I'm really excited about meeting with the praise team/band from "The Big B," Campbellsville Baptist Church tonight. We're going to prepare to lead in worship on Sunday.
Since some of you are probably curious, here's the set list:
"Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee" from Hymns for Praise and Worship
choir: "Let All That I Am Praise the Lord" by Dan Goeller
"Praise to the Lord, the Almighty" as arranged by Travis Cottrell
"Hosanna" from Hillsong United
"Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" jazz-gospel arrangement by Benji Harlan
"O Church Arise" by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend
The team I'm meeting with is familiar with most of these tunes. "Hosanna" is fairly new. The choir song is new.
And I expect to spend 2 hours with them.
What in the world will we do?
That's exactly what prompted me to write today.
We will practice getting the notes right, the rhythms accurate and tight, the form in our heads, the words clear, and dynamics crafted in a variety of ways--pp to ff and a variety of instrumentation.
Because I'm convinced worship leaders are communicators more than musicians, we will also spend time making sure we can effectively and clearly communicate the lyrics of each song.
That much we should be able to do in about 75-90 minutes. You've done the math already, haven't you? What about the other 30-45 minutes?
We'll practice.
Thought we covered that?
No. We'll practice worshiping. You see I'm thinking of the leadership principle that we can't take others where we've not already gone. Of course that's true with musical accuracy, but far more importantly it is true with our hearts, minds and souls.
So we'll worship tonight. We may linger for a while in the "Praise the Lord" section of "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty." We may do a little celebrating of God's faithfulness in "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms." We will certainly pray that God will "break my heart for what breaks" His in "Hosanna."
We'll worship.
If we never practice worshiping, how can we get better at it? And specifically, get better at leading others to do it?
How about you? Do you make room in your worship prep--whether with choir, orchestra, praise team, or rhythm section--to practice worshiping? Any tips on how you've done that effectively?
I think that sometimes we get so focused on getting everything 100 percent correct that we forget to worship. I think it is a balance that is very hard to get right.
ReplyDeleteRight on, Aaron. One of the things I've learned from Andy Stanley is that sometimes it is better to think of things as a tension to be managed rather than a decision to be made. Thanks for the comment, bro. See you in a couple of weeks!
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