Worship Leader’s Redux: Easter Weekend 2010 Part 2

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In my last post I covered some of the positives I drew from the services over Easter weekend. With time to reflect I’m sharing a few points that I could have done better on:

  • I didn’t write out all my chords for a new song we tried, “Completely Done“. This wasn’t too much of a problem in the end as our pianist carried the correct chords strongly for most of the song. But because I didn’t write the chords down, when I played I ended up confusing rather than leading the instrumental section which needed strong direction due to a trumpet solo line.
  • Quite a number of people noted that the same song was pitched a bit too high for the women in particular, and also featured quite a boring melody in the verse (mostly the same notes in each line). I should have clued in on this earlier as the female vocalists on team needed to drop down to a lower harmony part during the chorus – but maybe there was a bit of pride in not wanting to relent on a song we’d worked hard on. I need to be more flexible in this area and scrutinise new songs not just for its content (which was spot on), but whether the church can sing it!
  • With Ryan, a strong guitarist on team this weekend, I sensed that my own guitar playing was a bit redundant. There’s always a bit of a control (and perhaps pride) issue where one might sometimes feel more in charge, and less exposed, with an instrument strapped across the shoulder. But I know I should be learning how to better lead my team better without depending on guitar strums.
  • On Sunday I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to swap the song order, bringing “Thank You Jesus” further forward in the set list. However I didn’t give enough advance warning and launched straight into the song without checking that lyrics were onscreen, potentially disrupting and distracting the congregation needlessly. While I’m not advocating that worship leaders should never deviate from the script and forgo the prompting of the Holy Spirit, in this instance I could have given the projector operator better direction. Definitely something to work on in future.

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Anyways, I think that’s enough navel-gazing for now. Good and bad points combined, I’m just grateful that God used the imperfect and broken to bring Him glory this weekend!

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– William