28 Ways to Make Great Segues: Segue #12, pt.1

Segue #12 - Scripture

Transitioning from one song to another with scripture is like segue on steroids. (Without the 'roid rage.) Here are several reasons:


ONE - It's a Compass
Using scripture, especially amongst man-written songs, is a compass. Are the songs we choose based in the Bible? We sure try. Are many of them "inspired"? Yes, but "little-i" inspired, not INSPIRED. As in God-breathed, inerrant Word of God, needle-pointing True North.


As we flow from one song to another, a segue through scripture re-centers our heart and re-orients our minds.

TWO - It's Common Ground
As I lead my congregation from the hymn Holy, Holy, Holy into the Revelation Song via a reading from Revelation 5, I'm creating common ground for a diverse crowd. For instance, the older generation in my church have a long history with Holy, Holy, Holy. The younger generations, not nearly as much, if at all. Likewise, the Revelation Song may move many of the us Xers, Millennials, and--thanks to Phillips, Craig and Dean--the Boomers; but our Builders may not connect as well.

So to bring in chapter 5 of John's Revelation, it reflects where we've been (Holy, Holy, Holy) and where we're going (Revelation Song), and is neither "old" or "new." It is ancient and future. The living and active Word becomes a common ground for the generations.

THREE - It Provides a Unique Context
We don't know what God might be doing in people as they encounter a scripture in a different context. Maybe someone slogged through Job a few years ago during a painful "One Year Through the Bible" attempt. Imagine him now seeing chapter 9 as your team moves out of "Indescribable" into another song describing His greatness. His ears are still ringing with "you place the stars in the sky and you call them by name..." and then he encounters:

⁴ His wisdom is profound, his power is vast.
       Who has resisted him and come out unscathed?
 ⁵ He moves mountains without their knowing it
       and overturns them in his anger.
 ⁶ He shakes the earth from its place
       and makes its pillars tremble.
 ⁷ He speaks to the sun and it does not shine;
       he seals off the light of the stars.
 ⁸ He alone stretches out the heavens
       and treads on the waves of the sea.
 ⁹ He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion,
       the Pleiades and the constellations of the south.
 ¹⁰ He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed,
       miracles that cannot be counted.

FOUR - It's a Catalyst
Our well-meant words of encouragement and cajoling from the stage hold nothing compared to THE WORD.

For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Hebrews 4:12

Scripture, through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, can stir and convict, rip and tear, melt and move. It puts the responsibility for changing hearts squarely back into the lap of Jesus Christ, where it belongs. It's not our job. That, friends, is very good news.

We'll put a comma here and continue this segue in part two where we'll talk about some practical application. But before I sign off, I gotta get something off my chest: the alliteration with compass, common ground, etc....yeah, well, to all my Boomer friends who like that sort of thing - glad I could give it to you. To my GenX cohorts and younger Millennial brothers and sisters, I apologize. I was three words in when I realized they all started with a hard C and I just couldn't resist...

Small Church/Big Worship, an Introduction

Small churches. They're everywhere. Check out this excerpt from a great post I just read:

Imagine you are looking down a very, very long street, and all the churches of U.S. are lined up along the left side of the street from smallest to largest. In behind each church are all their Sunday morning attenders.

If you counted the grand total of everyone standing behind each church and then divided this number by the total number of churches that you see on this very long street, you would come up with a “mean” or “average” size of 184. “Mean” is usually what we mean of when we think of “average”. But this number of 184 is a very misleading number.

Lets say you start walking down the street, passing the churches with 5 people on a Sunday morning, 10 people, 15 people, 20 people. You continue walking until you have passed half of all the churches in America. Half of the churches in the U.S. are now behind you, half are still in front. The “average” church that you are standing in front of is called the “median” church. You look to see how many people are lined up behind it, and you see 75 people. That is right, half the churches in the United States have less than 75 people. (Michael Bell, Guest Blogger, Internet Monk, July 13, 2009)

Bell continues to describe walking past these churches: So, you continue walking, past the churches of 80, 90, 100, 110. You walk until you have passed 90% of all the churches. You look to your left and you see 350 people lined up behind this church.

My first post-college experience playing guitar was at on a church worship team was at Church of the Open Door in the Minneapolis area. I think at the time they were running between 5000 and 6000 each weekend. I also led worship for the youth. That youth ministry alone was bigger than 75% of all churches in North America.

As much as it pained me to leave Open Door (a place of significant spiritual changes, and one really cute girl), I moved from there and entered vocational ministry in Ohio. It was at a church averaging 65 - 75 people a Sunday. I was the part-time youth and worship guy. Those poor people. I tried to make it "Church of the Mini Door" every week with just my acoustic guitar and an overhead projector. But they had tremendous grace for me. Thank you, Jesus.

It took me a long time to accept that my experience at Open Door couldn't be duplicated. No matter how much I wanted it. Prayed for it. Fought for it. It wasn't going to happen. Partway through my second ministry experience (again, in the quintessential small church dual-role pastor of youth and worship) I learned a phrase: "current reality."

Current Reality: who I have to work with is who I have to work with; the amount of money in my budget is the amount of money in my budget; the church facility is the church facility. I can whine. Curse the unfairness. Pontificate on the injustices. Or I could get busy and start creating a desired future out of the building blocks of the present that are within my reach.

Up until the last 18 months, the majority of my ministry has been spent in churches under 150 people. Through this God has given me a heart for small churches and the unique challenges they face. Over the next weeks and months I'll be adding to this "Small Church/Big Worship" theme. Please feel free to share about your "current reality" and past experiences in smaller ministries - the good and bad - I'd love to have constant input as I write these posts.

Unless Chris Tomlin's Your Worship Leader...

...you probably need to lower the key on Chris Tomlin's songs.

You may have one singer who can nail those notes. But most of your team can't. And your congregation REALLY can't.

So you go to Song Select and print out a more congregationally-friendly key. Voila, done! Right?

It's all good till your electric guitarist shows up playing the opening riff of "Our God" in B while the rest of the band is in G.

Go ahead. Be mad at him. Righteous indignation. You gave him the right chart in the right key.

It's just that he's one of those "ear" people who can't read a lick and wouldn't know a key signature from a Florida Key. Would we all like him to know the key by looking at the chart? Yes. Are we setting him up for failure when we hand him a chart in one key and CD in another? YES, and then some. There goes our indignation.

Here's how to solve it: pitch-shift your mp3s.

Pitch what where?

The first time I did this, I used my turn-of-the-century Cakewalk home recording software, imported the mp3 that I wanted to transpose, and then monkeyed with the pitch shift effect till I got it right. After several of times through the process I had it down, but it was still a bit of a pain. Then one day I saw I stumbled upon www.transposr.com. (yes, it's intentionally misspelled - not just he product of a late night blog post).


All you need to do is simply upload your mp3, set the original key and the desired key and, BAM! within a few minutes you're downloading a baritone Tomlin.

Transposr.com is one of my "picks" on at worshipteamcoach.com. Not only does it do the work, but get this - it's FREE. You don't even have to register. So it's easy and free and here's what you get for it:

1. Your "ear" players will love you for giving them the right key. They like learning new songs, but learning the new song in the wrong key - not so much.

2. Your vocalists can 'harmonize' in the right key. That's always a good thing.

3. You can play along with recording during rehearsals and practices.

4. You can make Vicky Beeching sound like Darth Vader.

Last thing - if you're a volunteer or part-time leader with limited time, ask one of your "ear" players to do the work transposing the mp3s at Transposr.com. (Just be sure to write out the original and transposed keys for 'em.) It will give him or her ownership of the ministry and free up your time (and they might learn a little about keys).

So try it out. Now. Before the bean counters over at Planning Center override the marketing geniuses and start charging us.

Brandon Moore...

You don't know Brandon. Or chances are that you don't, unless you're from northern Morrow County, OH. But he's someone to get to know.

Brandon goes to my church. He does video editing with me and helps out just about any other way he can. And I love it when he tells me his "cop stories."

His actions saved the lives of a mother, father and son who were being shot at by a neighbor. Already wounded, Brandon was able to shoot the man from such a distance that the Morrow County Sheriff, in our church this morning, said had to be aimed by God. His wife told me on Friday that the surgeons were amazed that the bullets went where they did, sparing his life.

Brandon led his own worship service while he laid there, bleeding from gunshot wounds. After taking out the guy with the assault rifle, he used his belt as a tourniquet and laid back and sang Great is Thy Faithfulness. He told my senior pastor that a peace just came over him.



Wow...

worship planning tip #8: Charts - Overdo it

Charts - this is one of those places where the worship leader/pastor/director needs to overdo it. And by "overdo it" -- be all things to to all musicians, if at all possible.

My OCD (obsessive chart development) stems back to a prolonged and silent suffering under a yet-to-be-convicted chart-abuser. Back when I was a volunteer worship guitarist, the worship pastor used those big hairy piano arrangements from Integrity Music or some other source. He'd give that eight page monster to the pianists, lyric sheets to the vocalists, and a chord chart/sheet (words and chords only) to the rest of the band. At best, these charts were copied from the back of the Integrity songbook where the piano arrangement came from. But more often they pulled off the internet. You know - those courier font chord sheets that look and sound like they've been transcribed by a 14-year old. If it was the same in key, that's all that mattered.

After awhile, I talked my worship leader into giving me the piano charts. I'd use a 3-ring binder and lots of scotch tape to render some sort of flippable song book. Occasionally I'd cut and paste full arrangements down to melody and chords, but that got a little too obsessive, even for me. (Besides, the bass player made fun of me...)

Chord charts bite. There are no rhythms written, no melody notated, no sense of arrangement. I used to hate them, but I've made some peace with these word-processed pieces of...music.

I've come to realize I'm a visual learner and the lead sheet (notated melody on the treble clef and chords) gives me more visual cues. Most of my musician friends learn best audibly (which--I can tell you from experience--is WAY more advantageous than visual learning when it comes to music). They connect and remember rhythmic changes by ear. I can hear those changes, but they don't stay with me well. But if I SEE them on paper, I'm 3/4 the way to memorizing it. That's why I liked the lead sheet.


So fast-forward a few years later. I became a worship pastor in a smaller church. Because I liked lead sheets, that's what I used. That's what my band used. That's what my vocalists used. That's all we used. Because I liked them.

When I moved on to my next church, I had softened a little. I realized my vocalists, especially those who didn't read notes, preferred lyric sheets. And many of my guitarists and bassists got lost in all the standard musical notation. And I even found myself preferring a simple lyric or chord sheet for songs I knew well.

So now each time I introduce a new song, I try my best to create a collection of charts: leadsheet (melody, chords, lyric), chordsheet (chords, lyric) and lyric sheet. And if a song is in a lousy key for guitar, I create a "guitar capo chart" (transposed to reflect "capo chords").

Sample of song folder

A lot of files? Yep. To keep it straight, I create a folder for each song. (Click on pic to enlarge it.) Each folder also contains mp3s (both original and pitch-shifted) and any other files that pertain to the song.

Have you noticed this folder doesn't contain those big hairy piano charts?  Most of my other song folders don't either. This is one place I've decided not bend (with one exception). Here are my two big beefs with full piano-accompaniment arrangements for worship songs:

1. The ten fingers of the pianist can cover the bass line, all the chords and rhythm and even emulate a quasi-guitar riff. That's good if you don't have a band. But if you do, the keyboard player is stepping all over the rest of the team.

2. The piano charts aren't easily modified. They're written to play a specific arrangement. While a lot of the lead sheets I used are geared towards a specific arrangement, their simplicity and brevity makes changing easier.

I mentioned an exception. When a song is piano-driven, or the particular arrangement is piano-rich, I'll use a fully arranged piano chart. It's easier to give my note-reading piano players a written chart versus asking them to learn it by ear.

By now, if you're a part-time, volunteer or an otherwise overworked worship leader, you're thinking, this is way too much work. You might be right. Sometimes I feel the same way. But here's how I stay motivated:
1. I remember that I serve the team. My work on the charts can save time for my team members.
2. I like doing it. Don't overlook this. You may hate putting together charts. Find someone on your team or in your church that does like it.
3. I've got a few systems in place. In follow-up article I'll go into the nuts and bolts of collecting, developing and creating charts.

When it comes to charts, overdo it as best as you can. Your team will appreciate it.