As I go on as a church musician, I’m more convinced that, on a practical level, the key to leading a congregation clearly is to do the simple things well.
By nature, we musicians have a (mostly) healthy tendency to be creative and to put our own personal stamp on a song. We’re quickly bored by the mundane and conservative, and like to look for fresh ideas in order to breathe new life into old chord sequences and rhythms. We get our ideas from other musicians, conference bands and, of course, our old friend, the Internet, which is a bottomless resource for learning new styles and techniques.
I’m often jealous, not only of church musicians who have a keen nose for new ideas, but even more of the extraordinarily talented who are able to execute those ideas with seemingly little effort. We who are left behind wondering what a rim shot and wah wah pedal are can feel a little outdated and dull.
They don’t care
Here’s an encouragement to all church musicians, whether full or bereft of musical élan – I hope this isn’t too much of a letdown, but in general, the vast majority of the congregation really don’t care whether the song has an out-of-this-world intro, a kicking new guitar riff or a last verse chord sequence that makes your head go boom.
Moreover, even though we may feel that our song arrangement is the most seismic accomplishment since Leicester City achieved the miraculous, our job is to build and encourage the gathered people of God, not to fulfil our own X Factor dreams. The congregation doesn’t need to know how clever the musicians are. They simply want to know when to start singing, what the tune is, and when to stop singing. They also want the musicians to keep time so that the whole thing doesn’t grind prematurely to a halt.
Best service
Of course, it’s a good thing to be able to bring special attention to certain truths and words through a carefully crafted song arrangement, but the truths will do the work in peoples’ hearts, whether or not the music we produce is innovative or not – the power is in the words, not the music. Indeed, if the congregation isn’t able to sing the words, either because they don’t know when to come in or because they don’t know the tune, then we’re not serving as best we can as musicians.
Here’s a good test of whether we have our priorities straight: do we attract and relish feedback about the style of our music, or about the content of the words? Feedback about style directs attention on to us; feedback about the words to the Lord Jesus.
Please don’t mishear – keep the good ideas coming, but please don’t invest in innovation at the cost of clarity and simplicity. Our aim is for the congregation to sing truth together, not to wonder at our music or, worse, to wonder when they’re supposed to start singing!
Top tips
So, some tips. Spend most of the time in rehearsal practising introductions to songs and links between verses, not so that the music sounds good, but so that there can be no mistake when the congregation should start singing. Then make sure that the volume is set at a level that supports the singing of the congregation strongly without drowning voices out. Why not also ask non-musical members of the congregation whether they feel the music serves them or confuses them? Ask them if the songs are set too high, whether the tunes are too complicated, or too loud. It might come as a surprise that non-musical members of the congregation don’t seem to notice if we’ve done something clever with the rhythm of a song – unless they were totally thrown by it.
It’s a worrying sign if there is a wide spectrum of feedback from ‘Totally loved that new arrangement’ to ‘That new arrangement stank’. This means that, though some loved it, both sets of people are talking about the arrangement, and not about the words they were singing. Much better (even if outdated and dull) that there is no feedback at all, but that the praises of God are sung corporately, clearly and confidently.
