Jason Whitehorn explains that God can still work even if your worship isn’t perfect.

If you are like me just a few short years ago – you tend to think too much about what went wrong in a service. Chances are you may have a “horrible service” because a note was missed, a wrong line sung in a lyric, your team missed the double chorus, or a number of other things.

Let’s face it…not every service is going to be perfect.

…but God is.

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Russ Hutto encourages worship leaders to be intentially productive.

Worship leaders, have you ever had someone asked you what it is you spend your time doing all week? Here are some of the guesses that I’ve experienced over the years:

• “You get paid to sit around and listen to music, that must be nice!”
• “You’re on staff? You mean they pay you to sing?”
• “I bet all you do is sit around and play the piano all week, right?”
• “Why do you even need a desk? Isn’t your job description fulfilled with a guitar or piano?”

There have been many more. Of course, nobody means to be underhanded when they are trying to figure out just what it is that we as worship leaders actually get paid to do (at least I don’t think they do). And at times, it can be hard to simply explain what it is that we do for our churches.

But here’s the bottom line: if we are privileged to be compensated by our churches for the service that we provide, then we should at the very least be as intentional as we can about also being productive in our efforts.

Granted, God isn’t concerned with our time sheets as much as our supervisors may be, but what God IS concerned with is HIS KINGDOM. And we get to be a participant in reflecting God’s glory here on this earth. The practical manifestation of that sometimes includes our “work.”

So here are some thoughts and tips on being PRODUCTIVE while also being a creative soul.

1) Myth: I’m a creative so systems and processes don’t work for me.

Let’s get this one straight right off the bat. There is no such person in the world who doesn’t benefit from being intentional about time. People who use creativity as an excuse to be lazy, thoughtless, and careless do not serve well. Oh, they might sing or play well, but they do not serve well. This does not mean that every second of your day needs to be structured or logged, but as a creative you actually NEED more structure than you might think you do.

Embrace the processes. Embrace the systems. They are like guard rails on a high mountain road. As creatives we have a tendency to speed through life, allowing inspiration and art to carry us recklessly along the road. Guard rails will keep you from plunging to a fiery crash! Systems and processes will allow you to move through your creative bursts with intention and purpose.

Find a system that allows you to rest and work in a rhythm. Look for daily and weekly disciplines that you can incorporate into your life. Disciplines lead to habits. Habits lead to routine. Routine leads to rhythm. You want your LIFE to be a rhythm. Just like your heart beats in rhythm, without you having to tell it to, our lives should also flow in rhythm as well.

2) Rest well.

Rest – it’s not a word we throw around a lot when we start talking about productivity, but it is a very important word to keep at the forefront of our life rhythms. You will not reach your potential creatively and/or productively if you are not resting well.

This starts with sleep. Regardless of how you feel about burning both ends of the candle, there is no scenario in which constantly NOT sleeping is good for you. Productivity and creativity reach their full potential when you are rested well.

God created Adam on the sixth day and then the very first full day that Adam experienced was the seventh day on which GOD RESTED. The creator of the universe kicks off mankind’s rhythms by starting us off with a day of rest.

Often, we get this rhythm backwards and we work, work, work until we crash. I believe a better pattern is to rest and then to work. Charge the batteries FIRST, and then work from that charge. A crash is not resting well.

Here are some tips for resting well:

• Be intentional about your sleep.
• Sleep in a cool, very dark room.
• Eliminate electronic devices (laptops, smart phones, tablets, tv screens) from your bedroom at bedtime.
• Early to bed early to rise.
• If you feel the need to be productive when it’s dark outside, do it before the sun comes up. Go to bed early and wake up earlier.

3) Identify and knock out your big tasks first thing.

Whether or not you’re a to-do list person is not really the issue. The issue is that you prioritize and complete important tasks. How you actually do that is up to you. But you should make a point to identify 1-2 MUST-DOs for each day, and then spend the first part of your work hours doing that thing. The other things will fall into place.

In my own personal process, I don’t check email until I’ve worked at least 1-2 hours on my big things for the day. Some days, that actually does include email, but I’m not writing and replying to emails until I finished my big tasks.

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Cliff Lambert claims bad vocals can be fixed.

Over the last 30 years or so, the role of the vocal team in worship has changed dramatically. We’ve moved from full choirs to ensembles or “praise teams” of 4-12 and now down to a worship leader with a single harmony vocalist. Regardless of the size of these vocal teams, good vocal technique cannot be ignored in order to create vocal sounds that enhance the worship experience without being a distraction.

Unfortunately, there’s not a plethora of information to help worship vocalists and vocal teams on the web. This seems quite odd since the voice has been and always will be the main instrument in translating what’s in our hearts to the audible message of our worship offering. Perhaps there’s an unspoken belief that vocal ability is just something you’re born with or without. Either you have it or you don’t and there’s little room for change within that area of ability. For those who do decide to work on their voice, it can takes years of practice, sometimes having to break old habits in the process. Also, if you don’t have a thorough knowledge of how the voice works, trying to help another vocalist can be very intimidating. As artists, we also understand that egos are fragile and we don’t want to offend someone by suggesting things they need to work on vocally.

Whatever the case for not teaching good vocal technique, all of us have had the experience of hearing bad worship vocalists lead worship with some foundational technical flaws that are causing them to have an unpleasant tone or intonation problems. Believe it or not, these things CAN be fixed.

For the sake of continuity, we’ll call these team vocalists or background vocalists, BGV’s. First off, the BGV must realize they are not the main focus or the center of attention. They compliment or accompany the lead vocalist. Most vocalists don’t realize that singing as a lead or solo vocalist and singing as a BGV requires a completely different style of singing.

There are some foundational techniques that can be applied to all styles of singing, whether you’re singing folk, gospel, pop, rock, or whatever. First we must understand that there is nothing more to singing than this simple idea: “Sustained sighing on pitch”. We all know how to sigh. When we do, we’re creating free tone while air easily moves through our vocal chords. As singers, we buy into the idea that singing involves more. It doesn’t. There’s no need to manipulate any muscles in the neck or throat to make a good singing tone. If you can learn how to sigh and hold a pitch while doing it, you’ve learned how to sing. There’s nothing more that needs to be added to that.

LISTENING
Before a vocalist even thinks about creating a sound with their voice, the MOST important thing they must do is listen. Many vocalists tend to get so “into” the music (and sometimes themselves) that all they focus on is passionately expressing vocally what’s in their heart. Meanwhile, the rest of team has has been left in the dust and they’re the one left standing alone. As much as we think we should be heard, the goal is not for the BGV to “be heard”. Ideally, if there is a harmony to the lead vocal it should be present but not distinguishable. BGV’s create an affect of fullness without anyone knowing how or what it is.

Listening requires being aware of everything else that’s going on around you, including the instruments and other voices and responding vocally in a way that compliments and matches where the rest of the team is as it relates to pitch (being in tune with the rest of the team), vowels (the shape of the sound), dynamics (volume), tone (the timbre or quality of the vocal sound), timing (synchronized syllables, entrances and cut-offs), and texture (how many instruments/vocals are playing/singing at that time). I always tell our vocalists to go through this process in your head before making sound: “LISTEN. THINK. SING”. It’s always in that order. If you go out of order, you most likely won’t compliment what’s going on on the rest of the platform.

PITCH
In addition to listening in order to match the pitches that are going on around you, the other thing that can increase pitch accuracy is proper use of the air. If you don’t know how to breathe properly and then use that breath, the muscles in the neck and jaw will overcompensate by tightening up. This tightness causes the pitch to waver or go flat (under pitch).

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Daniel Darling says churches that worship at the altar of relevance divide ministry into age-graded demographics.

Did you hear the latest research about the attitudes of Millennials? Me neither.

I’m being sarcastic, but kind of serious. It’s good to study the trends and behaviors of the next generation so we can adapt our ministry methods for gospel advance and the edification of those we are called to serve.

Still, my experience tells me that that the kind of ministry that best builds up the body of Christ is one filled with incarnational, intergenerational, gift-giving relationships.

I recently said goodbye to one of my dearest friends, who taught me more about ministry than anyone else I knew. He recently succumbed to cancer in his early eighties. Until this quick-moving disease ushered Him home, Bill was a font of wisdom about how to do ministry. It was timeless wisdom good for dealing with every generation.

Another of my close friends is a Boomer. I can’t tell you how many lengthy phone conversations I’ve had with Rich over the years, gleaning precious insights on family and church life.

I’ve seen this dynamic played out in church life if the leaders are willing to embrace a multi-generational approach. Churches that worship at the altar of relevance, who are constantly chasing the next trend might be tempted to so vigorously divide ministry into age-graded demographics that they create little churches within their church. However, churches who balance generational needs with a multi-generational dynamic foster a rich, other-worldly kind of body life.

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