The Worship Pastor at my church recently returned from a three month sabbatical. I had the opportunity, along with a couple other guys, to lead a little more frequently in his absence. While getting somewhat back into the groove of leading regularly was a blast, as I reflect on various services I led I was reminded of the danger of the exceptional service. Why? I was given the opportunity to lead roughly once a month, so I would spend the time between services meditating, praying, scheming and mapping out the service coming up next. That’s a lot of prep for a single service. And God really did bless those services (in spite of all my hard work, I might add). It got me thinking, “Wow. I really am a great worship leader – I had almost forgotten. Man I can’t wait to get in a church where I can do this every week!” My first thought was that I would be able to bless whatever congregation God led me to with the most incredible worship services every week. Then God poked my brain with a 2×4 and reminded what a ludicrous thought that was.

What’s wrong with having an exceptional worship service? Nothing, really. Excepting, of course, the ever lurking danger of pride. First, though, let me explain what I mean by ‘exceptional worship service’: a service where everything goes right. Not perfect – just right. It’s not that the musicians don’t make mistakes (or even yourself), but that the mistakes that are made are either overlooked or don’t affect the service. You, as the leader, are tuned into the Spirit and everything just flows – everything you planned and pulled together comes together, not because of your effort but because of the blessing of the Lord.

This is a good thing – this is what you strive for every week. Right? Maybe. Maybe not. When the exceptional becomes the norm, then regular becomes sub-par. So do you only attempt “awesome” services infrequently, or at least spaced out? Wouldn’t it be awesome for your church to be that church that has the most awesome services ever! Every week!

But that’s a lot of pressure. You have to deliver every single week. There’s no let up, no time off. Oh, wait – you can draft a lay leader in every now and then so they get a little experience (and maybe remind the congregation why you’re the best worship leader ever!). Then when you can come back you can do an even awesomer service (yes, by the way, awesomer is a completely valid word, please ignore your spell checker).

Any experienced worship pastor/leader knows that the last seven sentences are ludicrous. Not every service can be a high point, a climactic event in the life of the church. “Why not?” you ask. As unrealistic as the expectation is, the reality would be even more dangerous and unhealthy to your congregation. It’s the greatest danger in the pentecostal and charismatic circles where there is an almost euphoric spiritual ‘high’ sought by many in every service they participate in, and services are often (consciously or unconsciously) graded on how incredibly the Spirit moved within them.

Every denomination, church, even congregant has their own way of grading services though, whether they find them to be exceptional or not. Baptists are as guilty as Methodists or Presbyterians or even those in any of the numerous charismatic/pentecostal alliances or denominations. As worship leaders, we are as guilty as those we lead, though we often grade the services using different standards.

But what should we strive for? Should we seek to make each service more incredible than the last? No. Should we schedule in a ‘tricked out’ service periodically? Say…maybe once a quarter, or something like that? Again, no. So we should seek normalcy in our services? The danger of normalcy is it often turns into drudgery.

My personal solution, my personal perspective is that you take each service on its own. Every church has a liturgy (or pattern) within their worship. This is always a great place to start, as long as you keep in mind the option that things could be changed around. Don’t force it, but rather let what the pastor is teaching guide you in your service prep. Make sure you are regularly spending time in prayer and in the Word, so you are tuned to the Spirit. That way, as you meditate on what the preacher will be sharing on Sunday you can be tuned into the need (or even opportunity) to mix things up, change things around. But never do it for the reason of creating that “exceptional service” but rather so that you can better shore up, emphasize and even apply what is being taught.

God moves differently every week. ‘Exceptional’ services are great, but in reality, they are merely different. What is exceptional is when God moves and touches someone’s heart. That can happen when you use an order of worship you’ve used a thousand times. The danger of exceptional worship services versus normal ones is that the focus shifts from what God is doing to what we are experiencing. Let us shepherd our hearts (and our people) so we do not seek an exceptional service, but rather we seek our exceptional God.

A few weeks ago I posted a Scripture Challenge. I gave the passage for the message of a service and asked you to think about how you would go about setting up a worship set for a Sermon/Teaching on that passage. Now I’m going to revisit that challenge and let you know how I approached a service in which the main passage was Galations 4:12-20. I have to confess, though, that in retrospect I wasn’t quite as forthcoming about the details of the service as I should have been. There was another element in the service which significantly affected the development of the worship set: Communion.

Whenever you have Communion in a service, there must – at least at some level – be a decent focus upon the Cross and Christ’s work there. Luckily for me, the approach I wanted to take to Galatians 4:12-20 worked extremely well with Communion. My general thoughts on the passage was that Paul was expressing frustration and even exasperation over how the Galatians had strayed from the original Gospel of Grace he had preached to them and they had been saved under.

The key to the passage – at least partially, in my mind – is that they (the Galatians) had stopped considering the work of Christ as being all they needed for salvation; they were trying to supplement it with works. So the main theme for the worship set is how Christ’s work is all we need and that when Christ died on the Cross and rose again our salvation was complete – nothing else is needed to be right with God.

So here’s how the set worked out:

Opener:

• Hallelujah (All I Need) – from the Catalyst Music Project
• (Opening Comments)

Worship Set

• Enough – Christ Tomlin
• The Glory of it All – David Crowder Band
• Scripture Reading: Heb. 10:1-4, 11-14
• It is Finished (Hark the Voice…) – Red Mountain Music

Offertory

• God of All – Catalyst Music Project

Communion/Response

• God of All – Catalyst Music Project
• Saviour King – Hillsong

You can give the whole set a listen on Grooveshark if you so desire.

This is going to be the last post (for now) on creating chord charts. After getting all your lyrics and chords laid out, with instructions for the band as well as adding some measure indicators, you just need to take a step back and look over the chart. Is there too much information cluttering it up? When you look at it does it just look like a mess of letters and words and slashes? Here’s the biggest question for me (at least right now in chord chart creation): can I glance at the chart and almost immediately pick out where the chorus is (if not a chorus, then separate sections)?

Here’s the reality, while your team will use the chart at first, many musicians memorize at least partially as they learn. So they will be glancing away from the sheet to check on your visual clues, but also just to focus on worshipping (I hope). In any case, when they turn their eyes back to the chart, will it be easy for them to find the section they need? If not, maybe some re-working is in order.

For most songs with a chorus, that chorus is the primary division of the song – if you can find the chorus, the section you need (if not the chorus) is right above or below the chorus. Your musicians must be able to find that chorus at a glance! In using charts that are not quite so clearly laid out, I’ve found myself making brackets or lines or just drawing around the chorus of various songs I’m playing just so I don’t lose my place when I have to look away.

Recently I ran into this issue in creating some chord charts for a service I’ll be leading soon. I resorted to different methods for different songs. On one song, “Hallelujah (All I Need)”, I found the writer’s chord chart on his site, but  the sheet was really minimal and after creating a chord chart I realized it was pretty involved. I resorted to putting a box around each chorus to set them apart from the rest of the chord chart. I think it came out pretty good without making the chart overwhelming.

Another song, “God of All,” had a chord chart on the album website, but (again!) I found the chart to be inadequate – primarily because I was going to tweak the arrangement and I wanted to notate the changes in the chart. After getting everything down, the chart wasn’t too busy, but the divisions were just not sticking out to me. Instead of resorting to boxes, I just added extra blank lines between each section of the song, which turned out rather well.

Here’s one more option for making the chorus of a song stick out from the rest of the song: indent all of the song except for the chorus. It might look something like this:

verse verse verse
verse verse verse

chorus chorus chorus chorus
chorus chorus chorus chorus

verse verse verse
verse verse verse

chorus chorus chorus chorus
chorus chorus chorus chorus

bridge bridge bridge
bridge bridge bridge

chorus chorus chorus chorus
chorus chorus chorus chorus

This method is a little more subtle, but it can be effective. In the end, there are many different ways to make sure the divisions of a song are clearly delineated. The method is less important than its effectiveness: does it help the instrumentalist quickly find where they want to be on the page or does it distract?

After getting the basics down and then adding some instructions for the musicians, now you’re ready to do a little “advanced” chord charting (at least that’s what I consider it!). Why call it “advanced”? Well, anyone can do a chart as I did in my basic setup, but you actually have to understand time signatures and measures to do this. You do not need a degree in music theory, but you do need to understand a few basics of it.

I tried my hand at mapping out an entire chord chart with measure/beat indicators. Here’s how it came out. It looks a little overwhelming, doesn’t it? Yeh, and I’m not too happy with how the rest of the chart came out. Overall, though, any player could take this chord chart and just about play along with the song, even if they had never heard it before. All they would need is the rhythm pattern. Oh, and note at the bottom where there was actually a more syncopated chord progression going. I had to go over that part separately with the band, because to try and notate it within the chart would have made things much more complicated than they already were and more confusing than they really needed to be.

Also note how in the chart shared above how I’ve marked each individual (quater) beat of the measure as with a backslash, like this:

|G  /  /  /  |D  /  /  /  |C  /  /  /  |

But if the changes are just on the first of each measure, then an instrumental section might be better marked this way:

|G         |D       |C      |

That looks much cleaner and is just as easily understood: the chord change obviously happens on the first beat of each measure.

While it might be effective to map/chart out an entire chord chart with these measure markers, I’ve since drifted more towards a minimalist approach to indicating measures in chord charts. Here are my basic guidelines:

1. Instrumental sections should always have measure markings.
2. If the chord changes (for singing sections) are simple and straightforward and can be easily understood without measure markings, then I do not use them.
3. However, if there is any measure(s) which has an atypical chord change for the song which would best be clarified through indicating measures

You could sum up my thoughts thusly: “If you don’t need ‘em, don’t use ‘em!” (or “less is more”)

Okay, we’re almost to the end of this series on chord charting. To finish up, I’m going to go over a few pointers on making chord charts as effective as possible.

So you’ve got a basic chord chart down, with all the chords on it. But a song chords do not make. There must be dynamics! Instruments must enter and exit, they must lead and paint the background of the song. And the vocalists sometimes must sing in unison, sometimes in parts, and sometimes only one or two should sing. (hint, if you’re not doing these things with your team then you really should start!). But how do they know when to do these things?

In short: you tell them!

Actually, you can do better than that. You can notate it in your chord chart. Of course, note that if you begin including notes for the musicians (singers and instrumentalists) in your chord charts, they will more often than not run into the two page range of length. Which is fine, at least in most scenarios (and in my experience).

Here’s an example to check out. As a side note, did you catch the what was not on that chord sheet that was supposed to be? Copyright/License information. Yep, this was a chord sheet emailed to me (I won’t say from who… . Suffice it to say they have since changed their ways – but do not make the same mistake. including that information covers the legality (through your church’s CCLI license) to distribute copies of the music of a song.

Okay, back to the task at hand. Did you note how there were, in blue, notes on when certain instruments entered? This is a song that builds, but you can also include a note such as “no piano”, or “no electric/acoustic guitar” as well. You will have to draw attention to these specific notes on entrances and exits for your band, but as they get used to having the notes they will begin looking for where you have them in and out.

Here’s a short list of “commands” you can use  - you don’t have to use these or just these. As long as your team understands what you intend is the key.

• Full Band – this means all band members in, playing their respective parts at the strongest dynamic
• Break – an instrumental break where all instrumentalists mute their instruments
• Piano only – piano is the only instrument playing
• add Bass – a common phrase to indicate the entrance of the Bass into the song
• Vocals melody – all vocalists on the melody line
• Vocals parts – all vocalists on their respective parts (however they have been divided up for the song)

The key to understand is that you can notate within your chord chart when you want specific instruments and singers. This serves two purposes: first, to help you remember how you decided you wanted the song to be arranged; second, to cut down on questions in practice on entrances and exits. Always be open to suggestions and input from your team, but having a plan already in place for a song cuts down on you having to make a call on the spot about something you should have already figured out.

Next up, indicating measures and providing more specific information on chord changes to your team in the chord chart: Part 3!

So you need to create a chord chart, huh? Well, lets dive in and see what that involves. The first thing to do is to check and see if you can find the chords online. And no, I do not mean to hit guitar tab sites (those should definitely be a last resort). Check the artist or group’s website first to see if they have copies of the tab or chord charts for their music. Here are a few I’ve found:

• Sovereign Grace Music – in their online store they have a section for the sheet music where you can download lyric and lead sheets for all the albums (at least the ones I looked at) and even guitar charts for a few. Note that Lead sheets use a music staff with chords on top to show the lead melody line with chord changes.
• Shane and Shane – Shane Barnard (of Shane & Shane) has a site where he has tabs and lyrics of most of their songs.
• Red Mountain Music – they offer lead and guitar sheets for all their music.

So, last resort, if you can’t find music on the particular group/artist’s site for the specific song you need to create a chart for, you can hit the guitar tab sites. Always – ALWAYS! – check the chords yourself. Make sure they are right and you understand how they work in the song. You are responsible for the chord chart you give your team, so make sure you make it as simple and clear as possible. Some charts list moving or transitional chords along with the primary chords of the song – figure out if/how you want to differentiate these, and if your team will even need them. If you’re not going to use them, then don’t put them on the chord sheet you give your team.

And if you haven’t noticed yet, I definitely believe in creating a specific chart for your team, whether or not you can find an official one or not. A little extra work up front yields a chart created specifically with your team in mind. This is a very good thing.

Alrighty, check out this example of a basic chord chart. Consider this your baseline model – it has been stripped of all extraneous items and is just a chord chart.

So here are the basic elements of a chord chart, top to bottom:

• Song title
• song lyrics and chords
• copyright and CCLI info for legal purposes

Yep, pretty simple. If your church has a CCLI license (and they should, no argument), then you can get all the copyright and license info you need from them – in fact, they have a huge database of song lyrics as well. You can download the lyrics and the copyright/license info (specific for your church) from their site and just paste it in a document file – it saves a lot of work! Then all you have to do is format it.

Note in the main portion of the chart, where the lyrics and chords are, how the chords are written (approximately) over top of the words where the changes happen. This is the most simple way of conveying to the band where the changes are – it syncs them up with the singers. There are fancier ways of conveying chord changes which better indicate meter and timing, but that’s another post.

As far as format goes, the sky is the limit, but simplicity is key. This chart is one I created about five or six years ago. The church I minister in now uses a different format. The song title is still at the top, but the copyright/license info is right under the title. Actually, both the Title and copyright/license info is in the page header, so it shows up on multiple pages if the chart extends past the first page. I would suggest including a “page X of Y” section on any header/footer with information so that players can differentiate easily between first and second pages.

This type of chart means that you either have to teach the team the chord changes and rhythms or have them listen and pick it up themselves – which is perfectly acceptable. The sheet serves more as a reminder of how the song goes than a music sheet which tells them how to play.

Okay, after understanding this very basic format of the chord chart you can begin to add other elements, like vocal direction, instrumental entrances and exits, repetition instruction, chord changes, etc. That’ll be coming in my next post!

I had an excellent discussion after my last post with a good friend of mine at work. He very wisely perceived one of the implications of what I was arguing for in the post. If a service is to have a focus, which is known far enough beforehand so that everyone involved in the service can plan their portions appropriately, then that plan must be arrived at much earlier than the week of the service. The question arose about whether or not you can be Spirit-led and plan out services weeks and months in advance.

My friend quickly agreed with me that the Spirit could undoubtedly inspire and lead planning, no matter how long in advance it was done. But his reaction evidenced a primary difference I have seen many times between Charismatic/Pentecostal churches and their preparation process and that of other more reserved worship practices, say the Baptists for example. It’s not that Charismatic or Pentecostals do not believe the Spirit can lead them in planning out three months of sermons ahead of time, but rather that they (commonly) conceive of the Spirit’s leading to be more immediate, more “in the moment”.

I would never disparage that perception, but I would challenge it’s scope. I grew up in and lead worship for years within that atmosphere. But it has its limits. You might have noted in my brief list of Chris Tomlin quotes how he stated, “Those who are most prepared are the most led by the Spirit of God.” This is key, in my mind. Planning out a service does not limit the Spirit, at least if it is done with much prayer and true desire for God to be worshiped and encountered as well as the Body to be ministered to.

I have actually found that in services which have been planned rather thoroughly (albeit with much prayer!) that I actually feel very, very free. Why? Since my preparation has been so thorough I am able to focus more on worshiping and leading in worship than I am on what is going on and what might happen next. But even in that the Spirit leads the service, not me (or the Worship Leader). I must still be sensitive to the Spirit and mindful of the congregation. Sometimes a chorus needs to be repeated an extra time, or the congregation needs a little extra exhortation, or there just needs to be a moment of silence between songs, to all the Spirit time to work on the hearts of the people.

My main point in this post is to encourage you not to fear planning ahead. I’m not talking a week in advance, I’m talking weeks and even months in advance. It frees a pastor to be able to dedicate an entire week to developing a message to minister to the Body instead of the last few days of the week. And it offers the Worship Leader the opportunity to have more time to find those songs which will “perfectly” serve and minister to the Body.

When you seek the Lord and truthfully desire and seek his guidance you can proceed with the confidence that he will lead and guide you, whether or not there is writing on the wall or a voice coming from the air. His desire is to use you, and in being willing and available you will surely walk the path he has set for you.

When a church decides it’s service is going to be traditional or contemporary, they unnecessarily box themselves in stylistically. I’ve already commented on the dangers of churches creating separate traditional and contemporary services, so what’s my perspective on this very pressing issue in the church? My answer is simple, really: focus.

That’s it. Focus.

But what does that mean? Well, I’d liken it to some level of purpose-driven worship, but that would be a misnomer in the end, because its less an emphasis upon the purpose of the service and more a focus upon God and what he wants to accomplish in the hearts of the people.

Consider this over-generalization of the elements of a traditional service:

• A choir with a leader (who doesn’t necessarily sing)
• Simple instrumentation – usually organ or piano, rarely a mix thereof
• traditionally led from hymn book, though could be done with lyric display now
• large majority of songs would have been found in a hymn book from 30-40 years ago
• Songs generally have minimal dynamics, with the emphasis being upon singing a specific set of words (verses 1, 2 and 4 – for example)
• high emphasis upon respect and honor (very low on emotionalism and experience)

Yeh, I know that’s a very stereo-typed list. Check out my version of the stereotyped elements of a contemporary service:

• Band-driven – i.e. drums, guitar(s), 1-8 vocalists, and other instruments, sometimes including piano/keys
• most songs sung are less than 15 years old
• songs (if played correctly) have a strong dynamic elements
• emphasis in service upon experience and an encouragement to engage emotions
• more informal atmosphere

There is also the Emergent worship movement, but I consider that a mutated variation of the contemporary service. It’s primary emphasis is upon the experience, and it merges very modern concepts of art with a blending of more liturgical styles with contemporary practices.

In the end, most modern-day takes on the worship service tend towards a purpose-driven model. But the fault here is that the purpose-driven model seeks to bring something about – it has something to accomplish. What I am proposing here is less trying to do something more trying to perceive something. Trying to perceive what, though? To perceive Christ, to perceive the Gospel.

The question to ask when preparing a service is not “What do we want to accomplish in this service?” but rather, “What does God want to say to us – to show us through his Word – in this service?” That is your FOCUS.

Once you know what the Focus of the service is, then you choose songs, as well as styles which complement and reinforce it, which help the congregation contemplate upon it. There are always solid hymns which explore these themes, but the use of them should always be equally evaluated alongside many modern songs/hymns which will also complement and/or reinforce the Focus of the service.

If the Focus is best served by a Gospel song, then use it. If the Focus would best be served by a quieter, simpler set, consider just using an acoustic guitar or two with a djembe (or two!). Maybe you really just need two singers for that set as well.

But maybe the Focus calls for something bigger, and you need to pull out all the stops. Call in that violinist you keep on speed-dial for special occasions. Round up a few extra singers. Make sure you have at least two electric guitarists as well as the acoustic. And challenge the keyboardist with songs that’ll have him/her stretching between two keyboards!

Just realize that hymns are songs just as praise choruses are. Some are more theologically correct than others – but each of them says something and explores something about God and his Gospel. Do not choose a song because it is a hymn or because the congregation likes it. Choose it because the congregation will best be served by singing that song on that day, when the preacher is going to be teaching about that specific topic/passage.

This way, when the service begins, it’s not about ‘doing’ church, it’s about knowing Christ – knowing him within the context of the local body worshiping together. And it’s about focusing on him and what he wants to speak within that body on that day.

The beautiful and wonderful part about teaching exegetically through the Bible is that it forces teachers/pastors to work through and engage more difficult passages. To me, at least, there is almost an exciting challenge to it (when I’m teaching) – how can I open this passage to the body so they really understand and see what the writer and the Spirit are saying through it?

But as a worship leader, in designing services, themes work much, much more easily for us. And if it’s going to be a passage, ones like 1 Corinthians 13 or Ephesians 1:3-14 are near perfect – very straightforward with strong themes to draw upon when making song choices.

But what do you do when the passage is, well, just not so straightforward or thematic?

I was handed a service recently with Galatians 4:12-20 as the passage which the pastor would be teaching from. Verse 20 ends with “…for I am perplexed by you.” (ESV) What does a worship leader do with a passage like this?

Well, I’m going to let you stew over it for a week or so (as ::cough:: I am as well…). Here’s a couple of clues, though:

• context is very important (context of the book, the passage in relation to the rest of the book, the book and passage in relation to the New Testament as well as the rest of the Bible)
• The thematic movement you use for the service you develop will not directly mimic the theme or direction of the passage – remember, you are setting the stage for the exploration of this passage.

That’s all I’m going to give you for now – I’ll break down how I am addressing and working with this passage next week!

I had a wonderful time today on Mother’s Day worshiping with my parents at their church. After the opening song by the band, a man stepped up on stage and said he wanted to share with us Colossians 3. Which he proceeded to do – from memory! My mom remarked to me that this gentleman has the rather admirable practice of memorizing large portions of scripture, which he shares with the congregation every month or so.

As a side note, I want to note that the way the man presented himself and the literal Word that he was bringing was not in the attitude of a superior, “Look what I’ve done” attitude. You could tell that he was sharing the Word of God with the Body to bless it.

The more I learn about the New Testament, specifically the many epistles, the more I appreciate the oratorical element to how many of them were written. The authors were aware that their letters were going to be read out loud, at least to a specific congregation, if not to many. So the way this gentleman was bringing the Word to the congregation was very much in line with how it was brought to the local bodies nearly 2,000 years ago.

It seems to me that our people all too often are fed bits and pieces of the Word. Yet the Bible was never meant to be digested one sentence at a time, each separated from all the others. I think it is essential for our people to be regularly presented with (i.e. read aloud) larger portions of scripture. Multiple paragraphs and even entire chapter(s).

If you have people (specifically those talented in the dramatic arts) who can memorize, or at least dramatically read, these larger portions of scriptures it can be a wonderful way of helping bring these words which date back nearly two thousand years alive once more. Your people need to be continually brought face to face with the Word itself, and utilizing the talents and/or abilities which lay in your people is a way in which you can do this and at the same time encourage and empower the members of your congregation to serve and minister to the Body.