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I Thought We Were *SUPPOSED* To Sing?
Posted on July 28th, 2008 in Church Life, Music, Worship Leadership by Fred McKinnon
(photo courtesy of Chris Moncus)
Hey Everyone,
First of all, a huge “thanks” to all the worship leaders and churchgoers who participated in the first “Sunday Setlists” theme over the last 24 hours. We had 13+ (and growing) people check in and post their setlists on their blogs, linking back and forth. We’ll start doing that weekly, so be watching every Sunday/Monday morning.
Since I was gone all last week, I wasn’t scheduled to lead worship this Sunday – I just observed and worshiped from the congregation.
I think every Worship Leader should schedule themselves “off the stage” now and then – gain some perspective of what it looks and feels like “in the room”.
I floated around the back part of the auditorium. I love my church, but what I witnessed grieved me deeply. The overall majority of people weren’t engaged at all. They weren’t singing. I looked around in amazement … trying not to pass judgment … but in my heart, I was grieved. Why do so many people come to church and stand there, stoic, with no desire to engage in singing and celebration? Granted, I’d just returned from an incredible week of 2,000+ people who loved to worship through music and song.
In the 11:00 service I joined my wife and sister-in-law for the service. I had an aisle seat, a few rows from the back. As soon as the band begin to play and Shannon began to lead, I did what comes naturally. I began to sing. What happened next surprised me even more. As soon as I started to sing, I had heads turning back for up to three rows in front of me … turning around as to say “who is that, what are you doing”?.
Is the “back of the church” is where you go if you don’t want to engage? Maybe the fact that we’re pressured to run our sound at lower-than-optimum levels makes one feel they can’t raise their voice from fear of being too loud. (How do you win? If you sing, you’re louder than the room, if you turn the music up, more people sing, and more people complain!?)
Don’t get me wrong – we have an amazing church, with a diverse background … which is part of what makes it so amazing. But as the person whose calling and ministry it is to LEAD this congregation into “worship in spirit and truth” … I have to express this experience and ponder these thoughts.
As for me, I sang … yet, I was the one who seemed to be distracting people.
… I just wanted to shrug my shoulders and say “Oh, I’m sorry … I thought we were *SUPPOSED* to sing.
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57 Responses to “I Thought We Were *SUPPOSED* To Sing?”
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Hey Everyone who’s following this – please continue to discuss this right here … however, I’ve just posted a new blog, “part 2″, with guest words from Dr. Michael Braz, Georgia Southern University … good stuff … check it out at:
http://www.fredmckinnon.com/myblog/2008/07/29/corporate-singing-part2/
Brent(inWorship)
We are running Smaart, calibrated and compared to the RadioShack dB meter. That is what we have been doing and happens to be what was recommended by Willow’s sound guy and Robert Scoville at “Arise.” In the two audio seminars I sat in they said they run in the high 80s with 88 as a “target” for the music with peaks hitting low 90s. That is where we had been running for a little while before and where we are camped for the time being.
Just so’s everybody knows, this is a major problem in Baptist churches that still sing hymns, too…
The peer pressure effect is the biggest thing. We all get embarrassed easily. It has become “uncool” to sing in an audience. It’s okay to stand, but we are still just there to be entertained. The “mosh pit” idea has made it okay to be involved if you’re on the front rows, but the real problem is that emotional involvement in religious activities is highly unacceptable, socially.
Guys bring girlfriends to church. Girls bring boyfriends. Families bring neighbors. Kids bring grandparents. Workers bring co-workers. But the common factor is that none of us want the people we brought with us to see us as “weird”. We never really feel free to let go, because somebody somewhere around us might think we’re strange or even be “turned off” toward the church and thus to Jesus.
It’s not a function of the worship leader, folks. It’s not something we can change. We as “leaders” can’t crack open heads and hearts and adjust and tweak until we get what we like to see out of “our people”.
Guess who can?
We need to pray. Pray for the people we lead. Pray for our pastors. Pray for the Holy Spirit to camp out in the hearts of believers and not let them be satisfied with anything less than the presence of God. Pray for the Holy Spirit to convict the unbelievers in our midst who might have pretended to give themselves to Christ but have never truly believed, and thus will never truly worship. Pray.
We can play games with dB meters, electric guitars, lasers, cellphones, flashlights, and cigarette lighters all day long, but if the Holy Spirit of God is not at work in hearts, the people in our churches will never come to the point of being willing to worship.
Prayer. Foundation #1.
Bernard -
Spoken profoundly – prayer, Amen. Totally agree with that.
Fred
Wow. Great dialogue.
1. We run a little on the loud side at A weighted 100 with peaks in 102. But it does tend to foster energy.
2. We constantly teach on “place your mind’s attention and heart:s affection on God.”
3. We challenge our people not to spell check the bulletin during worship and reinforce the worship equation: itty-bitty worship = itty bitty view of God
As I preach 50% of the time, I get to do what you do a great deal. Sometimes it does get frustrating. Sometimes it lack of singing is due to design production issues like volume, too many new songs, or no “sound byte” challenges to focus. Other times, there are other reasons. We tend to preach the bigness of God during such times. (see http://www.worshiptrench.com/?p=131 for more on how to enlarge peoples views of God).
jordan fowlers last blog post..Why I Adore Annoucements in Worship and How to Stop Them
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