September 12, 2007
The Unexpected
The unexpected... it happens to everyone who leads worship. A broken string, starting a song in the wrong key, or a song that turns into a train wreck. This past weekend I led worship at CFC and the drummer had a work situation come up. He had to miss the Saturday evening service. This created logistical problems (he was giving the tempo on about half of the songs) as well as a big "hole" in our sound, at least the way we had rehearsed it. We made some adjustments and got through it, but it got me wondering how we should think about these little hiccups that happen from time to time. Here are some thoughts:
1. Excellence is the goal, not perfection. We have to be careful not to make technical perfection into an idol. Mistakes will happen, this does not mean we have failed. However, if mistakes are happening because of a lack of preparation, that is a different issue that should be addressed. (Ps 33:3, 1 Chr 21:24)
2. Move on! Many mistakes that are obvious to us may not even be noticed by the congregation. Keep the song going if possible. If not, start the song over, drop out if your string breaks, but don't dwell on the mistake. This can cause an even bigger distraction than the mistake itself. I've had people tell me they didn't even notice that I broke a string on my guitar during a set.
3. An obvious mistake or even a musical train wreck does not mean that the service or the music is "ruined". When something really bad happens, I tend to think about nothing else for the remainder of the service. However, God has a habit of being strong in our weakness and using things that look to us like failures as His greatest victories. Honestly, it's arrogant to think that we messed up God's plans by our mistakes
4. Learn from it. Just because a mistake happens and, after reading this blog, you feel OK about it doesn't mean you want it to happen again. Figure out what went wrong. Can it be avoided with different/better preparation next time? Can you think of a better way to handle it if it comes up in the middle of a set again?
These are just a few thoughts--I'd love to hear from you. What unexpected things have you dealt with when leading? Do you have other ideas for how to deal with them?
Posted by jvp at 11:31 PM | Comments (4)
September 4, 2007
Worship dB?
One interesting thing about my church is that even though we usually have a large band playing the music, the overall sound level isn't too high. I think I remember one of our sound guys saying that they run it around 85 dB. From a purely musical perspective, I wish it was a little louder--sometimes the upbeat songs seem to be lacking a bit of punch. However, I think there are merits to keeping the volume down.
When I'm in the congregation, I can actually hear myself and the people around me singing. This creates a great feeling that we are worshiping together and actually contributing to the sound, rather than being drowned out by what is coming from the platform. Also, CFC is striving to encourage true multi-generational worship, and I think the sound level is a good compromise for the entire spectrum of age groups.
I'd love to hear from others--how loud is the sound in your church? Any arguments for running worship at concert levels?
Posted by jvp at 7:38 AM | Comments (3)