Last fall in one of our devotionals I shared the theme verse for the worship ministry at FCC.  Psalm 33:3

Sing joyfully to the Lord, you righteous; it is fitting for the upright to praise him.
Praise the Lord with the harp; make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre.  Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy.

This one very short verse, Psalm 33:3, very succinctly sums up what you need to know about leading people in worship.

Worship matters. God wants us to praise Him using music.  He commands us to praise Him through singing all over His Word. In our only recorded glimpse of heaven, we see people gathered around God’s throne singing His praises. In the Bible it says the entire Trinity sings. In heaven we will never run out of new ways to express our praise to God, and that will last for ETERNITY. I think God wants us to start doing that now by singing new songs. He mentions it 6 different times in His Word. Play (or sing) skillfully and shout for joy. We are to lead with zeal, with energy, with emotion, and it’s supposed to be more than just singing.  It doesn’t say sing for joy it says SHOUT for joy, which tells me that worship involves more than just singing. It involves your entire body.

Last time I talked about leading with zeal, I mentioned some scriptures that talk about worshipping God with your expressions: clapping, shouting, bowing down, and lifting hands. I’ve also talked before about the importance of worship and why God wants us to sing to Him together as a body of believers.

Lets focus on the last point in an effective worship ministry: Playing or Singing Skillfully.

It is easy to confuse skill with talent. They are related but they are not the same thing. People are born with talent; talent is not learned.  Most people are born with God-given natural talents in certain areas. Skill is something that you have worked to acquire. It is developing the talent God has given you.  It is necessary to have talent in order to be skillful, but you can be very talented and not have any skill. That is wasting your talent. When God says that He wants us to be skillful it means he wants us to develop the gifts that He has given us. In the area of music or worship, skill can mark the difference between ineffectiveness and fruitfulness in our leading.  If we are going to be effective in serving the congregation, a lot of it depends on skill. You’ve probably heard me say this before: bad music does not move anyone, except to cover their ears.  They move their hands from their sides to their ears; that’s the only thing that moves when music is played poorly. God commends skill in the arts throughout His Word, and He uses it for his glory.  When Moses had to find men to oversee the construction of the tabernacle, he didn’t pass around a sign-up sheet.  He chose craftsmen whom God had gifted with “skill and intelligence” (Exodus 36:1).  When David looked for a Levite to lead the singing it says he picked Kenaniah “because he was skillful at it” (1 Chronicles 15:22).  Kenaniah was the first worship pastor named in the Bible. David wrote in Psalm 33:3 that we are to play music SKILLFULLY.  In 1 Chronicles 25:6-7 they were assigning musicians to the temple and:

They were all under the direction of their father in the music in the house of the Lord with cymbals, harps, and lyres for the service of the house of God.  Asaph, Jeduthun, and Heman were under the order of the king.  The number of them along with their brothers, WHO WERE TRAINED IN SINGING TO THE LORD, all who were SKILLFUL, was 288.

God chooses a people for Himself, the nation of Israel, and says you are going to be my people.  He leads them out of Egypt, and the next thing He does is set aside the Levites whose job is to lead the worship services. These services consisted of sacrifices, rituals, and worship. The Israelites arrive at the Promised Land and build a temple, and David appoints people who are completely devoted to making good music. They are going to be trained in singing to the Lord. This practice of training worship leaders started with David and has been going on for thousands of years. Your job, which is singing to the Lord and leading others in worship, has been going on since David built the temple in Jerusalem. It’s an important job, and God wants the people who do it to be skillful.

Excellence has a purpose in congregational worship: to focus people’s attention on God, on His attributes, on His promises, on the things that He has done for us. That is why we want to sing well. It is so that people will be completely focused on God and all the awesome things He has done. In corporate worship, skill and excellence are functional. 1 Peter 4:10 says, “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”  That is what you are doing when you get up here on Sunday morning.  You are serving the congregation.  By your leading in music, and doing it well, you are allowing them to encounter and worship their Creator. Your job is to serve the congregation, and as musicians we are to do this faithfully no matter what role we have.  Whether it’s singing in the Choir, playing in the Orchestra, playing in the Worship Band or singing into a microphone.  We want to be the very best that we can be so that we can serve others more effectively for God’s glory.

What ways can the choir serve the congregation? Come to rehearsal on Wednesday night. Come to rehearsal on time. Show up Sunday morning prepared.  Know how the songs go and know the part you are going to sing before we meet together for our final Sunday morning rehearsal.  This is one of my favorite sayings, “The word is Re-hearsal.  That means re-practicing the music.  If it was the first time you looked at the music, it would be called HEARSAL.”  We don’t do “Hearsal” at FCC.  That is not being faithful with our gifts. That’s why we give you the music and CD recordings at the very first Choir practice. We want you to listen and know your part definitely by Sunday morning but even by Wednesday evening if possible. That is why Jennifer emails out what songs we’ll be working on.  When we show up and know our song and know our parts, it is awesome.  It sounds great, it stirs people’s hearts, and it is living out 1 Peter 4 by being a SERVANT with our gifts.  It’s also living out Luke 16:10. God calls us in His Word to be FAITHFUL with our gifts.  “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.”  God has trusted you with a gift, and he has given you the privilege of serving his church with it.  It is a privilege to get to stand in front of God’s people and lead them in worship.  If we want to be effective and used by God, we have to be skillful, and that starts with being faithful.

Besides being faithful and serving others, when you know the music it improves your worship leading because skill helps us focus on God.  The more you know the music the more comfortable you are and the more you can think about the One that you’re singing too. The role of the Choir and the role of all Worship Leaders is to invite others to join us in worshipping God. You can’t invite others to join you in doing something that you are not doing yourself.  If you aren’t actually worshipping God because you don’t know the song that well and you’re not very confident with your part, then how can you expect others to join you?  We want to be skillful so that we can focus on God. 

Lastly, we want to be skillful because skill helps us serve the church.  If I don’t know when to come in or I’m not sure how the song goes, that distracts people from the message of the song.  We serve the church by singing clear and beautiful harmonies.  We serve the church by possessing a calm and joyful countenance that expresses the hope in the God we’re singing about.  Psalm 34:5 says “Those who look to him are radiant.”  When we are leading others in worship our faces ought to be radiant.  We are looking to God, and it should reflect on our faces. If we are cringing because we can’t find our note, that does not reflect radiantly on our face.  A famous saying that I really like goes like this, “The goal of practice isn’t doing something until you get it right.  It’s doing it until you can’t get it wrong.”  If you know a song well enough that you can’t get it wrong, you are totally free to focus on God and take others with you.  This is why we work so hard.  This is why we practice, and rehearse, and show up on Wednesday nights, and show up early Sunday morning, because God calls us to be skillful so that we can serve His church well.

Categories: Paul Austin Uncategorized

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