By Chuck Lawless
A few weeks ago, I posted findings on common worship distractions. Since that time, some readers have questioned me more specifically about our findings regarding the musical component of worship. So, the goal in this post is to respond to that request.
Let me be honest about my qualifications up front, though: I am not a musician or singer; I am a church consultant only reporting what our teams have found in more than 15 years of consulting. It is not my intent to be judgmental or offensive. I have utmost respect for those who lead us in worship. With those caveats in mind, here are ten distractions we’ve encountered in the music element of worship.
- Incomprehensible choir or praise team words – I start with this distraction (a repeat from the previous post) simply because we face this issue so often. The sound system may be poor, the singers may not enunciate well, or the music may drown out the lyrics – but in any case, we miss the message while straining to understand the words.
- Unsmiling faces leading worship – Some solemn hymns may not necessitate smiles, but something is lacking in singing about the joy of the Lord when the singer’s facial expression suggests something different. We have seen entire praise teams show little expression as they lead worship.
- Poor musicians or singers – I hesitate to include this distraction because I realize the level of talent varies by congregation. Nor do I want to suggest that only the most talented musicians or singers should be permitted to lead worship. I’m simply stating what we’ve experienced: sometimes the musical component of worship lacks quality.
- Unprepared singers – Here, level of talent is not the issue; lack of preparation instead appears to be the problem. Sometimes it seems – right or wrong – as if no one practiced this component of the worship service. In fact, we’ve occasionally heard it stated publicly: “Please pray for me before I sing today because I really didn’t have time to get ready for singing.”
- “Preachy” music directors – Some folks leading worship do a great job of succinctly and effectively speaking between songs. Others, though, seem to use interludes to preach a sermon in preparation for the sermon still to come. Too much talking may actually disrupt the worship more than facilitate it.
- Songs disconnected from the sermon topic – It seems strange, for example, when the sermon series is about family but none of the song selections moves in that direction. On the other hand, worship is often facilitated – and the teachings of that service’s content are easier to recall – when the musical selections and the sermon content focus in a single direction.
- Difficult songs to sing – Again, I am not a singer, but I do know when I’m struggling to sing a particular song. Some of our more gifted consulting team members are singers, and they at times question song selections on the “singability” of the song. What works for the gifted singer doesn’t always work for the typical person in the pew.
- Weak use of media for lyrics – This distraction is a corollary to the previous one. Lyrics on the screen are most often helpful. If, though, the phrase and sentence breaks on the screen don’t match the breaks in the singing, the worshipper may still struggle with knowing how to sing the song. Lyrics on the screen do not generally help worship participants learn the melody.
- Poorly done blended style – Anecdotally, we are seeing more churches move to a blended style of worship rather than offer multiple distinct styles of worship. That approach is not bad, but it becomes problematic when the worship leaders are strong in one style but weak in the other. Often, that difference is noticeable.
- Introducing new songs without teaching them – Numerous good songwriters are producing strong worship music today. Introducing new songs to a church, however, requires intentionality that often seems lacking. Many of us welcome a worship leader’s taking the time to help us actually learn the song as a congregation.
What other distractions regarding worship music have you seen?
Chuck Lawless currently serves as Professor of Evangelism and Missions and Dean of Graduate Studies at Southeastern Seminary. You can connect with Dr. Lawless on both Twitter and Facebook.
Posted on January 8, 2015
Dr. Chuck Lawless is a leading expert in spiritual consultation, discipleship and mentoring. As a former pastor, he understands the challenges ministry presents and works with Church Answers to provide advice and counsel for church leaders.
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147 Comments
My Distraction is This: Congregants chatting during the offertory time or other special music.
As church pianist, I take great care in preparing and selecting the prelude, postlude, and (especially) the offertory music and making sure the music ties in with the sermon topic and scripture of the day. I pray, allowing the Holy Spirit to direct my choices. I also worship as I play, because when I am at the foot of the throne this attitude of worship transfers to the worshippers and helps them engage. My biggest distraction (and the most sad) is when the congregation treats this as a commercial break instead of a time to prepare their hearts and minds to hear the words God wants to say through the pastor. A pastor once told me that the offertory time was his time to focus on God and His message before he gets up to preach. You never know what God is doing during that time either. I have had people come up to me and say, “It was the song that drew us to accept Christ tonight.” or “God spoke to me through the song, whispering to my heart that it was okay to move out of state to take that job offer.”
Thanks, Gail, for the word from a pianist.
I agree. I played the piano for years. I am not a professional concert pianist, but a volunteer (with many years of private lessons and certainly advanced skill level)…. Practicing takes hours, and I typically work on a song for weeks (while juggling work and home duties). As Gail noted, yes, this is my form of worship but also my form of service to the church. The music is intended to provide a time of reflection and meaning. I know that someone is touched by this music, but others just don’t pay attention and use this time to talk softly, etc. Once an associate pastor walked to the pulpit and started getting his sermon notes out etc. while another pianist was still playing the offertory. Unbelievable – he would not have done that if someone had been singing.
biggest distraction to me is pastors who come in half way through praise and worship with there entourage the sit there and don’t get involved in praise and worship service. How do you expect the congregation to see the significance in that part of the service if the pastor doesn’t?
There may at times be valid reasons for coming in late, but good point, Michelle.
This is a topic I could probably go on and on about but I’ll just add one more distraction:
Older ladies who have played piano their whole lives but are no longer physically capable of playing well and yet refuse to step aside and allow someone else to play.
We are grateful for their years of service, though. Thanks.
But maybe no one else is stepping forward to offer to play. And maybe this is their form of service and their way to be engaged with the church. Is there a way to have them play 1-2 times per month as part of a rotation with other musicians? It may be very meaningful to them, so you don’t want to just take it away form them completely if you can come up with other solutions.
When I say, “refuse to step aside,” I mean, “refuse to step aside.” And I’m not talking about a few missed notes, I’m talking the whole service being a train wreck. Everyone wants to love the sweet, old lady playing the piano, but frankly, she has made the whole service about her. I’m not even allowed to get a fill in for when she’s not there! What I find interesting, or maybe disturbing, is that no one would tolerate that from the pastor but it’s okay for the pianist because “she’s been playing her whole life.”
I am going through that right now. We have an 87 year old piano player and her son, who is in his late 60’s leading the music. It’s bad. Sometimes awful, sad to say. I’m a seasoned worship leader (who can play all styles, with contemporary as my favorite but can play anything), and visited the church for 3 services. I was specifically contacted by the pastor after we quit visiting and asked to come back because they needed my skills. We returned. Now I have learned that they are leaving things as they are; I think these people are a huge part of the financial backing of the church (it’s a small congregation–big building). I came in one day and the piano player’s son and another man were trying to fix the organ so I could play along with the piano player so I’d have something to play. Needless to say, we are leaving. We are sad but we are leaving…
When I led worship unprepared soloists were a constant frustration for me. I don’t know how many times I heard the “pray for me because I haven’t had time to practice” line. If you have that little regard for God’s worship then you shouldn’t be singing in the first place. However, much of this happened because of the traditional ideology that says there must be a solo in every service regardless if anyone is prepared to sing. I even had an interim pastor get in my face once and say, “You better have a solo every week!” Show me the solo list that Jesus used and I’ll buy that ideology.
Thanks, Adam.
I’ve never gotten used to a “worship team” up in front, singing like a paid concert. Maybe it’s my personal introversion and traditional liturgical church upbringing, but I prefer the idea of putting musicians in the back, or to the side (no offense). It’s just too easy to get a “star” mentality up there, “performing,” in the culture we live in, and we’ve seen it happen. On a different note, after several years in a large church venue, with “professional” everything (incl worship team), we visited a small local church one Sunday that happened to have a really bad soloist that day, a chunky, not especially attractive older woman. It was refreshing, strangely. It was r-e-a-l…..
Interesting thoughts, Louise. Thanks.
As a member of a praise team/ensemble, I know what Louise means. It’s sometimes easy to get caught up in the “leading worship” aspect instead of being in a worshipful aspect of being up front. We have a program we hold every year called “Heart of the Artist” that addresses those very issues with breakout sessions and team-building activities. We also have quarterly “Jam Sessions” that we are required to attend as worship leaders that re-emphasize those points and introduces new music to us that we will be introducing to the church during that quarter. Occasionally, we do put the vocalists behind the curtains to avoid that “distraction”, and we always always have for Good Friday services.
Thank you, Louise! Worship Teams have simply become the church versions of AMERICAN IDOL or a Rock Concert!! I, too, was raised in the traditional liturgical (Presbyterian) style worship service (which I prefer), yet I have spent the past 18 years playing on Worship Teams and had to recently step down because of all the hypocrisy & abuse of authority going on before, during & after worship. Most of this is all due to the “LEADERSHIP MANIA” that’s been corrupting churches in recent years.
God Bless.
Mark Beecher
As you can see from my email address, I am a musician as well as a pastor. I have to admit to being guilty in the past of some of these sins. This is a great article, and I appreciate your calling this to our attention.
Number 6, Preachy Music Leaders, is one of my pet peeves. Sometimes a short introduction or some thought is good, but when it takes 5 minutes to introduce or share an illustration, etc., let the congregation sing and let the Pastor preach.
Thanks for the input from a musician and pastor, John.
LifeWay has a great solution to number 8 – the 2008 Baptist Hymnal. It doesn’t require batteries, electricity, or any technical expertise! It even has all the correct words! 🙂
🙂
The only “problem” with using a hymnal is that people look down to sing instead of up and their voices are lost in their hymnals rather than joined together with those of the worship leaders and directed “somewhat” heavenward. As the powerpoint creator and lead vocalist of the worship team at my own church I can tell you there is nothing more distracting to me than realizing something is wrong with the powerpoint (a rare occurrence) and having it pointed out to me by the pastor (aka Mom) or a congregation member as we are singing. (Usually this occurs through a raised eyebrow, a smirk, or a pointed stare.) If only people weren’t so emphatic about perfection from the leadership then worship might be more of a worship offering to God than the desire to be entertained by a perfect show. I don’t think worship leaders are allowed to be human…there is a difference between giving God your best worship while knowing that sometimes you will screw up the “show”, and giving God your best “show” while knowing that you have screwed up the worship. (Oh, and we do music from all over the spectrum…except chants, we haven’t done any chanting…)
I hate to say it, but I think much of this modern technology takes away from worship more than it adds. Charles Haddon Spurgeon wouldn’t even allow musical instruments in his church. He readily agreed that such instruments are perfectly scriptural, but he thought they detracted from the simple environment he wanted to create. I wouldn’t go quite that far, but I do think we are making worship much too complicated these days, and we are much too dependent on modern technology. I shudder to think what would happen to our churches if we had a major power outage in this country.
Singing amen at the end of every hymn is huge distraction for me. The 1940s saw the publication of a number of denominational hymnals that tacked an amen onto the end of every hymn. The Anglo-Catholic movement introduced this practice in the Church of England and the Episcopal Church in the nineteenth century as part of their attempt to reshape the church music of these two denominations along the lines of that of the pre-Reformation Roman Catholic Church. The Anglo-Catholic movement also introduced vested choirs and organs. A number of denominations—Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian—would copy the practice in their denominational hymnals. The hymnologist Eric Routley would point out that except where an amen is a part of the text of the hymn, the singing of an amen at the end of a hymn is superfluous. The practice was dropped from later hymnals. A few traditional churches cling tenaciously to the older hymnals and to the practice. Except in a few hymns where the amen is a part of the text of the hymn itself, the amen is not sung to the same tune as the hymn. The same tune, however, is used for almost every amen—the exception being the amens that are part of the text of the hymn.
I have successfully blended traditional and contemporary music in the same service. It is essential to have a clear idea of how you intend to use music in the service. I find it helpful to view worship as a three way conversation—a conversation in which we are speaking to God, God to us, and we to each other. It is my hope that first time guests who are not yet believers, having overheard the conversation, will experience transformation and join the conversation. It is therefore essential that words of songs be intelligible, applying what Paul said about speaking in tongues. Paul also stressed the importance of doing things in an orderly manner and to build up those present.
A song does not have to be directed at those present to build them up. Singing God’s praises or encouraging others through a song is also upbuilding.
Every song does not have to be keyed to the sermon. This can result in a service that is overly didactic. At the same time one should take care not to select songs that do not fit with the sermon and which may contradict or counter its message.
Thanks for the insights, Robin. You, like so many others who respond to posts on this site, help us to learn together.
I was taught that “Amen” is sung only where a hymn ends with a Doxology.
For those who may be interested, Dean McIntyre summarizes Eric Routley’s argument in an article, “Why Don’t We Sing Amen Anymore?” on the United Methodist Church’s Discipleship Ministries website. Routley pointed out in his essay on the liturgical use of “Amen” in Church Music and the Christian Faith (Carol Stream, IL: Hope Publishing Co., 1978):
1. It was in medieval Ambrosian chant that amens were first added to the final stanzas of hymns in praise of the Trinity. These final stanzas are known as doxologies, many of which may be found in our United Methodist Hymnal (nos. 61, 62, 64, 102, 160, 184, 559, 651, and others).
2. The custom of adding amens to hymns did not exist in Lutheran, Reformed, seventeenth- or eighteenth century Anglican (including the Wesleys and early Methodism) or evangelical congregational song.
3. By the middle of the nineteenth century, hymnbook compilers were including translations of some of the ancient hymns that included amens. The problem arose with the musical style of the hymns of the nineteenth century; that is, they were composed for the meters of the poetry of the texts, and the amens were usually two short syllables added to the final stanza, so the music of the hymn tune did not accommodate them. As a result, the doxological amen was added to the final stanza following the completion of its singing, usually set to the familiar IV-I plagal or amen cadence.
4. Eventually, additional concluding doxologies with amens were added to hymns that originally did not contain them — to the point where the most influential hymnal of the nineteenth century, Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861), added an amen to every hymn.
5. Some American hymnals picked up the practice, including the Presbyterian hymnal of 1895. The Methodist hymnals of 1905 and 1935 did the same. The 1966 Methodist Hymnal began to reverse the process by deleting the amen from selected hymns, including “How Great Thou Art” and “The First Noel.”
6. By the middle of the twentieth century, British Anglicans dropped the amens, while American Episcopalians continued it until their 1982 hymnal, which also dropped the amens. Most hymnals toward the end of the century dropped the amens, and the Southern Baptists never included them.
I first ran across Routley’s Christian Music and the Christian Faith at the New Orleans Baptist Seminary Book Store in the 1980s. It was required or recommended reading for students at the seminary. While I was not a student, it was my practice to read what they were reading. I was a licensed minister in the Episcopal Church at that time. One of the conditions of my license was that I pursue independent study on a range of subjects including Old and New Testament, church history, theology, church music, preaching, the conduct of public worship, the use of the voice, parish administration, and pastoral care and report annually to the bishop on my progress. The seminary book store had on its shelves an excellent selection of books by Anglican theologians such Philip Edgcombe Hughes, Leon Morris, J.I. Packer, J. C. Ryle, John Stott, Peter and Toon, as well as other evangelical theologians.
In my library I have an 1889 Episcopal hymnal that has a list of doxologies and amens set to various meters, which may be appended to hymns of the same meter.
While in the Episcopal Church, I was also involved in music ministry for a number of years, in a new church plant as well as an established church. Since 2002 I have been helping to pioneer new churches in a number of denominations including Southern Baptist and have been involved in music ministry in three of these churches. The integration of contemporary music into traditional worship and traditional music into contemporary worship each offer unique challenges. These challenges are not insurmountable.
Guitar solos. What is the congregation supposed to do during them.
Vocal runs. It’s not American Idol and most members cant follow it so they quit singing.
Song keys. Chris Tomlin may sing in girl range, but this dude doesnt.
I don’t mind an occasional vocal run, but I agree too many worship leaders overdo it these days, and most of them don’t do it well.
Thanks, Seth. Sounds like you know something about music.
Worship leaders who criticize the congregation for not smiling while they sing (or not clapping or…) are a major distraction. There are differences between being encouraging and being critical.
Lyrics on the screen that are wrong are a distraction (especially when the same slides are used repeatedly without any attempt to correct the lyrics).
Thanks, Jim, for your thoughts.
I would add the spiritual preparation/condition of worship leaders. Just because someone is a good singer does not mean that they should be leading people in worship. Who goes on the platform and what happens there should be very carefully guarded, but this takes a great deal of spiritual discernment. Leading people in worship of the most high God is an awesome responsibility that is not to be taken lightly.
Agreed, David. Thanks.
a worship leader or praise team member who is a “grand stander”. You can tell when they think no one is as good as they are.
Thanks, Mindy. Blessings.
Thanks, Marcha.
Ain’t that the truth!