It’s Sunday. It’s 10 AM. Do you know where your song leader is?
Few things throw an otherwise well-ordered worship assembly into a tale-spin like a missing song leader. People are already seated and begin looking around. They wonder, “Why haven’t we started yet?” One can faintly hear the words echoing around the auditorium: “Well, I guess I can lead … if no one else will.”
Some time ago I was preaching in a gospel meeting. It was the first time I had been with this particular congregation. A brother was making some opening remarks and announced that a certain brother would come forward and lead singing. Someone spoke up, “Nope.” This startled the brother at the podium, but he quickly recovered. He looked out over the room and asked another brother if he would lead. That brother shook his head. He implored another. A third brother declined. The Announcer (red-faced as you might imagine) descended the pulpit, picked up a songbook and began fanning through pages. As he chose a song and returned to the platform, one of those reluctant men spoke out, “I mean, if nobody else will, then I’ll lead.” The Announcer said, “Oh no! I’ll do this!” It was quite the first impression.
Now one may dismiss it as “That’s just life in a country church” or excuse it because, “Everybody has a bad day.” Incidentally, I do not believe that scene is commonplace for that congregation and I hope it is not commonplace anywhere. However, are brethren aware and prepared for the awesome responsibility of leading the congregation in song worship? To do it well requires more than musical skill. A song leader needs wisdom, preparation, and planning.
God’s Old Testament musicians set a precedent of wisdom for all those who lead God’s people in New Testament song worship. 1 Chronicles 15:19 names these inspired psalmists: Heman (Ps. 88), Asaph (Ps. 50), and Ethan (Ps. 89). They were all Levitical priests (1 Chron. 15:16-17) who were contemporaries of David and Solomon (1 Chron. 15:2-3; 1 Kings 4:31). And they were smart – only Solomon surpassed them in wisdom (1 Kings 4:31). As Levites, they were trained in the Word of God and expected to be teachers of the Word of God. Leonard Payton observed, “In short, musicians were teachers of the highest order. This leads me to suspect that Levitical musicians, being scattered through the land, served as Israel’s teachers. Furthermore, the Psalms were their textbook. And because this textbook was a songbook, it may well be that the Levitical musicians catechized the nation of Israel through the singing of psalms.”1
The teaching priority of song worship carries into the New Covenant. Notice how teaching and warning with the Word of Jesus Christ is accomplished in both preaching (Col. 1:28) and singing (Col. 3:15-16). The participles are identical.
“Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus” (Col. 1:28, NKJV).
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Col. 3:16).
Teaching is to be done through song. Who typically decides what a congregation sings? The song leader! Brethren must take song leading as seriously as the sermon. The preacher will study, pray, and work many hours over his one sermon in order to teach and admonish. Yet the song leader is selecting six messages in a regular order of service (two songs, prayer, song, sermon, invitation song, communion song, closing song). Every song has the church teaching, confessing, or professing something. He presents six sermons every Sunday! The song leader is an incredibly influential teacher in the local church. (If your congregation has eight song leaders then you have eight influential teachers!)
Robert Dale wrote, “The person who chooses the hymns for worship is potentially the most important theologian in his congregation.”2 And it has been said, “Let me write the hymns of a church and I care not who may write its creed or volumes of theology – I will determine its faith.”3
What happens more often? Do you get speeches stuck in your head or songs stuck in your head?
This compels us to consider a song leader’s preparation and planning. For every song he selects, there are truly thousands he excludes. So, why does he choose the songs he has chosen? Is all being done for the edification of the church? Just because songs are led does not mean they are purposefully edifying. Does a song leader say, “The church needs to sing this today”? And if he does (which he should for each selection), on what basis does he arrive at his decision?
What does song worship planning look like in your congregation? Here are a few ways that I’ve witnessed:
No planning – The song leader frantically flips through the songbook as opening announcements are made. He is put on the spot because he forgot or somebody was sick.
Nostalgia planning – The song leader tells the congregation that, “We just haven’t sung it in awhile.”
Tried and True – The song leader knows six songs. The congregation knows that when he is the leader, they will sing them.
Thematic planning – The song leader selects songs according to a spiritual theme like “heaven” or “prayer” or he chooses songs that coincide with the sermon.
Joint planning – Song leaders, preachers, and other worship leaders meet prior to the service to discuss, plan, and pray, before leading the church in worship.
Sermon in Song – The song leader alternates Scripture readings with like-minded songs.
The list is hardly exhaustive but the point is that there are multiple ways to plan an edifying song worship and many ways to fail at it. Which do you experience more often? What is to be done about it?
First, let’s encourage song leaders to appreciate that they stand in the noble line of David, Asaph, and Paul as teachers of God’s word to God’s people. It is an awesome responsibility and they are in good company.
Second, let’s understand that equipping song leaders to lead song worship stretches beyond musical appreciation or honing vocal talent. Obviously that is required but leading song worship is so much more. Let them see their task as six sermons to be purposefully edifying.
To that end, I summarize a song-selection-criteria found in Dan Chambers’ book Showtime!: Worship In The Age of Show Business.4 (In the book, Chambers argues against a showbiz mentality.) This may be helpful to any song leader in determining whether he should lead a given song in congregational worship:
The lyrics will reflect a basic theme or insight into Christian theology or the Christian experience. We are to sing “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” (Col. 3:16). Perhaps it can be a little fuzzy what that allows or disallows. There is plenty of music out there that is not wrong or bad, in and of itself, but it is not about God or the Faith at all. If a song leader is on the fence as to whether a text is or is not a spiritual song then he should select another – there are thousands to choose from with no ambiguity.
The lyrics will be in harmony with Scripture. We must sing Truth (Col. 3:16). While there is allowance and tolerance for poetic license, a song leader still faces the fact that not all lyrics are true. If there is a questionable verse, a song leader may omit it. He might change a word to be more biblically accurate. Then again, he may say, “I don’t believe this lyric. I don’t want to fool with fixing it. We’ll sing something else.” Again, there are thousands of options.
The rhythm and tune will properly express the tone and feelings of the lyrics. Incidentally, a song’s rhythm may be written appropriately but because the leader/congregation drags it down or speeds it up the result sounds strange. Example: We’re Marching To Zion at the pace of a funeral dirge.
The language will be clear and understandable. We need to speak what is easily understood (1 Cor. 14:9, 15) or we are talking into the air. The common knock on Praise Choruses is that while they are understandable, they are also repetitive and shallow. The common knock on Hymns is that some language is archaic and the tunes feel dated. Leaving caricatures aside, whatever the church sings must be understood and meaningful. The song leader needs to explain it. As David Maravilla warned, “Song leaders should not dare lead a hymn they have not read first … a song leader should read every verse of every hymn he intends to lead. If we do not understand something we have sung in a hymn, we should not ask the preacher or someone else what he thinks it means; we should ask the song leader. He is the one who chose it; he is the one who should understand the meaning.”5
May God bless the song leaders guiding us to praise God and edify one another.
Endnotes
1 Quoted in John MacArthur, Fool’s Gold. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005, pp. 122-123.
2 Robert Dale, To Dream Again: How To Help Your Church Come Alive. Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2004, p. 54.
3 Charles Sumner Nutter, “Preface,” The Hymns and Hymn Writers of the Church, an annotated edition of the Methodist Hymnal (1911).
4 Dan Chambers, Showtime!: Worship In The Age of Show Business, Nashville, TN: 21st Century Christian, 1997, pp. 107-109.
5 David Maravilla, “Singing as Worship,” Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, ed. Mike Willis, Athens, AL: Guardian of Truth Foundation, 2012, p. 228.
Andrew Roberts preaches at the Jackson Heights church of Christ in Columbia, TN where he has worked as an evangelist since 2002. He has written several Bible class workbooks and his articles have appeared in Truth Magazine, Biblical Insights, and Pressing On e-magazine. aroberts@thebibleway.org