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.

Ministry, Intimacy and a Disrobed Disco

I don’t like to admit this, but when the red letters go on for a couple pages in the Gospels, my mind tends to wander. I know--they’re the very words of Jesus. I’m a bad Christian, I get that. My right brain dominance deals better with the stories and quick pace of Mark versus the conversations and teachings contained in John. Fortunately today I found one of my better angels at the helm while reading John 5. The latter half of the chapter finds Jesus dressing down the “Jews” – most likely meaning the Pharisees and their followers. They had been giving him crap for healing on the Sabbath. At one point in the rebuke he said this to them:

³⁹ You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, ⁴⁰ yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

You refuse to come to me to have life.


You refuse to come to me to have life.

Usually I skim over those hammerings that Jesus gives the Pharisees – I mean, sure I have my moments, but those guys were head-of-the-class hypocrites. But verse 40 cut me. I kept re-reading and knew that was standing among those Pharisees being indicted.

For the Pharisees it was studying the scripture and keeping the law. For me, it’s doing ministry. I wrap myself in the robe of pastor and musician instead of the arms of Jesus.

I do ministry instead of intimacy.

It’s not even 10AM and I go from that reading that scripture to Mark Batterson’s new book, Soul Print.* In Scene IV “Alter Ego” Mark’s writing about David’s loin cloth disco. Aside from the story of Michal’s disgust and sarcasm, he points out a subplot in this scene that we often miss:

Royal robes double as his status symbol...David doesn’t find his identity or security in his royalty. David finds his true identity and true security as a worshiper of God Almighty.

Disrobing symbolizes his naked dependence on God.

(Soul Print, by Mark Batterson Kindle Location 1261-70)

I think Jesus is trying to tell me something.



* Not an affiliate link - just making it easy to buy a great book.

Great Song/Free Praise Chart

If you haven't heard People's Church or Natalie Grant's "Your Great Name," you need to. Praise charts is offering the leadsheet/piano/vocal and chord chart for FREE. It'll end soon, so grab it now! UPDATE: it has ended...but check out this song - it's incredible. Also, subscribe to PraiseCharts email - it's worth another piece of inbox mail for the articles/videos and occasional free chart.

Small Church/Big Worship - Numbers Matter...

No one walks into a church of 100 and expects Hillsong United. But there is a slight disappointment when “Mighty to Save” isn’t that, well, mighty.

Numbers matter. I know I’m not supposed to say that. But when it comes to corporate worship, they do. The number of singers. The number of instruments. The number of hours put into planning and preparing the worship gathering. The number of dollars spent on the worship space – lighting, sound, décor. And the number of people that fill that space – there’s a difference between a group of 60 and 150. Between 225 and 700. Between a 1000 and 20,000.

But it’s more than quantifiable. There’s also a qualitative difference. At the extreme, think Broadway versus a community theater--both performing the same musical.


I was hired to play guitar in the pit orchestra for a local theater’s summer production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Turns out, the director had some connections – he scored a Dreamcoat actually worn by Donny Osmond during several of his 2000 performances in the Toronto production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. We had the same coat. We had the same script. We had the same music. We even had the wireless mics, the make-up, the lighting, the union musicians (except me…long, boring story), the velvet curtains and the glowing marquee. But Broadway (or the Canadian equivalent) still did it better. Broadway will always do it better. Better sets. Better actors. Better direction. Better lighting. Better sound. Better orchestra. Better wardrobe. All of it. Hands-down better. 

However.

Only an idiot would sit in the Renaissance Theater in Mansfield, Ohio and say, “Donny Osmond was a way better Joseph.”


We don’t judge a group of volunteer actors and underpaid community theater staff by the same criteria as a Broadway production. But in Western Christianity, we have people holding churches of 50 and 150 up to the standards of a church of 500, 2000, and even 20,000. Wait, let me make a correction: we are the people holding churches to those unrealistic standards. We don’t mean to. It’s just human nature to compare apples to apples – church to church. But the comparison is more like apples to orchards.

And that comparison is strangling the worship in smaller churches.

Smaller church worship ministries can’t be scale models of larger ministries. The lower attendance isn’t just a difference in quantity--there’s a completely different quality to a small church. And by quality, I don’t mean Kmart versus Macy’s. If we look at Merriam-Webster’s definitions, the Kmart versus Macy’s analogy is the 2nd entry for quality: “degree of excellence; superiority in kind.”

But the first definition of quality is: “peculiar and essential character; nature; an inherent feature.”

The smaller church has a peculiar and essential character that sets it apart from a larger church. It’s inherently different. And that’s neither bad nor good. It just is. And it just needs to be understood.

And that’s what this Small Church/Big Worship series* is about. If you’re part of a smaller church--paid or volunteer, pastor or lay-person, worship leader or team member, I want to help free you from trying to be what you can’t be (right now) and embrace who and what you are (right now). We’ll look traps and diversions that smaller churches fall prey to. We’ll explore some practical ways you can develop and thrive with what you already have, and find ways to grow more. And ultimately, I want to help you leverage your “peculiar and essential quality” to create remarkable times of worship that larger churches could only have in their Technicolor dreams.

*this series will be ongoing - no promises on how often or how much. I have a few thoughts written down, but it will largely take shape as I write and think - and get feedback from you. Please feel free to comment and email your thoughts and challenges.

28 Ways to Make Great Segues: Segue #13

Segue #13 - Selah

Selah is one of those words that scholars guess at, kinda like how we guess at what's going on with Donald Trump's hair. I like how the Amplified Bible describes it: pause, and think of that. Selah that is, not the Don's bangs.

Our cultural ADD doesn't do "pause and ponder" well. We pause, but it's usually to turn our attention to something else. Stopping and being quiet--that's tough. But that could be one of the most needed practices in our church. And just like prayer and scripture, the purposeful pause of Selah can be both a segue and it's own element of worship.

One of my favorite Selahs in the Book of Psalms is in chapter 77. Asaph's is in a bad way. God does not seem to be there. Verse after verse he focuses on his present anguish and God's inactivity. Then we have our first Selah.* He's is now digging through his memories of the good days when God was there and songs poured from his heart. This only makes the present pit worse. It takes Asaph to where his heart has rarely gone: Has God forgotten me? (it's even more raw in the Message).

And now we have my favorite Selah. After sinking deep inside himself, Asaph pauses and unfolds himself outward. He begins to think about God, His mighty works, His awesome wonder. At the apex of Asaph's gut-wrenching song he declares:

Your ways, O God, are holy.
What god is so great as our God

Asaph's heart had turned inward on itself. God couldn't be found there. But he turned and acknowledge through the pain that not only is God holy, but His ways are holy. Asaph doesn't understand it. His pain isn't gone. His circumstances haven't changed, but his focus has.

And that might be the power of a Selah -- a pause to allow us to wrestle with our circumstances, our pain, our shame, our sin and idolatry, and see that God is there. Not inside our self-focused heart. But outside. Outside waiting to come in and be our focus, our center. And it's out of a Selah like that we sing not the I, the me and the we songs, but a song that proclaims

Your ways, O God, are holy.
What god is so great as our God

*note: you won't see the Selah markings in the BibleGateway link to NIV - if you want to see them, click on the ESV translation

28 Ways to Make Great Segues: Segue #12, pt.2

Segue #12 - Scripture, part 2

We talked in part 1 about why scripture is a "segue on steroids." Now let's look at how we can use this muscle to carry us between between songs.

A Connector of Themes
This Sunday we're singing Crown Him With Many Crowns and then moving into Hillsong's Hosanna. Hosanna's lyrics are heavily drawn from Psalm 24. As the last chord of Crown Him... is ringing out, the leader will read verses 24:7-10, which connects to the King theme in Crown Him.... As the leader concludes with...

Who is he, this King of glory?
The LORD Almighty—
he is the King of glory.

 the vocalists will begin singing the opening lines of Hosanna: "I see the King of Glory..."

This scripture connects the different--but related--themes between these two songs. It also helps transition us from the big ending of a big anthem to the more subdued beginning of Hosanna. And here's a bonus: we're revisiting the Psalm 24 during the instrumental of Hosanna by using verses 3-6, which is a great set up for the bridge.

Stories
Often we look for verses from Psalms or an epistle, but don't forget about narrative passages of scripture. Once I wanted use John 11:25-26 (where Jesus tells Martha that he is "resurrection and the life") to segue into a song focused on new life. Some wild hair struck and I decided to use the whole passage, starting at verse 17 and concluding with Martha's confession of belief and faith in Jesus as the Messiah. I honestly don't remember what specific songs I was bridging that Sunday, but the power of reading Jesus' (and Martha's) words in context of the story is something I won't forget. As I read Christ's words, "I am the resurrection..." a flood of emotion hit me. I could barely finish. Not only did the story help deepen the experience of verses 25-26, but that scripture then stayed with us as we sang about new life in Christ.

Collage

Don't limit yourself to one passage. Maybe you're singing Redman's Blessed Be the Name and moving to Baloche's Your Name. Try a collage of scriptures that focus on the Name of God. This page contains an example you can download and use (scroll a bit to find it). I have available a few other scripture collages you can swipe: God's "Greatness", "Who is Like You" and the "Love of God."

Multiple Voices
When using longer passages or multiple scriptures (like the collages), consider using more than one reader. Multiple readers can add energy and variety. This could be a whole article in itself, but I'll move on with one admonishment: encourage your readers to use inflection and emotion--and at a pace that doesn't drag.

Great Tool
The links on the scripture references above took you to BibleGateway.com. Outside of personal quiet time, I use this site more than I use a hard copy Bible. Within a couple clicks you can see scores of translations for the passage you're looking up. Can't remember the reference? Just type in the phrase or word you're looking for. The same keyword search also allowed me to easily assemble those scripture collages. As you're planning these segues, having a tool like this gold.

Underscoring
Should we put music under these scripture readings? When it's a short scripture connecting two songs with disparate styles or keys, don't use music. Let the reading do the heavy lifting of the segue. Also, the non-musical moment will cleanse our sonic palette for the next song.

Almost always use a musical bed or underscore during longer scripture. You can allow the reader to fly solo for a few moments after the previous song ends, but ease in some guitar or piano noodling that can easily take us to the intro of the next song.

We'll talk a little more about using scripture as a segue when we look at connecting non-musical elements of the service.

LIDs

Every new adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem. ~Eric Hoffer

I had the privilege this Sunday to introduce a new worship leader to our congregation. We didn't hire him. Nor did he transfer from another church. He's been here for a while--I just dusted him off and gave him a chance. He's a much better singer than I am. And with his confident yet easy-going stage-presence, I have no doubt that for many in our church he will become a their favorite worship leader.


And I'm stoked about that.

A few years ago it's was easy for me to talk about leadership development. But when faced with it, I found reasons (read: excuses) not to move people beyond a supporting role. I had LIDs. Leadership Insecurity Disorder.* And it does exactly what it spells.

I first heard a worship pastors Nathan LaGrange & Erik Cooper from Lakeview Church (Indianapolis) use the term at a Seminar4Worship at in 2008.
 

After a self-diagnosis of LIDs (which the Holy Spirit likely had something to do with), I was determined develop leaders. Before I made much headway, the financial axe fell and my full-time position had to be eliminated for the church to survive. The worship ministry there hasn't digressed to where it was when I first started. But in a lot of ways, it's close.

While I raised the bar there, I didn't raise a sustainable future. It was my job to grow leaders. Instead I grew my stock--I built a solid musician team, taught new songs, led good worship gatherings. No one wanted to cut me. They liked me--I did a decent job and worked downright cheap. Just not cheap enough for the early days of a recession. God taught me a tough lesson about the real work of the worship pastor.

Christ-centered leadership is about pouring out and giving up. It's good and right to pour my life into developing others. But eventually I need to give up something so they can take the next step.

Step away from my mic so she can lead a verse. 

Watch from sound booth as he leads a rehearsal. 

Let them choose the music. 

I have to give up leadership more often than just when I go on vacation.

Here's the ugly side of LIDs: The more infected I am with it, the more I relish in their failure. Not in a "laughing fiendishly while rubbing my hands together" kind of way. More understated: "They need me. Now, they know that they need me." Sick, isn't it? But true.

I came across the Eric Hoffer quote around the time I was told by my senior pastor in my current ministry that the services went much better when I wasn't the upfront worship leader. That's not a good thing to hear when your job is to lead worship. Talk about a "crisis in self-esteem." But my pastor was right. God had me in a place where, for a number of reasons, I couldn't hold together the band with my guitar and lead the congregation at the same time. What worked in my last church wasn't working here. So couple that revelation with being the sole worship pastor in a multi-campus church and I needed to tear off my LID quick.

I still lead a couple times a month at one campus, but now there are people at the other campus who probably wonder if all I do is play guitar and occasionally nod my head to stop the band. But I'm in a place where the pouring out and giving up gets me excited.

Did I tell you I just introduced a new worship leader at my church on Sunday?

And I'm stoked about that.