Should We Move Past the Song Leader?

The author makes some good arguments against doing a worship team badly. Nothing there argues against doing it well. To put it another way, the problems with worship teams identified there are not inherent in having multiple people lead. They are not essential attributes of worship teams.

… and several of the problems identified also apply to doing ‘singular song leader’ poorly.

Our church has a “worship team.” It’s a pianist and two or maybe three vocalists. Sometimes one. We consciously avoid being entertaining. We don’t have ‘special music.’ We don’t have enough singers for a choir.

We don’t think the number of people in front of the congregation has any biblical or historical or cultural significance. It does give more people opportunity to serve in that way and helps keeps any one person from being a superstar. There’s also a lot of joy in collaborating in that way. And sometimes it’s a huge relief to have some other vocalists beside you if you’re struggling with your voice or your emotions or your energy/health. I led singing the old way for years and years ‘all by myself.’ I don’t think it was in any way better.

Are there tradeoffs in one approach vs. the other? A few. I think it has little to do with the number of people and a lot to do with what you’re trying to accomplish and how much intentional effort you put into that.

While he makes a half-hearted attempt to connect the single song leader to the Choir Director of ancient Israel, I think he fails to ask where the modern single song leader tradition came from. The fact that he can't really say where the praise team originated doesn't help his argument, either. This seems like another one of those areas where our tradition becomes the standard by which we measure everything. In a few generations, P&D may he writing about the rise of the single song leader and whether it strays from the biblical ideal of a worship team.

I believe that the music leader, usually with arms waving, is a relatively new addition to worship services having had its debut in revivalism. Before that the pastor was the one who simply stood in the pulpit and led the congregation in singing.

One advantage of the ‘single song leader’ model I was reminded of recently is that he can conduct, if he knows what he’s doing. There are times in our team approach when I find myself wanting to do the ‘conductor’s pattern’ for 3/4 or a quick 6/8 (usually led as 2/2), etc. And in rehearsal I do it a lot.

But since we do rehearse, and the congregation doesn’t really know how to follow a conductor, that (conducting during congregational singing) wouldn’t help much, I think. But sometimes I miss getting physically involved with the music in that way.

In my experience, though, quite a lot of the ‘arm waving’ song leaders are not really skilled in any kind of conducting. So they are not helping—and sometimes just confusing the instrumentalists and the congregation.

In larger churches where you have a choir and multiple instruments, I really think you need a conductor. To many, this looks like a “song leader,” but it’s really not the same thing. He needs to conduct, and this is an actual skill one has to learn. It’s not random or somewhat rhythmic arm-waving. 😀

I still think song leaders are useful if they have any musical understanding.

Given that many of the songs sung today, even if good doctrinally, have unusual timing, pauses in unexpected places, etc. If the director (conductor) is on top of this, it lets the audience know when to sing. I’m not musically trained, but I understand music and have sung in choirs all my life, and when I have filled in with the leading, I make sure the audience knows when to sing.

When our main song leader (actually musically trained in conducting/choral conducting) is away, the guy who is part of the musicians who plays the guitar and essentially acts as a praise team leader in such cases directs the music. Sometimes, he doesn’t make it obvious where to come in, and with a more modern song also assumes the song is so well known that all the timing is memorized (it isn’t by everyone) and many in the audience are left trying to catch up. If the song were as much sung as “How Great Thou Art,” he might be able to do that without it being annoying. But even on such a well-known hymn, a director keeps the congregation together much better.

Principle 1: The Focus Should Be on God and Not on the Musician(s).

Funny story: Years ago a young man in our church decided he needed to apply this principle. So he sang a song with recorded music. I don't remember the song or the music style. But he sang in the back - in the sound booth - so no one could see him. Everyone was confused. First, I thought, "Why are we listening to a recording?" I was pretty sure who the voice was. It was distracting.

I'm not saying it isn't a true principle. It is. Just interesting over-application.

I believe that the music leader, usually with arms waving, is a relatively new addition to worship services having had its debut in revivalism. Before that the pastor was the one who simply stood in the pulpit and led the congregation in singing.

Ron,

I can't remember where I read it (maybe in the Homer Rodeheaver biography), but I recall that prior to the single song leader waving his hand the most common method in the US was trios and quartets. Either way, the article doesn't even question where the "traditional" fundamental Baptist song leader came from.

The way that we sing in Baptist and Fundamentalist circles today, originated in the early 1800's out of the revival services and camp meetings. This is where you started to have catchy tunes, verses with a chorus that repeats. This spread throughout the churches and were fueled by the music writers of the day. Prior to this period, singing looked very different in the churches and would be nearly unrecognizable today. Most of the songs in our traditional hymnals came from a wide variety of denominations. Which is funny given the great criticism we have of songs coming from the Pentacostal movement or other movements outside of a small circle. Most of the hymns were from Baptist, Congregationalist, Unitarianism and Methodists. The Sunday School movement also generated a lot of the styles that we see in our traditional hymnals today. Songs like "Nothing but the Blood" were from camp meetings that had catchy tunes that were picked up during Sunday School because they were less formal than the Sunday Service songs. Ira Sankey also had a huge influence in the songs and how we sing hymns today. If you look at the history during the time in the 1800's there was a lot of push back on this new "contemporary" type of singing in the church. It is funny that today, we push back on some new music, because it doesn't look like our traditional hymnal that we grew up in, yet a 100 years before that traditional hymnal there was huge pushback on that type of singing as being too contemporary or worldly. Actually many of the hymns in our traditional hymnals were classified as gospel songs because they were not as theologically deep and used catchy modern song styles, like "Wonderful Words of Life", by Philip Bliss. If you look at the criticism of Philip Bliss during his time, it is almost crazy how identical it is to the criticisms of today. Music was too simplistic, the songs were emotionally manipulative, they lacked the depth of hymns and the seriousness to the gospel found in the hymns they were displacing in the church, were attractive to the worldly culture around them......

That’s exactly correct. It’s hard to see it as anything other than just good ol’ fashioned traditionalism.

There are elements of the worship teams that I don't like. I would say though it is hard to find churches today that don't have a worship team concept. When we were looking for churches we came across a generalization. That was, that when I found a church with a more conservative music style, the preaching was often poor, and when I found a church with great preaching the music was more contemporary. I am not a huge fan with how most churches have implemented a worship team, but when you sit back it does progress with what I grew up with. Which was a full choir dressed up standing behind the pulpit. And having a trained music leader lead the congregation with a pianist and most oftentime an organist playing. I do miss choirs, but they are almost gone. Churches then began to introduce more instruments to the congregational singing based on talent available, which went everywhere from a string ensemble, to a band to a full on orchestra. What we have essentially transitioned from was the choir and the musicians merging together, a trained music director often now leading with a guitar and elimination of organs. I probably feel, just as much as my ancestors did in the early 1800's where I bemoan the past and look at the current as too attractional, too contemporary and designed to draw in crowds.

I’m personally not a fan of a choir or a worship team as I think it draws attention from the corporate worship of God. I feel the same about special music but I realize I am in the extreme minority.

josh,

you may not be in the extreme minority. I always grew up with the Choir singing during the offertory, and then having someone get up and perform special music just prior to the preaching. I am not sure where that model came from exactly, but it seemed to be pervasive amongst the fundamentalist churches that. I attended or visited. Today it is getting rarer and rarer for offertory plates to be passed out during a service. So sometimes the choir just sings while the congregation listens during that period in the service. When you sit back for a moment and think about regulative principles of worship, having the congregation sit for a performance of a choir seems a bit in conflict and aligns with a portion of the complaint around modern worship. Special music was always a bit odd to me, especially when it was just instrumental. And, yes, I played many a special music with an instrument growing up in the church. But unless words are displayed and/or the congregation knows the words to the tune that is played than at worse it is just a beautiful musical gig and best it is another performance. We don't see this as a tradition in the early church or really the church over the last 1900 years or so. We just start seeing it come up in the 1950's and then spread throughout the 60's and 70's in conservative churches. I can remember, all too many times, when someone stood up and played an instrumental special music on an obscure hymn and the congregation gives a bunch of amen's, but no one knew the words. It was just a string of notes that sounded melodic and beautiful. Of course, the pastor would then get up and praise the instrumentalist as we were being told to open up to a certain passage of the Bible. We were often told that this person was performing a type of ministry by ministering to the congregation in song, just as it says in Scripture, yet music without words, is challenging to link to what is says about ministering in song in Scripture.

Sounds like there are at least two of us! Yes I think the regulative principle comes in here. There is a church near me that has a choir but they sing from the balcony behind the congregation and accompany the singing of the congregation. I appreciate the effort to keep the attention on congregational worship.

Of course the church I attend today has a 200 person choir and a 60-70 person orchestra every Sunday. So I am criticizing a bit of the church that I am in today. But that is a dying breed of church. Back in the 1980's most fundamentalist churches had choirs. Today when I visit it seems like it is closer to 10%. I am surprised at the number of churches that have worship teams up front. This is even from churches that are led by former faculty of the 90's BJU. Of course the worship teams vary, and not with the lights, smoke machines, drum sets.... that you see on the more progressive side of things.

@josh… We also have no choir, no special music, and our offertory is almost always just the body singing another song or hymn together. Our vocalists are not performative, so I really think we’re not drawing any more attention than a one-person leader would. We’re just usually leading together.