Tag Archives: congregation

Using Your Music Ministry To Heal The Congregation

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I often talk on my Fan Page as well as here on the blog about how we should endeavor to see our service in music ministry as so much bigger than ourselves. At no other time is that more evident than at times of emotional strife.

As I write this the many African-Americans have very heavy hearts of the recent not guilty verdict handed down to George Zimmerman in the killing of Trevon Martin. Most of the world learned the news of this verdict over the weekend and were still struggling with feelings of anger, sadness and betrayal as we made our way to our churches for morning worship.

It is at times like these that I am most acutely aware of the incredible responsibility we have as ministers of music. One definition of the word “Balm”, is “a soothing, healing or comforting quality”. In times of remorse, discouragement and sadness God can use the power of music to uplift and make glad the hearts of His people.

I often feel an obligation at times like these-events that affect us all so profoundly-to do everything I can to insure that the music we provide acts as a balm to heal the hearts of people who are struggling to cope.

In times like these we can easily make the wrong choice and end up presenting something that would only make the situation worse and more painful. Like the really sad song chosen for a funeral, for example.

At times like these the best thing we can do is be aware of current events that might adversely affect the moods of the congregation and try to offer music that will uplift, encourage and heal. I for one went to church this morning, the day after the not guilty verdict was handed down, saddened, frustrated and wondering why God, why always us?

I was almost at the point of tears as I drove to church. But an up-beat, hand-clapping, foot-stomping rendition of I Shall Not Be Moved by the Male Chorus this morning not only lifted my spirits but the overall mood of the congregation. That’s the power of music ministry, and that’s the awesome responsibility that we all have as ministers of music. And that’s why I am always humbled to have been chosen to play some part in administering the soothing, healing, comforting power of music ministry at times when God’s children need it most.

20 Questions To Ask If The Audience Won’t Get With Your Praise Team

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I’ve seen and even written about the subject of unresponsive audiences in regard to praise & worship or even just selections from the choir. If you’ve ever done any research on the subject, chances are your search led you to articles that list some of the common reasons audiences are unresponsive to the praise and worship music going forth. I think they are important things to consider when you’re trying to figure out why your audience is unresponsive, so I’m going to list some of the most common questions you should ask if you find this situation.

But then I want to get into another aspect of unresponsive audiences that I don’t see covered very often at all. More about that a little later in the article. First though, let’s look at 20 possible reasons why your congregation may not be responding

 Song Selection

It’s important you know your audience well and what they respond to. This can sometimes be harder than it looks, because honestly most of us choose songs based not on whether or not we think our audience will be blessed by them, but by how much we like them ourselves. Sometimes we can get so caught up in the musical arrangement or the beat that we don’t pay as much attention to the message as we should. Sometimes it’s the style that’s losing your audience.

1.  Is it too contemporary?
2. Too dated or”old school?”
3. Too much of one or the other?
4. Are you doing too much new material (it’s hard for your audience to participate if you’re never doing anything they know)?
5. Are songs easy to catch on and sing?
6. Are the songs really praise and worship songs?

Musicianship

7. Is the music being played with a level of competence?
8. Can the audience recognize the song?
9. Is the volume too loud or too soft? (ok it’s never too soft, lol!)

Vocals

10. Is the harmony right?
11. Are the group members well-versed and learned on the material (do they know the song?)
12.Are you putting competent leaders up to lead songs?
13. Are your leaders and/or group members screaming?

Sound

14. Are the microphones too loud?
15. Are they feeding back?
16. Are the house speakers too loud?

Leadership

17. Is the leader actively exalting and leading the audience?
18. Is the leader reprimanding or scolding the audience for not participating? (don’t ever do this!)
19. Is the leader moving quickly between songs with little to no dead time?
20. Is the leader being led by the spirit and allowing for unscripted, organic worship and praise? (real praise and worship can’t always be scripted)

All of these issues and more are very common issues that audiences find very off-putting and distracting. It is very difficult for the audience to overcome those things and concentrate on praising and worshiping when these things are not being addressed regularly. And while it may seem almost unfair to some people that really haven’t fully grasped the importance of perfecting music ministry, the truth is it can be any one thing. Everything can be perfect, for example, and the microphones are way too loud or feeding back. Or everything is sounding great but the music was way too loud. Or the group sounded great but the leader didn’t really have the skill that the song required.

But let’s flip this coin for a minute and talk about something almost nobody touches on. Because you see, if we’re all being honest here, there are times when absolutely everything is the best it can be. The band is on point. the song selection is perfect. The group/choir sounds great. The leader is bringing it. And the audience is STILL unresponsive.

There are just days when despite your best efforts, the audience simply won’t be with you. Who knows what it is from one day to the next, but it does happen. It is on those days that worship leaders and song leaders make the worst mistake they can make. I touched on it in question number 18 but it’s important enough to elaborate on more here.

I’m speaking of the tendency many leaders have start reprimanding the audience to get them to participate. Understand what I’m referring to here. I’m not talking about the act of encouraging the audience to open up and feel free to worship. Encouraging them to lift their hands, stand, or sing along.

I’m talking about those who actually, in a sense, scold the audience for not being more engaged or participating more. Listen, nobody understands how frustrating an unresponsive audience is than I do. But scolding them will only cause them to resent you. which will only make them close off even more. Only now it may very well extend past the musical selections to the Pastor and the word of God itself.

That is why when you worship and praise God in song, your worship must be for real. It has to be about God, and NOT about the audience. I wrote in an article a while ago that it’s not a good idea to sing your entire selection with your eyes closed. That’s absolutely true. But much more importantly than that, you must never allow your worship or praise experience to depend on or be affected by the reactions of the audience.

When we sing, we should always sing to the glory and honor of God. As one speaker once told us at a choir banquet, we are to minister to Him, and He in turn ministers through us to His people. If you’re always looking for the audience’s reaction when you sing, you could find yourself very discouraged when you don’t get what you expected

It’s really not our job in music ministry to “make” the audience do anything. Any number of things could be the cause of unresponsiveness. I’ve seen times when, heck the people are just tired! The church has been in revival all week, or we’ve had back-to-back services, or a Saturday night service of some kind so everyone is kind of tired Sunday morning.

So yes, it is extremely important that we do everything we can to perfect, enhance, hone and polish every aspect of our music ministries. But at the end of the day every single minute we spend on any of that has to be for one reason and one reason only. That God be glorified. And when we stand before His people knowing that we’ve done everything we can to prepare ourselves to minister in excellence, even when they’re not responding we can then just worship Him from a pure, honest, deeply sincere place that has nothing to do with how many people stood up while we were singing. Or how many didn’t. For more praise team training check out my new e-book Praise Team 101

 

5 things your praise team must do to win over your congregation

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Praise teams are nothing new for many denominations, as they’ve been using praise teams for years. But for many of the African-American churches, having a praise team come forth instead of testimony service or morning devotion is very much a new thing. And like all new things, many newly formed praise teams are being met with a great deal of resistance from their congregations. Today I’ll share 5 of the most important things I think praise teams need to do in order to be successful at wining over their church congregation.

1. Choose true Praise And Worship Songs.

A praise team’s job is somewhat different from say, the choir’s job. Praise and Worship is really, in a sense, a form of prayer set to music. The praise team’s main goal is to set an atmosphere that encourages and facilitates praising and worshiping God. As such, you should endeavor to choose songs where both the lyrical content and the musical arrangement encourages and helps the audience to sing along in praise and worship to God.
The best praise and worship songs are SIMPLE and repetitive. These kinds of songs are easy for your audience to learn, which encourages them to sing along and participate in the praise and worship.

Praise songs should be mid to up-tempo songs that have a positive vibe musically, and lyrically focus on praising and exalting God; “Oh give thanks/ Unto the Lord/ For He is good/ Yes He is good” , for example. This is a happy, up-tempo song that gets the audience clapping and singing along.

Worship songs are generally slower and talk more about relationship, closeness and what God means to us: “Into Your arms/ I’m drawing near again/ to dwell with You/ Is my only heart’s desire”

Try to choose songs based solely on their ability to encourage and facilitate praise and worship throughout the congregation. Avoid choosing songs because they’re popular or they’re everyone’s favorite. Often some songs are great but would work better for the choir or some other group rather than for praise and worship.

2. Rehearse And Perfect Your Songs To The Best Of Your Ability

It’s very important for praise teams to understand how critical it is that you serve in the highest level that you’re able to. Praise teams are an entirely different animal from the choir. Usually everyone on the praise team is singing in front of a microphone. The songs, although typically more simple than choir songs, are often written with an even greater focus on the harmony and over-all sound. Remember, we’re trying to set an atmosphere that encourages praise and facilitates worship. Imaging going to a romantic, dimly lit restaurant for an expensive dinner only to find them playing terrible music over the sound system. Even if the music was your favorite love songs, you simply couldn’t get in a romantic mood if it sounded bad.

As such, every performance for a praise team should be as good as you can make it. People often misunderstand the need or the importance of perfecting your songs and striving for excellence in your music ministry. I talk about that a great deal in my blog “why it’s better to sing in unison than to sing with bad harmony”. But the important thing to remember is that you want your praise team to simply be a vessel, or a conduit through which the Holy Spirit can flow musically. You don’t want anything you’re doing to be a distraction in that sense. It is absolutely more work, to be sure. But the work is well worth it, and if you do it your audience will respond.

3. Sing Your Songs Often

One big mistake praise teams make is to constantly be doing new material. Again, for choirs this is much more acceptable and even preferred on some level. But effective praise and worship needs audience engagement and participation. That can only happen if you’re singing your praise and worship songs often enough so the audience becomes familiar with them, learns the words and begins to sing along. This is another reason why the best Praise And Worship songs are simple, repetitivesongs.

A new praise team obviously has to go through a period of learning a lot of new material in order to build up a catalog. But in general I’d recommend the average praise team be working off a list of no more than about 10 songs that they rotate through and repeat often. Doing this helps your audience develop a relationship with the songs. They’re more likely to participate and sing along to songs they know and hear often rather than new songs they’re not familiar with.

4. Be Authentic. Praise And Worship God From Your Heart, Every Song

It is an absolute must that every member on a praise team is completely immersed emotionally and spiritually in every song. If it’s an up-tempo praise song, everyone should be moving and clapping and praising God while you sing, and doing it from a very real place. If it’s a worship song, lift your hands, close your eyes, sing from your heart. The audience can always tell when it isn’t real. But when it is real, it’s contagious. If you’re choosing the right songs and approaching the ministry prayerfully and with a sincere heart, this will happen automatically.

5. Be Patient With The Congregation

As we said at the beginning of the article, many churches are just recently making the switch to using a praise team. None of us like to see old, familiar things replaced. Especially when we didn’t see anything wrong with the old way. As such, it is quite likely that even if you’re doing everything above to the letter, you simply won’t get much involvement or participation from the audience for a while. You must see that as normal and to be expected.

Whatever you do, do NOT scold, reprimand, guilt or otherwise try to force your audience to participate in praise and worship. You will undoubtedly get frustrated as you go forth every Sunday giving your best while the audience looks on, almost defiantly sometimes. The worst thing you can do, however, is lash out or say negative things in your efforts to get them going.

Instead, continue to simply choose great songs, perfect them to the best of your ability, sing them often and be sincere and real every time you get up. Never sing for the audience, because if you do, you’ll always be tied emotionally to what they’re doing or not doing. Sing your songs to the glory and honor of God. Sing your worship to Him. Sing your praises to Him. He will in turn work through you to reach your audience. Before long they’ll start standing, singing along, praising and worshiping God together with you. Just be consistent, be patient, and be Positive!

Did you find this article helpful? Find it and 12 more like it in my new e-book Praise Team 101.