Singers Vs Worship Leaders

“Morris, please teach us microphone techniques…”
“I cannot sing in that key, it is too high for me…” 

“I am not able to sing as backup while he/she is leading worship… their key is too high, er, guys, can you please tweak that key a little… just a little?” 

“This is how I am used to singing, if you don’t like it that is your own problem. I just can’t sing in the manner you are recommending… I just cannot…”

“That keyboard player/instrumentalist/drummer/guitarist ain’t playing what I want the way I want it… they ain’t bringing out that hook as it should… they are making it too hard for me to sing…”

If you are a leader in a worship team, the above concerns from team members are as common as it can get. You probably have heard it from your team members hundreds of times (depending with how long you have been in charge of singing in that given congregation.) It is also likely that whenever these team members bring up these issues, they actually are not so much interested in making corrections or improving in the art of worship and singing, and in the area of their complaints.

Today, in a short but very direct way, I want to help us differentiate between so-called singers and lead worshipers with reference to a worship team and a church congregation of any size.

First things first though…

I describe singers as anyone who can sing. They sing in the bathroom, while doing laundry, while cooking, while out with friends partying… they just can sing. They may sing with or without order and may or may not be committed members of a worship team. That is what they are.

On the other hand, worship leaders (and not necessarily worship team leaders)are members of a singing community or team that are able to lead and teach others how to sing, and can interact with a crowd (or congregation) and make them (through conviction, gentle persuasion or whatever way) on how to sing whatever they want them to sing – how to sing anything. One unique thing about them (worship leaders) is that they command the stage and everyone falls in tune with whatever they are directing or guiding them to do.

Inasmuch as there are these differences, it is good to note that there is a close resemblance between the two (singers and worship leaders) because they both sing and are both involved (in one way or another) in standing before an audience while singing.

Notable quote: Everyone can sing, but not everyone can lead others in singing. (Especially a congregation full of diversified people from different classes – okay, classes shouldn’t be in Church, or should they? – and cultures.) Everyone knows a song or two, but not everyone can teach that song to everyone else so that they may come out knowing it as much as they should.

So you may be asking yourself, “Morris, why in the whole good world of music are you talking to us about such obvious things…?” Obvious things, huh?

Well, note the following…

The definition of music and worship in the Church has changed a lot over the years. Since the times of The First/Early Church, corporate/congregational worship has changed exponentially. You will agree with me that our differences in denominational upbringing have not only influenced our doctrinal inclination within the Christian community, but that it has also affected the manner in which we worship God. The way we structure our services (on whatever day we have chosen to worship God), the tools and instruments we use, the manner in which we display acts or worship, the stance of our worship leaders, the kind of songs each congregation sings, the way we include others in our singing/worship, the way we incorporate Scripture in our singing/worship services etc… have influenced and redefined the general aura of congregational worship in every church across the world.

Of course, the centre of argument within most worship leaders and pastors in the Christian fraternity around the world will be that we are all seeking to worship God in Spirit and in Truth (John 4:24), but notably, the truth is that while seeking to worship the Creator in spirit and in truth, we have formed for our own selves differing views on corporate worship and the fruits thereof. This in itself has changed how (or has helped redefine how) members of a given worship team interact with each other and afterwards, with the congregation. This also defines how well they will rehearse and practice before presenting the aftermath of this to the congregation.

For instance, a worship team that cares less about the quality and influence of the music they produce before God and the congregation will have more singers than worship leaders. It will have a greater number of its team concentrating on performance than on a relationship and intimacy with the God that is being worshipped. This team will practice less, mind less about knowing their strong and weak points while working as a team and will neither pray for a better presentation and the movement of the Spirit of God nor about the people being ministered to during the worship service.

You probably have also heard of the emergence of the so-called commercial worship leaders/singers or worship-rock-stars found within many “mega churches”. They have a tendency to not submit to authority and they lack spiritual fervency while “ministering” in those “mega churches” or the spontaneous crowds they are given to “worship” with. They move from place to place “ministering” and “preaching” to these oblivious crowds/congregations and have little or no commitment at all to wanting the impartation of something new and something from God, within the people they “minister” to. This also has contributed to the increase in the number of singers in our worship teams as compared to the number of those who can actually lead worship.

In the preview I read of a book by Stephen Miller called Worship Leaders, We Are Not RockStars, he reiterates that the manner in which a worship leader chooses to worship God even at an individual level, is very determinant of how well they are going to interact with their fellow team members and the congregation that awaits their ministry. He also adds that as a member of a worship team, the central thing should not be to compete on who strums the guitar best, who plays the piano best, who sings best or who knows best but on how much as a team, you are positively moving your church/congregation towards worshiping God in spirit and in truth.

The table below summarizes what I am talking about (Singers vs Worship Leaders);

No.	Singers	Worship leaders/Lead worshipers
1	They can only sing and have fun. They care less about the influence their singing has on the audience.	They can sing and lead others in worship as well. They enjoy the singing yeah, but are also keen on making the congregation meet with their Creator.
2	They claim to have difficulty in singing in set-up groups with other singers within the worship team. They are oblivious of the team’s strengths and weaknesses.	They can sing, lead and back-up. They interact well with team members and can point out strengths and weaknesses within the team.
3	They have no understanding of their vocal or voice range.	They understand the whole concept of where their voice or vocal range is and can alter it at any time.
4	Have a high affinity to blaming others when things go wrong and would rather teach than be taught.	Are reluctant to lead and think themselves as imperfect and still need to do a few things with their skills before they are ready to lead.
5	They concentrate on performance rather than on intimacy and a relationship with the One being worshipped.	They concentrate more on a relationship and intimacy with the One being worshipped rather than on performance.
6	They are more of people-pleasers than they are God-pleasers. They therefore seek excitement and “a feeling” first before the manifestation of the power of the Holy Spirit through their singing.	They are more of God-pleasers than they are people-pleasers. They therefore seek the manifestation of the power of the Holy Spirit through their singing before excitement and a sense of “feeling”.

As a warning to most of us who care less about worship as a ministry that plays an important role in the spiritual growth of a church, and one which cuts across all the major offices of the church, Christ Jesus our LORD said the following in Matthew 15:13 (NKJV) “But He answered and said, ‘Every plant which my Heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch…’”

Till next time,

Bonface Morris.

A Clash of Types

She has prayed for so long for a boyfriend. She has waited, created mind pictures of him, fantasized... and longed for so long for that day to come... In fact, she can clearly remember – even deep in her sleep - the last time she had a boyfriend: she has never had any.

She was almost giving up... giving up on love and these #RelationshipTingz, until she met him: tall but not so tall, toned down with every muscle in the right place. She turned her head, looked over and saw him. She looked again. She never looks twice. But this day, she did…

His name is Adrian. She knows where he stays. She knows all his friends. Yeah, she can even tell just how sad or happy he was on July 16, 2011 – hah - and how he was dressed. She can also tell just how much he talked on that day. What? July 16, 2011? What's so special about July 16, 2011 anyway? Actually, nothing specific. It was just another day. A day just like any other day. But to her, it was special. It was the day she laid her eyes on him... Since then, she has never looked back. 

I’ll tell you the story she told me, yes, my friend does tell stories…

She had gone to pick up a movie or two from her movie guy across the street, after which she had planned to pass through the mall and get back home after an hour or so. 
It was 2pm, Saturday, 16^th July, 2011. A hot afternoon, but as it is natural and common on this side of the world at such a time of the year, it was indicative of prevailing showers of rain in the evening – a deceptive camouflage of nature, so to say.

She was prepared to run through town really first before heading back home then to church. So she moved by the road, up the streets, via the Mama mboga, past the barber shop, through the back street, across the petrol station, again through the street… absent-mindedly waving her thoughts to-and-fro as it is typical of most her Saturdays…

But just before she crossed over to the mall, he happened. He did happen. 16^th July, 2011. Saturday. He happened.

She almost fell down. The dude was exactly angelic. Exactly. His countenance, his demeanor, his smile, his dressing code, the way he moved his hand and fingers, the way he stared and glanced, the excitement in his eyes… oh my, she was smitten!! He was with one of her friends. Just a common friendship so to say... She wanted to greet her friend and by excuse say hi! to him. She wanted to, but never found enough strength to do so. She actually never did say hi!

Since that day – Saturday, July 16, 2011 - she has always anticipated their next meeting. She dresses her best, does her hair, trims and does her nails, borrows her friend's shoes and phone... because she wants to smite him this time. But the moment he is in the room, he never seems to notice her. It is like she doesn't exist. To him, she does not.

Her name is Annabelle. Annabelle never seems to exist in the eyes of Adrian.

*********************************

He (Adrian), on the other hand, is a hundred miles hushed and travelling in his own tough relationship world. He has this girl he met way back in 2012 – December 2012 to be precise - that he just has never gotten over. Oh well, they say guys don’t bend easily. They do say so. It may be true, or it may not be. But deep within him, he knows that it is impossible that she did not melt a big chunk of his heart. Every time he sees her, it seems like he gets lost. Somehow.

Here is his story;

It was in December, 2012. He had gone to visit his brother who lives in the East and therefore he was extremely excited about a change of environment and stuff. So here he was, stolen by the proximity of a new environment and the endless possibility of adventure. On that day – he says – he was dressed in print shorts with a casual short-sleeved white shirt and his feet, he was wearing branded African leather open shoes. He was on a mountain bike heading, er, nowhere actually. He was just on his routine spontaneous rides. He had just turned the second corner, stopped and was now resting for a while with his left feet on the pedal and the right one on the ground, before thinking of cycling on to the other side of the road. As he looked up from where he was, while wiping the sweat off his face, he spotted her. His heart stopped, er, it skipped (his words, not mine…). He was blanked.

Her name is Trizah. She was amazing. Fragile. Heavenly. Beautiful. Breathtaking. She was like no woman he had ever seen. He felt so drawn to her. But how was he going to make it in (at least) making her his friend in this short period of time he was at his brother’s? 2 weeks. “Arrrgghh! 2 weeks!?” He thought deep within himself how much good agony she had brought to his heart. So he said hi!

She did reply. But shyly and in a manner full of lack of interest – like he was a nuisance to her existence or something like that. He ignored this as lack of familiarity and he thoughtfully went on his way.

Back at home, while on his bed meditating on the activities of the day, that is when he realized that a spell had been cast, and that he was now caught in a love net he was not willing to draw himself out from – he was attracted to a girl he knew not.

The following two weeks marked a period of his despair - a period when he made all the efforts in his social books to get to make her his friend but he realized that she can never be into him in the same way he is into her… His name is Adrian.

**********************************

Days have gone by and now here are Adrian and Annabelle. Anabelle daily wishes and prays so hard (to her Lord) that Adrian will notice her, while Adrian still struggles with the denial he met in the East from that lady called Trizah.

Annabelle wonders: “But why? I guess I am more beautiful than that chiq he's obsessed with, right? I guess I am more endowed in all things than she is… I am saved like he is. I serve the Lord, bla bla bla…" Of late, Annabelle has put in more effort in drawing closer to him: she has learnt his hobbies so that she can do the stuff he does and let him notice her, she has befriended his friends and known most of them in a greater way, she has called herself something else on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and befriended him, she has stalked him endlessly, she has his WhatsApp… she has already put to work all the written things in the book of How To Get Him Interested but Adrian just never seems to notice her…

Oh well, one day he did – but all that moment earned her was a smile and a disguised date that never happened… He leaves her devastated.

Adrian wonders too: “Am I not tall enough for her? Ladies love tall guys, right? (His words, not mine) Is it my personality she doesn’t like? Am I too childish? Does my face betray my maturity? Am I not good enough for her? Do I joke or talk too much? Maybe it is my voice, right? And so forth and so on...” These questions surge endlessly through his mind. They stir him to wondering why he is being denied a simple relationship with a girl who overturned his world. He thinks that he can never fall for another lady the way he did with this one…

Yeah it was attraction at first sight, but after stalking her for a while (yeah, he does stalk her from time to time as escalated by his visits to his brother’s place which have become as monotonous as the rising and setting of the sun… and in these escapades, he manages to know a few things about her; that her name is Trizah, and that she is cooooooool like that – just what he wanted in a lady… he even has her WhatsApp (oh my!) but it now seems that her chatting tendencies are like drops of rain in the Sahara…) and talking her over, he has decided that fate (yes, he thinks that it is fate) has denied him his place in her heart.

***********************************

And this cycle between Annabelle, Adrian and Trizah continues. It goes on forever. It goes on forever because Adrian says that Annabelle is not his type and that there is no way he can ever fall in love with her; although he appreciates that she is a good lady who deserves another man – just not him! Annabelle on the other side thinks he is the perfect guy dropped down from the Heaven of God just for her but one who keeps treating gold as trash... Again, Trizah does not think Adrian is her type. She thinks he deserves better (yeah, that is what she always tells him on the few occasions she manages to reply to his messages) which is something Adrian is always perplexed at because according to him, she is his best!!

I chose to call this cycle a clash of types. It is where love, affection, interests and so on are not reciprocated in the way the giver was expecting or deserves. It is where one person suffers that blunt of not being loved back or being cared for the way they deserve. It is where people struggle to love and care for the other who loves them too much. It is where people lie about so many things in order to make the other feel good about themselves and the relationships yet all they are telling are lies (God forbid). It is where she is interested, while he is not; because he is into another who is not. It is called a clash of types.

Can we ever solve a clash of types to make impossible relationships work? Maybe. Maybe not. I propose the following (which I will expound on later in another blog titled “So You Want Him/Her to Be Your Boyfriend/Girlfriend…?”) as ways on trying to solve a clash of types;

1. Get over it and move on
2. Play your cool, you still have a chance
3. Study their game and become their type – the art of the love language and love through suggestion
4. Have a life – stop being predictable and boring
5. Get your type to whom you are their type.

See you next time.

Bonface Morris.