In response to the need to train Christian musicians to serve Bible-teaching churches, we set up a Music Apprenticeship Scheme a few years ago.
If you know of anyone with a servant-hearted love of Jesus and the Bible, and who is also a musician, here is ‘A day in the life of a church music apprentice’ to give you a flavour of what an apprenticeship might involve. The author is Andy Cowan, who now helps run the music at Christ Church Kensington in London.
‘I recently learned from my boss that I got my place on the Music Apprenticeship Scheme on the strength of being able to tune a guitar successfully. What he didn’t know, of course, was that was about as far as my guitar skills extended. Thankfully, however, over the course of the apprenticeship my chord repertoire expanded and not only do I now know nearly five chords, but I’ve also learned how to alphabetise songs that start with “Oh” and “O”; how to produce banshee-like feedback with minimal effort; and that if you drop a bass guitar on your toe it hurts. A lot.
‘In fact I learned a wealth of invaluable lessons — it is an immense joy to look back and reflect on two years as an apprentice, and there is far too much to mention in so little space.
The actual form of the apprenticeship was divided into rough thirds of training, practical/admin work and ministry. The upshot of this was a huge amount of variety, and little scope for boredom. Within the week, every day was different: morning chair-moving in the church building could be followed by sitting down to read the Bible one-to-one with a student from the church. This in turn might lead to some time behind a computer, thinking about songs and hymns for the coming Sunday, before heading off to a lunchtime prayer meeting.
Water the organ
‘After lunch there might be some time to sit down and work for a few hours (maybe preparing a Bible study or talk or just general reading), before then nipping back into the church to water the organ (which sounds much weirder than it is), change guitar strings, file away music, or work on a funky arrangement of the songs or hymns for that Sunday.
‘An average of four week nights would be filled with various meetings, whether a prayer supper, weekly Bible-study group, evangelistic event at church or local student Christian Union.
Black eye
‘I should say that it wasn't all smooth sailing. I did once give myself a black eye trying to take my guitar off at the end of a service. Organising musicians for rehearsals is a curious activity too. Words like 'herding, cats, blindfolded' pop into mind. In fact, just getting myself to things on time was an almost herculean task.
‘Also, early on I tried to get into the spirit of Christian musicianship by bringing in a rainbow strap for my guitar. It was confiscated on sight and I never saw it again, but what I lost in the way of technicolour guitar straps I gained enormously in other ways. If you want to explore the possibility of full-time Christian music ministry, there really is no better way. The service planning process is a lot of fun, and the opportunity to sit with the church leaders and see how the Word of God directs the life of the church is priceless. The Cornhill Training Course is outstanding, with a great mix of teaching, thinking and practical training in understanding and communicating the Bible in a variety of settings. The music-specific training was great too, termly training days, yearly conferences, and plenty of scope for developing and experimenting musically.
Music apprenticeships
‘Even more, it was such a joy to be involved in helping God's people encourage one another and praise him week by week. At the front you find yourself in the rare position of seeing people and being able to look them in the eye as they bellow out great words together.
‘Above all we have a great God to serve, and a great gospel to proclaim. Music ministry is an area of church life that is crying out for people to be trained to prayerfully handle God's Word as they plan and lead music in churches. The Music Apprenticeships are a fantastic way to be a part of that.’
If you’re interested, please contact richard@music-ministry.org
Richard Simpkin is Director of Music at St. Helen’s Church, Bishopsgate, London.
