28 Ways to Make Great Segues: Segue #14

Segue #14: A Talking Transition

Words are very 

unnecessary

they can only do harm

~"Enjoy the Silence" by Depeche Mode

From #13 to #14 we swing from silence as a segue to a talking transition. Honestly, after my bumbling beginnings as a young worship leader, I took the Depeche Mode lyrics to heart--better to let my guitar or a scripture carry us from one song to the next.

Some people have the opposite approach. The senior pastors can back me up here--the worst is when you've got a worship leader who wants to be a preacher. He's exegeting Isaiah 6 between a Chris Tomlin tune and a Hillsong chorus while the bass player's nodding off from 10 minutes of inactivity. Can I confess something? I tended to think my golden silence was some sort of holy high road that was much preferable to the over-talker. While it might've been more welcome than a three-point sermon following the opening song, it was just an avoidance of the preparation it takes to make a great verbal segues.

And that's the key to great verbal segues: Preparation.

Think it through. Prayer it through. Let it simmer.

Read the lyrics of the song you're leaving. Ask, "Where have we just been?"

Read the lyrics of the song you're moving to. Ask, "What is the moment we're moving towards?"

Direction
As you craft your verbal segue, pray for clarity of direction. We've got a Point A and a Point B. What should I say to get us there? (Remember the straight-line principle)

Think of your verbal segue as a mini-journey. Every journey has a beginning, middle and end. The beginning needs to move us out of the first song.  The end moves us into the second song. The middle is the meat. The meat can tie the two songs together, but it doesn't have to. It can prepare us for the "worship moment" contained in the next song.

Let's say we're going from Tomlin's "Our God" to the "Revelation Song" this Sunday. I might plan to say something like this as Our God ends... 

"Our God is greater, amen? No matter what we can imagine or think about God, He's always greater. Whatever we think about His love and grace, his love and grace is always greater than we can imagine. God is always greater. And even when we see His glory with our own eyes, we will never exhaust the praises and honor that can be given to him. John describes in Revelation 4 that those gathered around the throne never stop worshiping Him day and night. Let's worship Him and His greatness with the words that are being sung even now around His throne."

A so-so segue. Given a little more thought, this verbal segue could be improved. But it's a start. As you're preparing and thinking through your transition, consider a few things:

Be Brief.
Follow Rusty's advice. At least the part about brevity: "Don't use 7 words when 4 will do."

Brevity for brevity's sake isn't the point. The point is to be succinct. Merriam-Webster defines succinct, well, succinctly: "marked by compact precise expression without wasted words." Most of us don't have the gift of being succinct on the fly. It takes a little preparation.

Besides the Five Bs (Be brief, baby, be brief.) here are some other Be's:

Be Specific. 
"God is great and we should praise him forever" is a true and good statement. But a few specifics gives the congregation something of substance to connect with. Revelation 4, even paraphrased as it was, gave us an event to relate to - the past, present and future worship around the throne of God.


Be Memorable.
And this goes against the Ocean's 11 advice, but we're trying to facilitate worship, not outwit a mark. If we're going to say something, let's say something worth remembering. People aren't going to remember your whole segue. But try to make some part of the the main point, or the meat, easy to remember. Memorable is succinctness coupled with repetition. In the example above:
1st sentence - "greater"
2nd sentence - "...He's always greater."
3rd sentence - "...His love and grace is always greater..."
4th sentence - "God is always greater."

The fourth sentence is, hopefully, the memorable takeaway. As people's voices are pouring out the high praise of Revelation Song, their hearts are bursting with the thought "God is even greater than this!"


Be Accurate.
In the last segue post, I was talking about the Selah in Psalm 77. I attributed the Psalm to David. It wasn't a Psalm of David - Asaph wrote it. (btw-I've fixed it, thank goodness for the grace of the edit button) Authorship didn't change the point I made. But the inaccuracy of a small point can discredited the veracity of the main point.

If I make an inaccurate statement in worship, it has two ill-effects. 1) Those who catch the mistake are immediately taken out of the flow of worship because their BS-alarm just went off. And 2) those who don't catch it might believe it and repeat it, especially if I've done a good job of saying something memorable. So take a minute to check your facts and references.

Be Careful.
Avoid controversial issues. I'm not talking about what people in the world or liberal churches would call controversial: the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, the resurrection, etc. We can be bold about what we believe. But I'm talking about the gray-area stuff. The stuff that no matter which side you fall on, it probably won't keep you out of heaven. A worship service segue is probably not the time to bring up the role of women in the church or spark a Calvinism-Arminianism debate.


Be Submissive.
If you're new or haven't yet gained the confidence of your senior pastor, worship pastor, or elder you're serving under, submit your segues in writing to him or her before Sunday. He may not ask you to do this, but it can be good to create a trust and solicit advice for improvement. At some point, if he's not a control freak, he'll probably say, "I trust you" and give you free reign in this area.

Be Confident
A lot of us musicians are great behind the guitar or piano. But the microphone becomes a scary place when you take away our music. Confidence comes from preparation--not just for what you're going to say, but how you're going to say it. So practice it just like you would a song.

Be Conversational
The danger of writing something out is that it could sound too formal. Remember, you're talking to friends. This is especially important if you're telling a personal story. If it sounds like something you wrote out as an assignment for a class, it won't ring authentic. So as you prepare and practice, work at keeping it natural and "you."

Be...Spontaneous?!
I know, that goes against everything I just laid out. But the more we plan and practice our segues, the easier it will be to go off the cuff when we feel the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

So is there a rule for how long and how often when it comes to segues? It's really up to you and what you think connects with your church. I personally wouldn't plan more than one verbal segue per service. In many services, I don't have any spoken transitions between songs. I still have the tendency to err on the side of keeping my mouth shut more often than not. At least during the worship service. If I could learn that in other areas, my life might be a lot simpler.