Happy New Year!! 🥳
I’ve been MIA for a good week or so. So sorry about that!
The move was a bit rougher than anticipated. I JUST got my computer back this evening, after a few trips back and forth (5-hour drives each way). The snow was NOT kind to me. 😊 I was scared out of my mind! And…Satan and his demons were very obviously trying to prevent me from moving to the Albany area (!), which only further proves that it’s God’s will! 💯
But I got through, praise the Lord, 🙏 and I’m safe and sound. YAY! ❤️
There were many questions that came through while I have been without my computer this whole time that I want to answer, 🥰 so gimme a week or two to unpack and settle in and really catch up on everything.
What I CAN SAY is that I am REALLY loving the new place SOOOOO much! It’s nice and toasty warm! 😆 Has a washer and dryer. No more washing clothes in the bathtub and drying them in front of the heater. It has a full kitchen. No more washing dishes in a bathroom sink (uhm…ew!) 😆 So many things to be thankful for.
I was definitely thankful for the first place right out of the homeless shelter, 💯 (it was a huge blessing to me) but it still wasn’t “home”. This new place feels like I can stick around for 3-9 months (depending on God’s will/timing/plans). It’s pretty near the church; it’s in a small town called Independence, which feels INCREDIBLY fitting for me having come out of a homeless shelter. 🥰
So far, I’m super happy and comfy and the landlord is amazing. She really cares about my needs and making it comfortable for me to stay there, which is super nice. I’m pretty excited about it all and ready to start settling in and getting back into the swing of things! 🎉
What an amazing New Year’s gift the Lord has given to me to be in the Albany area for New Years!! Praise God! 🙌
So, let’s get this show back on the road! 😆 You ready?
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A worship team sets the tone for the whole Sunday service!
It is almost as important as the preaching message itself because it, like the message, brings the power of God.
You have the POWER to make someone else in the audience, know that God is near (make Himself known to them).
You have the ability to change their entire week (to show them that He is worthy of reverence, therefore, worthy to obey).
You have the responsibility to make sure that you display godly worship habits and that it’s not taken flippantly or worse…disrespectful to our great Savior.
While every style of worship is different and there’s no right or wrong way, it’s our 💕 HEARTS 💕 that people see. It’s God in you, during your worship time, that edify the saints, helping them to know and believe God is there amongst us.
Therefore, it is vitally important.
If you have a worship team not taking things seriously and goofing off all the time, it demeans the preacher and what he will be teaching. Because if YOU are goofing off, the audience will be goofing off and you, get ready because this is going to sting a little bit, you are detracting from the gospel. You are detracting from the word of God. 😔 You put people’s focus on the wrong thing.
When people see YOU taking God seriously, THEY will take Him more seriously too. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the background playing some instrument you think no one sees, EVERYONE should be on point, worshipping the Lord our Savior, respectfully.
Worshipping God is a high honor. One we cannot take lightly. It’s just as important as say, this blog, or the preacher’s message. We must be having a reverent-to-Christ, joyful attitude and leading the people to do the same.
It’s a time of reverencing our God, worshipping Him with a thankful heart, loving Him, showing Him we care.
👉 Listen, worship time is our GIFT to the Lord.
It’s comparable to obeying Him, tithing, serving others in His name. Worshipping is important and I think so many people don’t realize that.
Worshipping is our gift to God. 🎁
Do you want to give Him a good gift or a bad gift, in light of Him sacrificing His own son to save your soul?
When you wrap your mind around that, you’ll want to really do your best because you don’t want to hand God an invaluable, half-hearted gift.
Worship, and leading others IN worship, is so important. It’s a prestigious honor, a respectable position within the church! 🥰 Are you holding yourself to that high honor? This noble thing? Do you realize how respectable that position you hold is? Your actions, heart, and attitude are more important than you think!
Today, let’s look at what makes a great worship team…the marks of an effective worship team.
10 Marks of An Effective Worship Team
One of the main reasons I LOVE to watch Truth For Life’s Livestream service every Sunday is because of the worship part. I love the message, of course, but the music is just so uplifting and God-honoring. It’s a joy and blessing to watch and unless something major is going on, I never miss it.
Their worship team is the STANDARD of what an effective worship team should be. 💯 They all do such a fantastic job.
That doesn’t mean they don’t have off-weeks, where people are distracted and it shows, but for the most part, it is all the things you’ll see below and is a great model to watch how they do things. How they serve God and their audience in this way. Today, we’re going to be gleaning godly info. from their standard!
Definitely watch their services on YouTube, but they ARE only online for 24 hours beginning Sundays at 6 am PST so be sure to catch them in time.
Speaking of Livestreams, if you don’t already, you should DEFINITELY have your Livestream on YouTube. If you have it on your website, it’s more clunky. It will freeze up more often, the playback is not as good, it’s only LIVE while it’s going LIVE, it stops for no reason many times, etc. There are many obstacles and hindrances with having it on your website. It just doesn’t play right. Even if you keep it on there for 24 hours only, like Truth For Life does, it’s still important to be on YouTube.
Also, with the Livestream being on your site and not on YouTube, people can’t share it, like it, and save it. For example, on my YouTube channel, I have my favorite sermons saved for the people to watch. Without you being on YouTube at all, I can’t share your stuff on my playlists and neither can others, thus hindering your ministry and ability to grow. It’s super important your Livestream be on YouTube.
Alright, you ready to get into what makes for a great worship experience to the people? Let’s dive in! 😊
A good music team is…
1) They are reverential
They are respectful. They understand how many souls are watching. They understand Matthew 18:6. How vitally important it is for them all to be very present in that moment, not distracted, and leading the people to be distracted as a result in their worship time as well.
When the worship leader sees the team is distracted, he’ll include that in his prayer when he prays. “Lord, help us give our all to you. Help us to not let the distractions of life, the hurdles of this world come between us and worshipping you this morning. Let us throw off all things that seek to distract us from you this morning and line our hearts up to you…”
It’s a subtle way to get his team on track, because they hear the prayer, and for the audience to also get their hearts on track. It takes a good music leader to recognize when the team is being distracted and point us all back to Christ.
2) The music leader and lead female vocalist stand next to each other
The music leader (usually the main guitar player) and the lead female vocalist are supposed to sing in harmony with each other. They are a team of two and the rest of the musicians are a part of that, so that it’s all cohesive.
When they are standing away from each other, they cannot pick up on body language, when to start singing, or even levels of the voices. One may be singing way too loud and the other too soft.
Having them stand next to each other, they can sing in harmony, at the same volume level, thus providing a better worship experience for the whole team and the audience.
The lead female vocalist in this screenshot (red shirt) is my favorite. She’s ALWAYS super reverential, humble, and worshipping God genuinely from her heart. She’s an absolute joy to watch!
Her heart is beautiful. So joyful, reverential, and holy! Never over-signing any men, as men should lead (yes, even in singing). I love her so much! ❤️
3) They use secret cues to start the music
At Truth for Life, their starting cue is the drum sticks.
Notice how the drum sticks are clicked twice and then they all start playing. They have different cues, but that is one of them.
You can start it however you want, but it should be something like that. Something SUBTLE that the audience wouldn’t recognize easily, as it distracts the audience from having a reverential, filled-with-the-spirit, worship time.
Maybe if you don’t have drums, tap the box drum a couple times with your hand. Just something subtle that the musicians can listen for to know when to start.
If your team is all looking around for the music to start, it makes it look like you don’t know what you’re doing or you’re lost and you DO know what you’re doing, so you don’t want to give that impression to the people. 😊
4) The lead musician should read the Bible
We want to get the Word of God into the hearts of the people at all times. Reading the Bible is a great way to do that. Just a small passage (3-5 verses).
Sometimes, I’ve seen them do other things than read from the Bible. Justin (not the main guitarist shown here but the other main one – they alternate weeks), likes to read from Valley of Vision sometimes (which is my #1 favorite book, outside of the Bible). It’s a book of Puritan prayers and they are SOOOOO good to meditate on and really think through each and every prayer. It really teaches you a lot! I love that book!! ❤️ If you don’t have it, you should definitely get it.
5) The worship team should display humility
Nothing distracts from the worship more when one singer decides she wants to get attention and make it all about HER and start singing louder than the lead male singer or uses body language that tries to get the focus on her.
That is SHAMEFUL behavior. 😡
It is self-seeking, not Christ-honoring or Christ-focused. We are to glorify God, point others to HIM, not soak up HIS spotlight.
Having a female solo singer, at times, is fine obviously, but we can all read the hearts of the person singing. Are they seeking attention? We can tell if they are.
6) They do not have wandering eyes
If a person is not guarding their eyes and their eyes are continually wandering, they are constantly looking around, it disrupts the service and they need to stop. It is distracting to the audience and detracting from the glory of God.
If they are told about this problem and do not stop, they should gently and lovingly be removed from the team (or given more responsibility – they are simply bored) for the overall good of the church and glory of God. When we are at church, the focus has to be God.
I’ve seen young men, in particular, be scouting around with their roaming eyes while playing music for a church. Clearly, they are looking for a girl. And when they find her, they leave their position, only proving their heart wasn’t in it in the first place. They were self-seeking and not God-honoring.
This position is a high honor, not to be used as a place to get a girl and a man’s lack of self-control shouldn’t be displayed anywhere on stage. Doing so is degrading to God and the church that Jesus died for.
7) You should alternate the lead worship leader
If a church only has one worship leader, things can become repetitive and monotonous very quickly. Both the audience and the worship team can get bored, even with the best of worship leaders.
It’s also too much of a responsibility to lay on just one person (to always be there, never taking time off/vacations to spend drinking Living Water, to rest and rejuvenate, to look at things with new eyes, to grow as a leader seeing how things are done by someone else – both leaders grow).
It also doesn’t allow others to grow, shine light on Christ, or serve God in this way. There are other qualified leaders who need to be given the chance to serve also.
There’s just so many reasons to alternate the lead worship leader and you see at Parkside Church, they do have two. One is Justin and the other one you see here in the above screenshots. Both are humble and both do a FANtastic job of leading!
8) No rock star concerts
This is a style of singing, I dare not call it worship, and you can like and do as you please according to your own conscience before the Lord, but rock star concerts don’t really evoke the respect and honor that God deserves.
There is a time and a place for concerts.
I’ve been to many Christian concerts (Britt Nicole, Toby Mac, Colby Dixon, etc. and I dream of seeing Casting Crowns, Brandon Heath, and Matthew West one day), but that’s outside of church and it’s not for worship time.
Worship time is about respect, honor, joy, and allegiance. Rock star concerts don’t really evoke that heart spirit. You know what does?
This IS a concert, outside of church, and it’s still very, very respectful to God. Pouring out our hearts to Him in prayer and worship. It’s beautiful!
It doesn’t all have to be slow music, but you want it to be happy, joyful, respectful to God.
It’s all about the heart. 💯
You want to lead the hearts and souls of the people to love God, to worship Him, to respect and honor Him. And yes, all members of the team ARE leading the people, each in their own unique way.
9) They practice each week
They practice as a group each and every week before service for about an hour. It’s also important for the individual people to be practicing the songs known to be played on their own as well.
I’ve seen some practice as a group during Sunday School, while others are in their classes, right before service starts.
I’ve seen others practice as a group on Wednesday nights for Sunday service, before Wednesday evening church starts.
However you want to do it, whenever you want to do it, but just so all songs are practiced before each service is played is important.
10) The Pastor should end the service
After they sing and the Pastor gives his sermon, they play one more song, and then the Pastor does the benediction.
This may be personal preference here, but I feel like the Pastor should be the one to close the service. He is the lead, the head of the church. It is HIS honor and privilege to give the benediction and dismiss the flock. It is his authority.
I think it’s also important to note that they choose songs that matter and are biblical. Not fluffy or worldly songs, but real-meaty type of songs that help us praise the Lord written by genuine, godly Christians.
However you do your worship now, all of these things are something to pray through and consider as your team leads and shepherds the hearts of the people. ❤️