How to be a Worship Leader – Part 2

In part one of this study I defined being a worship leader in these terms:

To be respected, and therefore to influence others for the advancement of the Kingdom via your daily display of heart-felt humble adoration and reverence of God in all you do.

Or to put it more simply: acting out your total love, praise, and thankfulness to God the Father, in every action you take and through this example, inspiring others to do the same.

You may think this sounds intimidating and therefore might wonder, “Do I have a responsibility to others?”

Jesus was once asked the greatest commandment of all and in responding he gave us two. In that second commandment he commits us all to acts of service to others. In Matthew 22:39 Jesus says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

The logical result of this order of things that God has put before us is simple; you are not the priority, God is #1 and the service of others follows. God didn’t tell us to love ourselves first, then treat others in a similar way. No, he directs that the capacity we have to exalt ourselves needs to be spent in exalting others. Put plainly, it is to be God first and others second.

So how do we do this? A systematic Bible study reveals a 4-part doctrine, or foundation of worship:
Biblical worship must be done in love. No love – no worship (1 Corinthians 13)
Biblical worship is always accompanied by humility and reverent fear (Isaiah 66:2)
Biblical worship is commanded by God (Luke 10:27/Matthew 22)
Biblical worship involves surrendering your entire life as an offering to God (Romans 12:1)

Love, humility and reverence, obedience, surrender…

This begs the question, so how in fact do we lead others with our worship of God? The four foundations of worship is a lot to handle, and I will admit that I do not always feel capable of being a worship leader. Most of us feel handicapped in our ability to influence others, especially when it comes to relationships. In her job my wife works with disabled children every day. To put the concept of being handicapped in perspective for all of us, here is a revelation that she discovered:

My life is forever changed because of what I have learned about the power that He {God} really did create us all equally! I remember when I asked God what makes handicapped people different from me or the all the other people, Why did He create them so different? And He spoke to me very clearly and said, “The difference between them and you is that their handicaps are on the outside in plan view for everyone to see and yours are on the inside and can be camouflaged so there is really no difference”…So I learned we are equal!

We all have the similar levels of deficiency; some people just have the ability to mask theirs a little better than others. So I say, get over it, don’t be intimidated by people’s camouflage and begin to see yourself as a leader from the position that God has planted you in. Yes that’s right, no matter where you sit in the sanctuary for a worship service, no matter what chair you find yourself at during the work week, no matter what group of people you find yourself in relationship with inside or outside the church, all of us are to be leaders from whatever position we hold. God gave us a beautiful picture of how the Body of Christ works together in Paul’s epistle 1 Corinthians chapter 12. In part he says, “in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.”

Since we have been given a responsibility to lead, and God placed us where we are at, it seems we all must step up and claim our position of authority in Christ and how we interact with the world and others. And yet you still may not think of yourself as a leader. The next time we will cover the idea of being a lead worshipper vs. being a worship leader.

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State of the Music Biz and the Indie Artist

I spent some time today reading about the state of the music biz and it was a bit depressing and demotivating. Musicians and industry people complain and bemoan the fact that folks are downloading and sharing all sorts of music for free. I.e. there is no money in it anymore. The big rant is that the average artist can’t make any money, etc. and no one seems to know who the enemy is. There are equal parts of bashing iTunes to praising it; there is the whole P2P thing (basically if you are just a little tech savvy you can find any movie, music, video game, etc for free on some version of a peer-to-peer networking site), burning CDs, sharing files, etc.

I may be wrong but it all seems to go back to that time vs. money thing. If I want the music quickly and easily and in the format I desire (CD, mp3, iTunes, etc.), I will pay for it. If I have the time to ask my friend for a loaner, or burn a CD off my buddy’s computer, or am willing to invest the effort in some torrents software (avoiding all the viruses), well I can get it for free. People share stuff they like, so burning a CD for a friend is quite normal anymore. When I was a kid we used to make compilation tapes of our favorite songs, theming them based on things like “driving music” or “mellow stuff.” We would title our compilation tapes and then pass them about to friends. Tapes like “in your face,” “burn,” and “closers” were pretty cool stuff; you can imagine the types of songs I put on those tapes. We never felt we were stealing or ripping anyone off. In a way we were paying homage to artists we really liked and the artist got even more popular to our circle of friends. Today it’s even easier; you can make a playlist in iTunes or whatever software you use, and share it around (making a tape would take me an hour or more; making a playlist takes less than 30 seconds if you know what songs you want). Same deal I guess but it removes something crucial from the picture back in the day: relationship.

Which leads me to a thought about the ranters out there who are complaining about the state of the music biz. What’s missing here is relationship. Technology is the thing that has enabled independent and unsigned musicians to easily get their stuff out there for people to hear but now it is what they are bashing. USB drives, flash cards, cell phones, smart phones, digital downloads, etc. have all in one way or another made hard copy music (records, tapes, CDs, reel-to-reels, you name it) near obsolete except to a niche market, the exception being where the medium makes sense (see time vs. money comment above) in communicating a message that would be lost if this specific medium was not employed. So we all can share stuff for free now, which gives us exposure, but free = no money so we cannot get paid for it. Heres the scenario: I drop hard earned cash on studio time, then pay money for artwork and to have the CD replicated, and I’m don’t sell anything. Oops.

I may need to dwell on this one a bit more but for now I will say that indie artists will make money on the relationship end of the spectrum. I.e. at shows, person to person, via their website, etc. I once heard that the best musicians in the world will never be known. So even if a musicians song is the best of its kind, they cannot just toss it out there in internetland and hope they will make money. The internet is not a winning lottery ticket that requires no work. If their song is *really* popular (your goal right?), people will share it (equals free, not your goal right?). This will make that artists popularity increase within certain circles and niches, but that still doesn’t necessarily translate into money. If money is what you are after you have to have a product that people cannot get without paying for it. A product that differentiates from all others on the market. That, my musician friends is you. You, in relationship with that person. This could be face to face, could be via a social networking, could be on the web, but the bottom line is people will only pay for what they do not already have, or if they need more of something expendable, or if the perceived value is high enough. Free is the new black so music is devalued. Yet it is still a necessary part of our cultural fabric (nothing God invented will decrease) and so if you want to make money off of it you will need to add the relationship component. This usually happens at a gig.

Even artists on major labels have this issue. I read an article about someone who sold 2 million units of their song/album and ended up owing the label over $200,000. The only way the label got that many songs sold is through heavy promotion like an expensive video, etc. The only way the artist will pay them back, according to the article, is by touring.

Touring…as in gigs right? Relationship wins every time.

Want to hear some free music? Visit http://www.destinysong.com/worship/Audio.html

For an interesting, and occasionally colorful article on this subject, read this from respected veteran rocker John Mellencamp in the Huffington Post. Linking this does not suggest I agree with his political views, but if you read the article you’ll get a great look into the history of how we got to where we are today. Click here.

Coldplay a Guitar Influence?

Okay so I was casually listening to the album “Parachutes” by Coldplay and something jumped out at me that I never really noticed before.  The main riff and guitar solo in “Yellow” seems to be the template for almost every single contemporary worship guitar solo that has happened ever since.  Now when one thinks of guitar influences, most especially in the last 10 years, certainly Coldplay doesn’t jump to mind.  (In fact, I wonder if there has even been a major guitar influence in the last 20 years.  A friend of mine was explaining that Matthew Bellamy from Muse is a big deal but unfortunately, I couldn’t hear the major leap I think that all electric guitarists are secretly hoping for.  But that’s just me.)  Nevertheless in “Yellow” that solo is the style that every electric guitarist in the modern church has had to either a) learn or b) doesn’t know anything else exists.  It’s the 8th note, two tone (think 2 strings), all downstrokes, just north of broken sound, with delay on it.  Yeah you could say that came from the Edge, and it’s pretty obvious that Coldplay’s biggest influence is U2 (by admission from the band, but then again they also claim Delirious? is an influence.  But hey, Delirious? is most influenced by, you guessed it, U2).  I have heard “Yellow” many times and never put 2 and 2 together until this last listen.  It was released in 2000 and became a bona fide hit (#5 in UK) and it broke the band to a worldwide audience that embraced a new fresh sound (that sounded like u2 and Delirious? but that’s a niggling detail for anyone under 18 at the time).  Okay so to wrap up:

1) Most Christian guitarists and Christian artists I know listen to and love Coldplay

2) “Yellow” is one the band’s most popular songs and has this guitar solo/riff in it

3) Since 2000 most modern worship has guitar solos that sound like “Yellow.”  

You listen to the song and tell me what you think.  But prior to 2000 if modern worship even had a guitar solo, it certainly didn’t sound like everything coming out of Hillsong and the Passion guys.  Weigh in!

The Future of Music

CD sales have dropped.  A friend of told me that the #1 selling CD in the US last week only moved 63,000 copies.  This is insane when you figure that not too long ago hard copy CD sales could exceed 2 Million on the first week of release of a popular artist’s latest recording. 

According to marketingcharts.com “Enders forecasts that overall music sales in 2009 will be half the level of the peak of the CD boom.”

I quote the IFPDI Digital Music Report 2008: “Tens of billions of illegal files were swapped in 2007. The ratio of unlicensed tracks downloaded to legal tracks sold is about 20 to 1.”

The Economist on January 10th said: ” In America, according to Nielsen SoundScan, the volume of physical albums sold dropped by 19% in 2007 from the year before—faster than anyone had expected. For the first half of 2007, sales of music on CD and other physical formats fell by 6% in Britain, by 9% in Japan, France and Spain, by 12% in Italy, 14% in Australia and 21% in Canada. (Sales were flat in Germany.) Paid digital downloads grew rapidly, but did not begin to make up for the loss of revenue from CDs.…”

I wonder what this means?  Is it that paid music is gone, or at least going?  Or is it that music is going?  I do not think it’s music.  Since music was invented by God for His purposes, maybe God is just taking it back.

God has a purpose and a plan for how He will use His creation to further the Kingdom.  We need to be willing to be used by Him in this new global revolution.

My friend put it this way: “People still want music, just the format will change. I really feel that the Lord is almost holding something back from our understandig at this moment, but it will be revealed shortly.”

More to come…

When all Around Has Fallen

One the best songs ever written is “When All Around Has Fallen” by Martin Smith of delirious?  This song has ministered to me over the years on many occasion.  Music has a unique quality in that, even when we are not open to it, it has the power to pierce through our human walls and drive an emotional lightening bolt or even act as warming honey to our hurting souls.   Sometimes, even at the most unsuspecting of moments, music calls and draws us out from the darkest places.  But just as powerfully, it can take an emotional and spiritual high and, just like lift to a bird or airplane, raise us up even higher than we thought possible in a magical kind of way.  It is no wonder I have come to the conclusion that music was created by God, for His purposes.  It is a supernatural thing.  

The song “When all around has fallen” acknowledges our human frailty, but also honors the true faithful.  (The line “you used to be a king here” makes me think of the times when we find ourselves on the mountaintop, and we live there for some time, there creeps in a sense of ownership and appointment by God.  Yes, God does use man to accomplish His purposes, and chooses to promote and to cast down.  This is a radical concept and reality that affects us all.  But I have seen that some people focus on the “anointing” a bit too much, often in my experience, to the point where they are looking and seeking for an anointed person, and when they find that person, they lift them up.  They feel compelled to tell that person how anointed they are and they lift that person onto a pedestal.  This can create in a person like myself a strong sense of obligation to fulfill those people’s needs and expressed desires.)

Martin Smith has a way of being open and honest in his lyric writing.  Often times I feel as if I am getting a peek into his personal journal when I listen to his music.  That certainly goes for this song.  It expresses in a profound and deep way the things I have walked through the past few weeks.  Today I was on my way back from a lunch with a dear friend and local worship pastor and I put this song on.  I stopped by our regional park and just sat and listened to it and let the words minister to me.  I’ll admit, any song that has a Jesus perspective in it sometimes comes off as irreverent to me.  I often think, “who is man to think he can identify with Jesus?”  But since I have been through a personal tragedy of lifetime-changing proportions, I am just now beginning to understand what Paul refers to in Philippians 3:10 as the “fellowship of his suffering.”

“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death”

This past year contained the most shocking surprise of my life; that of betrayal.  I never thought the things that transpired were possible to happen to my family and me.  But for some reason, God allowed this to happen.  I praise God that in times like this we can turn to Jesus and he will lift us up, carry us, and give us the peace that passes all understanding, reminding us that the really important things in life are unchanging.

When All Around Has Fallen

When all around has fallen your castle has been burned
You used to be a king here now no one knows your name
You live your life for honour, defender of the faith
But you’ve been crushed to pieces and no one knows your pain

Come, come lay your weary head be still my friend
Come, rise I’ll place my sword upon your shoulder
Come, rise with me

When tomorrow has been stolen and you can’t lift your head
And summer feels like winter your heart is full of stone
Though all your hopes have fallen your skin is now your only armour
Wear your scars like medals defender of the faith

Come, come lay your weary head be still my friend
Come, rise I’ll place my sword upon your shoulder
Come, come lay your faithful head, be still my friend
Come rise with me

Written by Martin Smith ©1995 Curious? Music UK

The Stand – Bad Capo

Okay here’s what happens when your worship pastor screws up and accidentally capos one fret off.  No joke.  I slammed that capo on the guitar so fast I was 1/2 step off from the rest of the band.  This might be one of the funniest things I have ever done in a live setting.  Listen as everybody in the band tries to find what key we are in.  The semi-tone dissonance borders on making you nauseas.  I want to formally apologize to the team for embarassing them in front of a full house.  This thing actually gets more hilarious the more you listen to it.  Click to listen:  The Stand – bad capo

Song of Living Praise

Click Here to Listen: Song of Living Praise  As most of you know, we’re all about writing a new song to the Lord here at MSC.  We just recorded a Concert of Praise and over the next few months we’ll be producing it and creating our 4th CD.  In preparation for that event we recorded some of our church services and created some demos of songs so the team could rehearse with them and learn the tunes for ongoing church services and also the Concert.  I am going to start posting some of these songs out here for you all to enjoy.  First is “Song of Living Praise.”  This song was inspired by many scriptures but the keys ones are Romans 12:1 and Acts 1:8.  Here are the lyrics, enjoy the tune (recorded post-service on a Sunday morning). 

Song of Living Praise

Verse 1
You poured Your Spirit out on us
A Father’s love displayed in grace
Now that I’ve tasted living water
I sing a song of living praise

Chorus
To be a witness for Your glory
A banner of Your love
Lord I’ll live to tell the story
Of Your grace,     of Your unfailing love

Verse 2
And where Your rivers go they heal us
Now there is life where there was death
We are Your chosen generation
Our lives a song of living praise

Bridge
And I’m ready now, Lord send me out
To sing a song of a heart set free
I will be Your hands and feet

Copyright 2009 Destinysong

Concert of Praise/Recording Night

This Friday night we are having a Concert of Praise at MSC.  We do these intentionally throughout the year when I feel the Lord is speaking to us that we should gather with abandon in praise and worship of Him.  They are different from our regular weekend church services in that the music time is a bit longer (hence the moniker “concert”), a bit more passionate, a bit more intimate, and a bit louder. 

This night is significant in that it will be a launching for our church in to the Fall season.  It feels as though we have entered a new season at the church as well and hopefully this night will be especially glorifying to God and unifying for the body. 

This night is also significant because we’re only going to play songs written by members of the MSC worship team and record the event to become our next full-length live worship CD (targeted for release in Spring 09).  The team is fasting, praying, and doing a book study together.  This is warfare on many levels and I believe we are going to birth something in our church in praise and worship.  It makes sense therefore that there is spiritual warfare happening.  But what we loose on earth will be loosed in heaven an we’re loosing joy and adoration of Jesus Christ and I have to believe that in the heavenlies there will be victories as well. 

Purpose Statement for Music

I am giving the sermon in our church this weekend and I am going to be speaking on the Biblical perspective of music.  I want to give the definitive statement of the purpose of music.  In preparation I came up with the following purpose statement for music that I want to post out here to get feedback on.  Here you go!

“Music is a creation of God and has existed in the heavenly realm even before the creation of the world; it currently is, and will be used in the heavenly realm for eternity to bring praise, worship and glory to God. God sowed music into the fabric of the world for His purposes, to be used by mankind for the purpose of God’s glorification.”

Worship Through the Storm

Worship as it relates to suffering is a subject of discussion that doesn’t seem to be widely talked about. The book “Blessed Be Your Name: worshipping God on the road marked with suffering” by Matt and Beth Redman addresses some of the biblical approaches to suffering and making the choice to worship God no matter what. Here are several thoughts to ponder directly from the book.

Isaiah 43:2 says, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned…”

“Worship is a choice the choice to praise God despite the pain a person may find themselves in. It’s at these times of suffering when we can do nothing but trust God. Do we have faith to believe God is God of the storms of our lives? Faith will always fan the flames of worship. We need to be reminded that God’s love, and loyalty will never run out, and are new every morning.”  

Lamentations 3:22-23 says, “Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

Psalm 13:5-6 says, “But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, for he has been good to me.”

“When we can’t seem to perceive God amidst our path and the clouds of anxiety and fear closes in on us, the way forward is to remind ourselves of what we know to be true and dependable. The unchanging grace of God.”

Psalm 42:5-6 says, “…Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him. My Savior and my God…”

“To worship God is to tell Him that we believe Him for who He says He is. I believe in the sun even when it is not shining. I believe in God, even when He is silent.”

“Yes, every act of worship is a choice, a decision to believe and respond to God for who He says He is; no matter how pressing our circumstances. And the greater the pain we’re experiencing the greater a choice it may be.”

“Sometimes we will walk blindly, unable to understand a certain situation.  Our only comfort being the knowledge that God Himself is not walking blindly, but instead, kindly, and firmly in control. So often God will often take our broken moments and weave them into a powerful tapestry to the glory of his name.”

“To praise God through all of the storms is to fully praise and worship him. To know that he is Lord over all and has a perfect plan.”