together. Once again, these are all opinions, but I feel strongly with a lot of these. It helps to announce which verses you're doing. I mean, these are minor things, but they all add up.
So when you're singing a verse that has four verses, we sing verse one and verse two, you get to the end of verse two and you're waiting to see, is he going to start verse three or verse four, what version, you know, it's that whole wait to see. And then you've got some songs where it's the same words until you go here and it changes, and you're like, what verse are we even on?
And so, It's minor, but that's taking my focus away from the words I'm singing. So it's just minor things like that. If they know ahead of time, we're doing one, two, and four, they don't have to think about it. They just start singing verse four and give people time to turn to the song. Find your pitch.
So you don't have to use pitch pipe, but it is important to start a song relatively close to the right pitch. So we, my, my brother. We have a funny story we laugh about when my brother, when he was in high school, leading singing, he was like, singing There's not a friend like the lowly Jesus. And he starts off, There's not a friend like the lowly Jesus.
And then he realized, man, that's way too low. Sorry guys, I'm gonna raise that up. And then he started even lowering that. There's not a friend. And then the basses were trying to sing. And it was just, That was distracting, right? Nobody could even sing the song. Not even the Sopranos could sing it because it was too low, much less the basses.
It's important to get the right pitch. Some songs is more important than others. And that's why I had to skip it. A lot of stuff I had up here. Nope. Go back, go back. Right. So y'all are familiar with this song where no one stands alone. I don't recommend anybody lead this song unless your name is Barrett Durin, but, this song.
This song gets up there, right? Nah, take my hand. It's right that much higher than my highest note that I can sing comfortably, right? It's super high, which is kind of risky for a song anyways. Like, the congregation is probably going to struggle with this. But if you were to pitch it too high, what's going to happen?
I mean, you're done. The congregation is done. They're not thinking about the great unknown and take my hand, let me stand. They're thinking about, man, too high. I can't sing it. You think, well, I'm going to lower it too bad. You can't do that. Cause look, the basses are singing about as low a note as a man can comfortably sing.
An average man can comfortably sing. So if you pitch it too low, now the bass is you're like, Oh, hitting the bottom of the floor trying to sing this note. And so. You know, it's not about we want to do it correctly because that's the right way to do it. We're thoughtful about people being able to sing the song.
And there will be songs that I think are too high that I'll lower because I can look at the bass and say, Okay, that's okay. I can lower that a little bit or I can raise this because I want it to be more comfortable to sing. But you just want to be thoughtful of that. So if you, you need to find some way to start the song at a relatively good pitch.
Okay. Let me give you a guideline. I mean, most of y'all don't care because y'all are probably never going to leave, but anything that's like, if your first note is from here ish down to right below here, that's a good, comfortable, you're just singing a note. That's your normal voice. Anything above that's going to be high, anything below that's going to be low.
So if a song starts down here below the staff, no, you need to start the song low. You can't start it high because this is going to go up from there, right? And if the song starts way up here, you're going to have to start the song high. You can't start it low because it just goes down from there. So you can kind of look at where it's on the page as to how high or low I need to be singing.
Now there's There is way more to it than that. I'm just, this is for the non music reader. You can kind of look at where it is on the staff to know I need to start this low or I need to start this high.
Okay, you might ask why do we do this whole do, re, mi, it's kind of goofy and it is goofy and it's kind of embarrassing sometimes but we want everybody to be able to start singing at the same time. So if I'm a tenor or I'm a bass and you just start singing, it's going to take me a minute to be like, okay, he's singing.
Okay, here's my tenor note. Where's the bass note? Okay, here's the bass note. Here's the alto note. And I may have missed a measure or two of the song trying to figure out where my first note is. We're just trying to eliminate just that little bit of distraction that happens at the beginning of a song.
Everybody's got their note. Everybody got their note? All right. So everything done so far is just to make sure that everyone is ready to start together. Ready to worship together. And by the time you start the song, everyone should know what song we're singing. They're turned to the song. They know what the first note is.
They're looking at you, waiting for the first beat. And then we all start together. That's the idea, is that we want to start together. And then during the song, we want to stay together. And at the end, we want to end together. Because we're worshiping together. Seems like a lot of work. So during this song, you know, you're the, this is something that Deanna had to tell me a lot.
Like, you're the leader, just be the leader, right? When I was younger, I'd be like, well, if it's not too much trouble, would you turn to song number 90? And I think we might sing the first and last verse, you know, real timid and not wanting to be real confident. She's like, look, you're the leader. Just tell us what we're doing.
We'll follow. Pick a tempo. And go with that tempo and let people follow. Now,
but be forgiving, okay? You, you like, alright, I've decided this song needs to be fast. There's a reason I've, when I was preparing my lessons, I decided this song needs to be fast. So I started at 106 beats per minute. The congregation doesn't want to sing it that fast. So there's some times where you're like, okay, I'm gonna have to make an adjustment real time because I want the congregation to be able to worship.
So, but pick a tempo, stick with it as best you can, but be forgiving. Sometimes you just started too fast. You got to make adjustments to that. My grandfather was a great song leader. He's one that inspired me a lot to be a song leader, but he's one of those guys where He was a metronome man, and he was singing, the congregation would be a measure behind him, he'd finish a song, and we'd still be singing for another five or six seconds.
And he's like, well, that's the tempo I wanted to lead, we're gonna sing at that tempo, and you gotta keep up. I, you know, there's some, little bit of truth to that, but I think mostly, it's more important that we worship together, not that we stick to the same tempo. There'll be times I'll start a song and I'm like, okay, this is not working out.
Purposefully slow it down and try to average it out. But there's some times I really want us to sing at this tempo. So I'll just give stronger beats like the altos you're dragging. The altos are the worst, man. Don't give them a lead. They will drag it no matter what. So, you know, give them big beats so they know it's simple.
But anyway, again, make sure everyone can hear you. So even if you've got the best beat pattern in the world, you know, all the fancy stuff. Most people don't know what you're doing. They are probably not even watching you. They're probably looking down at their book at the screen, but they can hear you. So you need to sing out.
They'll follow your voice more than they'll follow what you're doing with your hands. Make eye contact with people. That's something I gotta do better at. Clearly indicate the beat so everybody's together. When you're switching verses, you know, let people know. Okay, we're going to verse three. We're going to verse two.
And they give a clear cut off at the end, and don't leave till the song's over. I kind of rushed through those, but, because many times, that song leader is about what they're doing. Just like you said, nobody's paying attention. We have a job to do, too. We need to follow those leaders. Thank you. You just made my next point. So, this is something actually Reagan brought up. Like, okay, great, we're not song leaders, but help the congregation, help the song leader.
And that's where I was gonna go with this. Thank you. Bye. So, you're looking at this list, and you're like, okay, these are the things the song leaders are trying to accomplish. And so, let the leader be the leader and follow the leader. So, when you come to worship on Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday, and the song leader's up there, he's done his preparation, he's ready to lead.
He's like, okay, let's start this song. Everybody be sitting there and watching and ready to start when he starts. Rather than being distracted, you know, once again, it's not about making the music beautiful, that would, that is great, that helps me worship, but starting together sounds minor, but when it's like, you know, a few people start, people start, so then we slowly build up not as powerful experiences when we just all start together.
Hey, we are doing this together, we're starting together. Or worshiping together, and we're gonna finish together. And it's, it's a mental thing. I don't know, maybe I'm just getting hung up on something that don't matter. But that, I feel like Mark said, you know, let's follow the leader. Help him out, and, and sing out.
Let him know you're worshiping. It's, it's discouraging to me when I, I'm bleeding, and I'm really into this song, and I look out and there's somebody that's like this.
And we have people that do that. And. You know, I get it and some people, you know, it could be they're sick every Sunday. But you know, get people to benefit it out. But it's discouraging, right? You put so much work into this and you really want people to have a great worship experience. It's discouraging to see that.
So sing out, be engaged. I mean, you don't have to put on a show for the song leader, but at least, at least be looking and being attentive and thinking worship. Once again, it's not about the song leader. You really should be worshiping God and teaching one another, but it helps if you go, like Mark said, it helps if you follow what the leader's trying to do.
We don't have this problem here. Reagan brought this up. I've had this problem at churches I've gone to where people are leading from the pew, like, well, that song ain't in the right key, so I'm going to Tell them what the right key is, or this is the wrong tempo. So I'm going to tell them and you'll have someone from the pew leading the singing.
I mean, I just don't think that's appropriate. I think it's distracting to everybody else. It's discouraging to the song leader. And yeah, so let's work with the song leader to help them out. And then afterwards, great job. Appreciate the work you put into it. You know, I understood what you're trying to do.
That that's super encouraging.
And it has a little cheat down here if you're interested. We're not going to talk about that, but this is how you can find your Do Re Mi's and the beat patterns. Okay,
once again, hearing you is important. Be loud. Josh will turn you down if he needs to, you know, I know it's nervous. You get up there. I have the same problem when I get up here and I'm like at the very beginning, I'm like, welcome to the services. We're going to start by singing number 200 and I do it. I mumble.
I'm not real strong at the beginning. And then more I go, the stronger I get, the louder I speak. You got to pretend like you're not nervous and just. Speak with confidence because people need to hear they need to know you're in charge and it you know We're going to worship god. This is what we're going to do and just be confident
But if it happens it happens and that's a very good you're going to make a mistake that's a very good point I was worried preparing this material that put too much pressure on people like wow if I cough, you know, i've just ruined everything That's not what i'm trying to do. I'm just trying to impress the importance of what we're doing You And so, yeah, you're gonna make a mistake.
It's just gonna happen and you learn from it. You're like, okay, I'm not gonna do that again. You've gotta remember these things and just do better. So thank you. Like everybody's, you know, gonna down you looking at you. Oh, I messed up. Yeah. Most people are like, I'm glad I'm not up. You
can make a mistake. We do that, but not when the song leaders are making, I gotta move on , you know, that one time. Let's skip to, alright now about putting a song service together. Back to our mission statement. Look, we're just trying to do things that will help, we don't want to do things that will distract.
Building a song service. I'm going to spend a little bit of time on this because this this is as important or more important than leading the songs because, I mean, I guess they're equally important, but we song leaders, we have to pick out songs. for worship. How are we going to do that? Well, we could pick our favorite songs, sing our favorite songs every Sunday, or we could just pick random songs or we could just ask our wife, what songs should I lead?
Or, you know, there's various ways of doing that. I feel like songs that are connected by a theme are usually more impactful than random songs. Usually, I think picking random songs can be effective. I'm not saying don't ever do that. But in general, if you pick songs that are related to one another, that's going to stick in people's minds.
It's going to reinforce those ideas, because you're saying the same thing in different ways, and expressing it in different forms of music. So, having a theme is very helpful, and most of our songwriters do that, if not all of them. And if you're trying to put one together, the songbook has topical index, like you can look up heaven, They give you a list of songs of heaven.
They give you a list of songs of devotion. That's a great place to start. You just look at the topical index and say, here's some related songs. You're going to be limited by that because there's a lot of songs that are connected that aren't going to be listed in that way. but I think it's important to pick songs that are related.
And make sure you read the words of the songs to make sure they're related. There'll be songs that maybe just the second verse is relevant to what I'm trying to say. Not the first and third verse. And so reading through the words will help you identify like we're singing about a topic, but then I sing about something that's completely unrelated to the topic, and then we come back to the topic that kind of takes you out of the mindset that you were in before, right?
So you're thinking, I want the congregation to worship and trying to pick things that help and things avoid things that don't help. So you don't have to sing every verse of every song. I know people who feel that way, not people in other churches, but they wrote four verses, you gotta sing four verses.
But for me, it's more important that you're thoughtful about what you're singing and how you're putting it together. Eric's opinion? Take it or leave it. A lot of people like to match the sermon topic. So Reagan would get lots of texts, what are, what are you going to be preaching on Sunday morning? And then they'll take that idea and they'll build a song service around that and there's a lot of benefit to that.
The whole service is related. That's good. It's really cool if you get with the dude that's doing the Lord's Supper and tie all three of them together. So you got the singing, you got the guide to the Lord's Supper, you got the sermon, you talk to the people who are leading prayers and say, this is what we're going to be singing about and worshipping or studying and include that in a prayer.
That'd be super cool too. The idea is that you want when people are worshipping, not, it, it, you can jump around subjects, but I feel like it's more effective if you kind of stay on the same topic. You can start with a Bible verse and build around that. Or you can just pick a topic that you think is good.
I personally, this is different than other people, it's me on Sunday mornings, I always try to focus my songs around Jesus and salvation. I don't just have one Lord's Supper song. The whole song service is usually to focus our, our thoughts around that, one of those concepts. That's just Eric Bond's way of doing Sunday mornings.
Other people will do the sermons, that's fine. But you have to have some way of choosing a topic. It's also helpful to not, to change up the keys of a song. So we're talking, it sounds minor. But if every song is in the key of G, it can kind of get tedious and boring. If every song's in 4 4 time it sounds dumb and most non musical people wouldn't even think about that.
But if you think about, I'm going to sing it in G, and I'm going to sing a song in you know, E flat, and I'm going to sing another song in A flat. You're moving around the circles, you know, you're moving around the key. That keeps the song more interesting, the song service more interesting. Sing a fast song, just sing a slow song.
We'll talk about that in a minute. Mix in some new songs and old songs if possible. But just be thoughtful about how brand new songs can hinder worship. I gotta go through this because, well, we'll talk about it in a minute. So, here's an example of a Sunday morning service. We're doing opening songs. Prayer.
Actually, I need to take out one of those topics. I thought I did that. I didn't do that. It should just be one topic. Anyway you do a song. Some people do an opening song, another song, and then a prayer. And some people do a song, a prayer, and then two songs, a Lord's Supper song. There's different ways of doing this.
But I generally think the opening song, Eric Fon's opinion, It's good to have like a worship song that's kind of upbeat. You're getting people, okay, we're getting started. See, Sean's lighting it up. You're, you're getting people's blood moving, right? You're trying to get people, okay, we're, we're doing something now.
You don't have to. And not necessarily even have to be a fast song, just not a really slow, somber song. Just something to kind of get people, unless that's on purpose. There have been song services where I was like, my theme, I want people to start off somber and quiet. That's the whole purpose of my song service.
I'm not saying you can't ever do that. The Lord is in His holy temple. That's a slow, soft song, but that's a good one to start a worship off with because you're getting in the mindset. So it's all about what are we trying to get people's minds focused on. I would do a prayer the next song, you know, if you want to keep up the intensity, that could be an upbeat song, but that'd be a good time to change the mood a little bit, maybe do a slower song, do a different key, different tempo.
Next song, you switch key tempo, but you might know the Lord's Supper is coming up, so I might want to. Connect those songs in some way. If you're singing short songs, you can add an extra or whatever. But so these are things that song leaders are thinking about when they're putting these things together.
Not just randomly throwing songs together to worship. So, I think, personally, it's helpful if the song leader lets the congregation know, this, this, this is what I'm trying to do in this song service, instead of leaving it to the congregation to figure it out. So the congregation's like, okay, we sang a song about heaven, and then we did something, we sang another song about heaven, oh, I wonder if the theme is about heaven.
Well, I could have told them that to begin with, and then they could just be focused on that the whole time without trying to figure that out. Minor stuff, but I think it's stuff that's helpful. I do have an example. Well, alright. Yeah, I had an example here somewhere. Okay, this is one I did a long time ago.
So, I started with the verse Philippians 2, talks about we ought to have same mind of Christ, that although He's in the form of God, didn't think He was something to be grasped, He emptied Himself. Y'all know that passage. I built a song service around that. So I started out with I stand in awe, I think is a great passage.
song to get our mind in the worship attitude, thinking about how great God is. And just, he's more than we can comprehend. That's the idea. It's like, man, I just, when I think about who God is, I just am in awe of him. And then after we sang that, we had a prayer and I was just mentioned, like, we just sung about how great God is.
Then you read Philippians 2 about this God becoming man. How can I even fathom that? And then, you know, I could, I read Philippians 2, which is a little bit of a long reading, a little more than I would normally do in a song service, because I'm not preaching a sermon, but I am trying to help people see how these songs are connected.
And then we sing about, and can it be that this great God would die for me? The one we just sang about, that's unfathomable beyond all understanding. Can it be that He died for me? And then right before the Lord's Supper we sang, He loved me so. So these songs are all tied together. I'm trying to, you know implant this thought in people's minds as we sing these songs to really reinforce this idea of this great God did a great thing for me.
And after Lord's Supper we sing, Ode to Be Like Thee, like that motivates me. I want to have the same mind that's in Christ, like we read in Philippians 2. Have the same mind among you that's in yours in Christ Jesus. So, this is very thoughtful. We put thoughts into this. So as you're, as you're worshiping, You know, try to be thinking of these themes that the song leader may be a put together or something.
Alright. Do we have any questions or comments? Because I am going to assign. Any thoughts about this section?
It kind of knocks me out. I think, I think
you can get that out of 1 Corinthians 14. That's the idea of not speaking in tongues unless there's an interpreter. Because, Nobody's going to get anything out of it. And so I think that same principle applies in here too. If you pick a song, a brand new song, nobody knows they're going to really struggle to worship in that.
So I agree. We need to use some judgment on that. I don't, I wouldn't say it's never okay to lead a new song on a Sunday morning. I would never say that. I just think it needs to be thought. You need to think about it carefully and be purposeful about that. And I agree with you. For me, and there's a lot of people here who are very musically inclined, I can sight read a song, and it's not usually a problem unless it's a hard song.
But I gotta remember, that's not everybody. And a new song. They don't know if it's going up or down. They don't know if it's going to be hold this note out or be short and they're just struggling to figure out what in the world we're singing and that that's totally distracting from what we're trying to accomplish.
You make you make a good point about that. I think we need to be careful about that. Anything else?
Okay. Here we go.
We're almost out of time. All right. We do have homework. Now I'm going to give you three options. Well, it's really two options. The third one's going to, everybody's going to have to do the third one, whether you.
It's not something you're going to bring back next week. There's two options of homework to bring back next week. First option would be I don't know why this clicker is not wanting to work. I want you to pick a song. This is not, I don't think this is going to apply to, well, anyway. You have the option of leading a song next time.
So pick a song. Practice it. Work on it, know how you're going to lead it, and, and bring that song next week, and we'll give opportunity for people to lead a song. If you've never led a song before, like Jerry said, we're going to be very forgiving, and we'll just be excited you're standing up there. I mean, just giving it an effort, I mean, is great.
I would love for people to do that, but I realize most people in here who don't regularly lead is just not going to do that. What I think would be, that would be awesome if you did that, but I think what would really be helpful is if, oh, will you help pass these out? It's awesome. What I've done. This, these templates are actually correct.
Take some time to put together a song service. So I gave two templates there. The only difference is the order in which you do a prayer and the second song. But I would like, you know, you've heard this a hundred times. You learn more from teaching a class than you do from sitting in a class, right?
You've heard that a thousand times. I can tell you what, I've had my best worship experiences when I'm up here having put together the song service. I know every word of every verse and why I chose them. I know what I'm trying to do up there. And I've had the best worship experiences up there than I've had down here.
And so, once you get to the point where you're not nervous anymore and you can actually worship up here, It's pretty cool because you're getting to see everybody's face worshiping God. You're locked into the words because you have chosen the songs with a purpose. And you're worshiping God. It's a great experience up here.
And so, hopefully that motivates you to do, to lead singing. But if not, I want you to at least go through the process of building a song service. Because you'll come to appreciate the amount of effort that goes into this. You know, it's not like you just sit down for two minutes and throw together a song service.
You can. If somebody texts you and says, hey, I can't make it to services, will you lead for me? Sure, I can throw something together and it'd be reasonably decent. But I know the song leaders here and they don't do it that way. They either, they're flipping through their songbook, they're looking at scriptures, they're thinking about what's the sermon going to be about, they're reading the words, they're, But a lot of thought into how they're putting these services together.
And I think it'd be helpful for everybody to go through that exercise at least once. And you'll come to a greater appreciation for what happens up here. And then what would be cool if you did that. Bring it back and it kind of explains to you what your thoughts were how you pick these songs will take turns or Some method.
I haven't figured out how we would share this and then you know, if I like it I might do it on sunday, you know, you know, who knows? They will collect them up all the song leaders can choose from them But I think that'd be super helpful for y'all to go through that exercise And then for the next several weeks just really make a conscious effort to help the song leader.
I mean You If nothing else, hopefully you've had a greater appreciation of what we're trying to do, and being really encouraging to us and help us out while we're leading. All right. Any final comments or questions? I need to eat. I was smoking earlier. What's that? I raised my hand and I said, Oh,
no.
But you might have a talent you don't realize.
You're good about giving people opportunities on when to get better. They've expressed interest. They want to improve. And that's a good opportunity for them to lead and improve. And so if you have the least bit of interest in doing that, you know, I'll be glad to work with you individually or whatever.
You know, we all have something that Some talent we're given and we need to figure out what that is and use it. And that, so, I had another thought, but anyways, y'all, y'all have anything else? Ephesians 4. 30,
so I guess we're done.
I guess let's close it with a prayer.