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The Role of Skill in Church Music and Worship

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Our Music Team at Arapahoe Road Baptist Church and I are meeting about every six weeks to two months for a number of reasons:  encouragement, direction, and focusing on leading God’s people in worship.  When I came in view of a call to ARBC, some asked me what kind of musical style I preferred.  Personally, I have a wide range of tastes, so I told them that I wanted music that’s a joyful sound that’s doctrinally sound

I am in these meetings because at this time we do not have a “Music Minister” in the traditional Southern Baptist sense.  And to be honest, that’s OK.  The Scriptures are inspired, the methodology is not—but we must be led by the Spirit to move where God would have us.  I love what our music team is doing—and they are all volunteer: 

  • Gene Shoun: leads our Sunday morning worship and does a tremendous job in bringing us to the throne of heaven;
  • Diane Weston: play the piano and leads our Praise Team, giving us a great blend of music that all serves under the umbrella of worship;
  • Dee Dunn: Dee coordinates our choir—unreal the Spirit they have.
  • Don Taylor:  Don leads our Sunday night worship times, getting all of us to appreciate and sing with vigor the great hymns of our faith, connecting us with our significant heritage.
  • Dolores Sears: plays the keyboard and the organ, which is a great help to us all.
  • Gloria Hughes:  she serves as our choir president and brings a great spiritual leadership to this team.

At the risk of burying the lead, we are going through an amazing book by Bob Kauflin called Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God (Crossway, 2008).  All of us love this book.  Kauflin doesn’t tell us to pick a style—he tells us that all styles, if done with excellence and with doctrinal soundness all bring glory to God. 

One particular area he covers that is often missing in church music and worship education (outside of seminary) is that of skill.   Why is it often missing?  It’s because, in my opinion, not taking into account the Spirit in music.  Improving one’s technical prowess, for some, lessens the work of the Spirit moving through.  “If someone’s heart is in the right place, they they should just try their best, and God will bless.” 

In truth, Kauflin reminds us that a lack of skill and a lack of practice in improving that skill can become a hindrance to the worshipers and not a help.  So he takes time to share five things from Chapter 3 (“My Hands: What Do I Practice?”) for us to remember about skill (pp. 34ff ). 

  1. Skill is a gift from God, for His glory.  “What do you have that you did not receive?  If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).
  2. Skill must be developed. “We read in 1 Chronicles 25:7 that the musicians ministering at the tabernacle were those ‘who were trained in singing to the Lord, all who were skillful.’  Skill must be developed. . . . The greatest musicians put in countless hours honing their talent, realizing that skill must be developed (p. 35).
  3. Skill doesn’t make worship more acceptable to God.  “Even if I can play the most complex chord progressions, write better songs than Matt Redman, or play a song flawlessly, I still need the atoning work of the Savior to perfect my offering of worship (1 Peter 2:5)(35).  
  4. Skill should be evaluated by others.  “I can’t always tell if what I’m doing is helpful or where I need to grow.  I need the eyes and ears of those with whom I am serving.” (36)
  5. Skill is not an end in itself.  “God wants us to realize that the point of our practice isn’t to receive the praise of others.  It’s to bring glory to him.” (36)

What does skill help us do?

  1. Skill helps us focus on God. "The more comfortable  I am with practical aspects of leading, the more I can think about the One to whom I’m singing.  I focus on developing skill so I’ll be able to focus more on God.” (36-37)
  2. Skill helps us serve the church.  “How do we serve one another?  By leading clearly so people aren’t wondering what words to sing next or what the melody is.  By using fresh arrangements that aren’t distracting.” (37)
  3. Skill multiplies serving opportunities.   The broader your skill set, the more areas you have in which to serve.

Skills to develop

  1. Leadership:  “Our goal is pleasing God, not trying to make everyone happy.  Our goal is to serve the church (39).
  2. Musicianship:  This involves technique (“mastering the mechanics or building blocks of a style”), theory (“understanding how music works… like a road map that helps us get our bearings and return to the right path”), and taste (“knowing what fits…what to put in and what to leave out”).  (39)
  3. Communication:  “God wants to change them through eternal truth and an unchanging gospel.  That takes clear, theologically informed communication.”  “If I wanted to grow in communicating more effectively, I should write down what I wanted to say and keep it to a certain length.  The more I though through comments in advance, the more substantive they would be and the easier it would eventually be to prepare them.” (40)
  4. Technology:  “It can be a valuable asset or a terrible taskmaster.  Be familiar with current methods of transferring and downloading music (legal ones, of course), notating charts, using MIDI, producing music, amplifying sound, and projecting lyrics and images, to name a few.” (41)

Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous!
Praise befits the upright.
2 Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre;
make melody to him with the harp of ten strings!
3 Sing to him a new song;
play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.

4 For the word of the Lord is upright,
and all his work is done in faithfulness.
5 He loves righteousness and justice;
the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.

6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
and by the breath of his mouth all their host.
7 He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap;
he puts the deeps in storehouses. (Psalm 33:1-7, ESV)



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