Tools for worship leaders

I'm all about things that help me do the things I do more easily, more intuitively, more quickly, and more effectively. Insert the requisite commentary on the irreplaceability of hard work and the futility of "instant" solutions. But helpful tools are just, well, helpful! And I've managed to accumulate a handful as I've developed as a worship leader over the past 4 or 5 years, and it seemed appropriate to document them someplace. So here goes.


1. Chord charting software.
First off, let me say that I'm obsessive about how my chord charts look. Formatting and fonts have changed a bit over the years, but I've always made my own charts vs. buying them or downloading ones off the internet. Mainly because I don't trust the ones posted online on various sites (and there are legality issues, evidently... see here), and it seems silly to me to pay for them especially if I want the chart to follow a specific arrangement. Purchasing charts from CCLI, FQ Worship, or similar sites is perfectly fine... but if you want more control over how they look and how they're arranged, you gotta do it yourself. In the past there were word processors like MS Word, etc. The downside to this is that once you've lined up your chord notation to the lyric, if you change fonts everything gets realigned and you have to reset all the spacing. John Huss solved this problem with a cool app called Chord Chart Wizard (chordchartwizard.googlepages.com). Basically your "edit" page is always a font of uniform character width, so once you set your chord/lyric alignment, you can choose to display your chart in whatever font you want, and the app makes sure stuff is still aligned as originally intended. Neat. It also has basic set creation features where you can see all your songs in a list and search by key, tempo, keyword, theme, etc. I have my small laundry list of things I wish it did differently/better, but so far I haven't found anything that does what it does better, and I've looked.

2. Music subscription service.
This is like Netflix for your music. If you've never thought about music this way before, it might be a tough switch. I pay $10-15/month to "rent" whatever music I want. I don't "own" the tracks, and can't legally burn them to CD. I'm only "licensed" to use them while I'm a paying subscriber on a limited number of computers/devices. But for the cost of one CD or album's worth of music a month, I can listen to ANYTHING*... (*a select few artists choose not to allow their music under this form of licensing, but not any worship music I've come across yet). This is an incredible resource for a worship leader that can't be overstated. A few years back I budgeted for 1-2 CDs a month as I worked to expand my catalog of worship songs, and now for the cost of 1 I can look up just about anything. The two options I'm aware of that offer this type of service is Rhapsody (www.rhapsody.com) and Microsoft's Zune (www.zune.net), although Zune requires their specific mp3 player for portable use while Rhapsody works on my LG phone (and now supports iPhone/iPod). Yes, yes... I know the rest of the world uses iTunes... and if iTunes ever offered a subscription service, that would seal the deal for me as a 100% Apple convert. But if you're looking for new songs to introduce or new arrangements to old songs, this is almost an irreplaceable resource. I'm thinking about doing "Be Thou My Vision" this coming Sunday, and I just typed it into Rhapsody's search field... 200 hits. Most aren't what I'm looking for... but after listening to a few seconds of the first 100, I came across what I think is the best rendition of this hymn I've ever heard. What's that you say? New Hillsong Live album out? Let me pull it up and toss it on my phone for the ride home. 'Nuff said.

3. Administrative tools.
The basic idea is something that helps you schedule who plays each week and what you're playing. The two polished options that I'm aware of at the moment (and there are probably others) are FQ Worship (www.fqworship.com) and Planning Center Online (www.planningcenteronline.com). You create a "plan" or "event" and add the songs you're going to use along with which team members you'd like to have play. PCO supports sending out invites, which folks can accept or decline (although FQ is adding this soon), and both support hosting your charts and mp3 files for your team's reference (despite my previous point on Rhapsody, I still purchase individual mp3 files for the songs in my rotation so that team members can legally stream--not download--them). These administrative websites also cost money, between $10-20/month, but it's worth every penny in my book if you do this week in and week out. Some similar functionality for scheduling can be done for free using Google Calendar, but it's a bit more work to manage and maintain. FQ Worship contains other resources specific to strengthening worship leaders which is really cool, while PCO has some bells and whistles like CCLI reporting and SMS support for notifications... in fact, I just got a text that my drummer accepted for this week.

4. Online file sharing/storage.
One word... you may have even heard about it. Dropbox (www.dropbox.com). 2-8GB* of free cloud real estate (*you start with 2GB and get an extra 250 MB for every referral up to 8 GB). This is a great service for lots of things, but the reason I include it here in my list of tools for worship leaders is twofold. First, it provides a basic way for hosting/sharing of charts or mp3 files if you're not hosting them on one of the sites I mentioned above, and even a way to collaborate with team members, since shared folders can be written to by both the owner of the account and those to whom it's been shared. Secondly, if you're using something like Chord Chart Wizard, you can configure it to point to your Dropbox folder to use for it's song database. This is a perk only if you happen to use multiple computers. For example, I may start picking my set at lunch while at work on my computer there... later that evening I'll fire up CCW from my laptop at home and finish it. On rehearsal day, I'll go to the church and log into the church office computer, load up my set in CCW and print my charts. No thumb drives, no emailing of files, just Chord Chart Wizard on each computer seeing the changes I've made from any of the other computers. And if you have other people who occasionally lead worship, it's a great way of sharing the same catalog of songs. Dropbox can similarly be effective when you have multiple volunteers preparing slides and media. Many of the presentation software apps have licensing structures that allow volunteers to install the software at home to work on so they don't have to come to the church or use remote desktop (awfully-slow) to use the software on the church computer. If the slide/media files are saved into Dropbox, the folder can be shared with any volunteers working in that ministry. Lots of ways to use it, all of them good and helpful. So what are you waiting for? Go sign up!


So it should go without saying that none of these things replaces consistent and faithful dedication to studying God's word and spending time with Him in prayer as the primary path to effective ministry. This is, after all, worship... and we need to beware of making even small idols out of our skills or methods. But I hope these things can prove useful to others, they sure have been for me!

When worship "sucks"

Sorry for the slightly provocative subject, but I was given an interesting compliment after last Sunday's meeting from a relative of a friend who visited our church. The comment was along the lines of thanking me for an awesome time of worship and encouraging me to not underestimate the significance of my ministry. All well and good--to God be the glory for using a sinner like me for the praise of His name and the benefit of His people! But then an interesting contrast was presented, because you see, worship at this person's church "totally sucks" as of late, so our morning meeting had been a refreshing change.

Now let me be up front--when I hear comments that are critical of any meeting's worship, it usually tells me a bit more about the person making the comment than the actual quality of the worship being commented on. Now of course I don't profess to know the person's heart, and I can certainly discern quality of musical arrangement, musicianship, and presentation--and am keenly aware of when any of those elements fall short when I'm leading. And in this example, I get what she was saying and I thanked her for being there and that God is able to use me in some way to bring people worshipfully into His presence.

But it got me to thinking, at this person's church, someone is spending time to pick and prepare songs and work with volunteers to present an offering of worship each and every week. Unless they have a rotation of worship leaders, that's the logistical bare minimum. Perhaps this person spends more time trying to work out a smooth flow to the set or how to call the congregation into worship or how to most appropriately bring God's people before Him in prayer. And maybe this person even works to offer creative arrangements to the songs. I can attest to the fact that all of these things can add up to a significant amount of time and effort. Maybe this person is also a volunteer and receives no pay for this role. And this person is a brother (or sister) in Christ, but it "totally sucks."

At this point I'll be the first to say that round pegs don't fit into square holes, and it's not at all outside of the realm of possibilities that this person--as genuine as their heart may be--just isn't in the right role according to their giftedness, and for whatever reasons, others have not sufficiently come alongside this person to help them find what that role truly is for them in God's kingdom. Maybe there's nobody else at the moment and they're filling a gap. Maybe they actually are quite capable but have other challenges with the volunteers that are involved in maintaining the desired standard of musical quality. Or maybe they're a bit despondent or just getting by each week. All that to say there could certainly be legitimate cases for needing someone else in that role, or at least the need for renewing or ongoing discipleship to encourage this person's growth in their walk with the Lord and in their ability as a worship leader.

In any case, it's worth remembering that all of us are broken sinners who bring broken offerings each and every week and that only through Christ's atoning work on the cross are we made whole and are our offerings accepted. And praise God for that! There are sometimes weeks where I get more caught up in new musical arrangements that are "just gonna rock!" only to show up on Sunday and have flubs all over the place--yet God shows up and is worshipped heartily by His people... and I receive a lesson in humbleness and priorities. Worship was "great" but it clearly had nothing to do with me. And honestly, that's the best place to be. We strive each week to bring and offer our best, while remembering that it's not about us--and that's a good thing.

So back to my original example that seems to reflect the sentiment of a "consumer" approach to worship--whether or not that was this particular person's heart, God knows. I'm inclined to root for the struggling worship leader or the meeting that just "isn't happening", because I know what goes into the process and all the challenges that come with it--and I know that the genuine worship of our Savior isn't dependent on our skill or musical preference. But it raises the question--how do we combat a "consumer" approach to worship--both in our own hearts and in the hearts of those we lead and shepherd? How ought we to respond to comments like the one I received in a way that points them towards an understanding of true worship and towards a bigger view of the Savior?

One thing I realized (to my fault) was that I passed up an opportunity to pray for that situation right then and there. I could have hopefully reflected the heart of God on what is happening at this person's church. It could have gone something like this: "Father, thank you that you allow us into your presence to worship you. You are worthy of more than we could ever offer you, but you accept us because of Jesus. We desire to worship you in spirit and in truth, seeing you more for who you really are. Bless my friend's church with leadership and servants who you can use to help your people truly worship you. Thank you for the gift of music. Raise up skilled musicians who will offer vibrant and creative worship with the gifts you've given them. Whether you use those who have already been serving or you bring new people, worship is ultimately all about you. Help us to understand that more as you mold our hearts and make us more like Jesus." This could have served to lift up the situation immediately before the Lord, affirm that musical quality matters, but reflect on the fact that it doesn't matter most.

Now the discussion on how to shepherd a group of worshippers away from consumerism and towards true worship is a broad one, but I realized there can be much to learn from thoughtfully processing the comments we receive after our meetings. In the end, God is about His glory and our hearts, and last I checked, neither of those are dependent on musical quality or style. When worship "sucks", people are usually referring to the music... but music is just a tool--a very powerful and effective tool--but not a master. We serve one master in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and let's strive to keep it that way.