Heart vs Skill: What Actually Matters in Worship?

When it comes to contemporary worship services, one topic that seems to be regularly wrestled with is the issue of excellence —  the apparent tension of balancing heart and skill. For example, I doubt that there would be many people in the world who would intentionally sing poorly in a church service (perhaps there are some?). I think it’s safe to say that most of us want to be good at what we do. But move on from there and you may find things can get a bit grey.

HEART vs SKILL

On one hand, I know that worship is unequivocally an act of the heart. But does that mean that I shouldn’t bother putting effort into my craft and it’s ok if I don’t sing well, because after all, it’s the heart that counts? Well, no.

Ok, so if I’m a really good singer and come Sunday morning I bring a performance that would make Celine Dion sound like a yodeller with laryngitis, then I can disregard my motives, my devotion, and my personal journey of discipleship and worship? Of course not.

WHAT ACTUALLY MATTERS?

Please don’t try to build a doctrine around the little analogy that follows, but for what it’s worth the best way to date that I’ve been able to explain this question of what actually matters is this:

At the time of writing, my wife and I are three weeks away from celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary. Let’s say, hypothetically, that I scrimp and save and buy her a brand new, beautiful necklace for $300, one that she’s wanted for years. The day of our anniversary comes and goes and two days later I realise that I’ve forgotten all about it. Laughing it off, I find the necklace in the back of the car and, not even bothering to remove it from the plastic shopping bag which is now covered in rubbish, I toss it to her and say, “oh yeah I got you this.”
What’s the gift worth? Well, $300.
But imagine if, rather than forgetting that I bought the necklace, I also buy the finest gift wrap I can find. I meticulously wrap the box to ensure that the corners are precise. I perfectly wrap brown string around it and then finish it off with a little bow that happens to be her favourite colour. I then gracefully put pen to paper, filling a card with the most beautiful prose, meticulously expressing my undying love and affection.
What’s the gift worth? Well, $300.
The point is that the wrapping doesn’t change what the gift is worth. The value is on the inside. But what the wrapping does is communicate to her, and myself, that I understand what the gift, and the recipient of the gift, is truly worth.

IT’S NOT ABOUT THE LIGHTS

I believe the same is true in our worship services. John chapter 4 makes clear to us the kind of worship that pleases God. He is after our hearts. This means that real worship of truly reverent hearts doesn’t depend on the quality of music, lights, stage sets, smoke machines and the like. It never has and it never will.
The value of my worship is found in my sincerity of devotion.
But I believe with all my heart that my unceasing efforts of excellence in my craft, not just ticking the boxes or settling for “near enough” or “good enough” serve to demonstrate both to myself, God, and our church community, that I understand that very value of worship.

I recently realised that I’ve often said, “our worship isn’t about the lights.” While I still know that this statement is fundamentally true, I also personally know the people operating the lighting consoles in our services. I know that they love Jesus and I know that they work exceptionally hard to excel at their craft so that what they bring is the absolute it can be. Romans 12:1 talks about our proper act of worship: taking our whole selves and placing it before God as an offering. When a lighting operator has a conviction that what they do isn’t just a hobby, but that they are being faithful with what God has put in their hand, then to them lighting is an act of worship!

THE ANSWER IS IN OUR RESPONSE

Perhaps the best way of discovering this appropriate understanding of excellence is found in our response to something that’s not excellent. If something is not done well there are three potential responses.

1. Indifference
This says that things are fine the way they are. Perhaps it doesn’t matter or improving it would require too much effort.

2. Militance
This says that it isn’t good enough. Product becomes more valuable than people and individuals end up discouraged or ostracised as a result of failing to deliver on expectations.

3. Excellence
This is about bringing our best. Excellence asks questions. Were we capable of better? If yes, then what were some things that we could have done differently? What are ways we can grow? A response of excellence identifies a route from where we are now to where we’re capable of being and instills in people the courage to get there.

NOW WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Perhaps you can think of a recent time when you’ve been faced with something that wasn’t done well, or perhaps a time when you’ve made a mistake yourself. Was your response one of indifference, militance, or excellence? What have you personally done in the last month to improve your craft? Is what you’re preparing to bring this weekend the best you can do?
It’s important to note that excellence is not perfection. Excellence is an attitude or mindset that drives us to do the best we can with what we have in our hand — our ability. When it comes to worship, though the outworking may look incredibly different, a spirit of excellence can be the same in stadiums of thousands as it is in the slums of third world nations.
While misappropriated excellence creates an environment that is harsh, restraining, and ultimately discouraging. But an appropriate understanding of excellence creates an environment that is fundamentally encouraging as it calls out the full potential of every individual.
I’m so glad that when God created the universe, He took a step back and “saw that it was good”, not “saw that it was good enough”. 

Our pursuit of excellence is purely a reflection of an excellent God.
So, what is it that matters in our worship? Is it heart or skill?
What matters is that Jesus is honoured in our active love for Him and that through everything we do we are leading others towards the same.

Brad Kohring Hillsong Queensland Creative Pastor

HOW TO BUILD YOURSELF INTO AN EFFECTIVE MUSIC MINISTER by Wyzdom Nnamdi

Learn to listen to music as often as possible (all the time!!!). Having a mobile music player is ideal for this purpose.

Learn to listen to the kind of music that builds your spirit; keeps you spiritually sound. Music communicates spiritual influences so ensure you are being influenced by the right spirit through the music you listen to.

Learn to pay close attention to the words of any music you’re listening to. The spirit (message, power) of any music to minister to you or anyone else is in the words of the music so if the music (song) will minister to you, you must listen to the words carefully and get the message in it. You can only minister a song when it has ministered to you thoroughly.

Learn to challenge yourself to get better by trying to always sing out with the music you’re listening to. Also as you’re still working on improving your singing, do not sing unconsciously. Ensure that you listen to yourself as you sing. Record yourself while singing and listen back to it so you can assess yourself and know where your weaknesses are. This will help you focus on them and thus improve. You can only grow when you dare to try and fail over and over again while taking note of your weak points and endeavoring to improve on them. It would also help for you to seek the sincere and experienced opinion of someone better than you and knowledgeable in the field you are dealing with.

Learn to pronounce the words of a song clearly and crisply when you practice singing it. Practice pronouncing words as clearly as it is pronounced by the performer, so it will help build your diction and also so anyone listening to you can get the right message in the music from the clear words you pronounce.

Learn the basics of your musicianship. Music is an art form that has fundamental principles of how it works. If you will be most effective in your music ministry, you need to arm yourself with the knowledge of the workings of the music art. Study music theory as much as you can, take on voice/music/instrumental trainings, develop a disciplined practice regimen to help you grow consistently.

Learn to always believe that you can try to do better, don’t allow anyone or anything make you believe otherwise. It may take time but if you are really passionate about it, then you will achieve becoming an effective minister in time. Talk to yourself (out loud) encouraging and strengthening yourself; hype yourself, motivate yourself that you can do it even if you’re failing now. Continue trying because you’ll soon get it right!

Learn to set goals and give yourself targets to achieve in time. This makes you consciously committed on daily basis to your growth and improvement. It also makes you disciplined to the process of continuous growth which is a life-long process. Nobody ever gets to the point where he/she can’t better. Making a daily effort and attempt with courage to get better and achieve a greater goal will make you become most effective faster than you could imagine (and stay that way too!!)

Learn the essence and true meaning of commitment. If you get involved/committed to a music ministry, then you will be required to be faithful. It means you have vowed to be responsible for the success or failure of that ministry. Your actions/character/attitude of faithfulness or lack of commitment/unpreparedness will always affect the ministry whether you intend for it to or not. So learn to be committed and faithful/dependable in the right sense of it.

Learn to serve in a music ministry not because of how people will see you but because of how God will see you and also because of how much you love doing that service. Being a minister is primarily and solely for service both to God and to man. You serve God by the quality of your heart of service and you serve man by the quality of your service. Both are very important though the first is more, so always have a heart of service as a minister. This makes you most effective.

Learn to share your weaknesses with someone higher than you from whom you can learn and gain encouragement from and who you can trust to help you grow. This simply implies having a mentor who would always love to help you grow and be better than you are.

Learn also to share your experiences with God and trust him absolutely for the grace to grow. Your service is to Him and He alone can help you make it most effective.

Grace…!!
Wyzdom Nnamdi (Assisting Music Director/Lead Musician, House On The Rock, WordHouse)

WHY SHOULD I PAY YOU, CHURCH MUSICIAN?

So, now that you believe you're a musician, you claim it's your right to be paid by your church leadership right? Or maybe, you've heard of a few other church musicians in your city that are being paid by their churches. Or maybe you've even read about a strong proponent of musicians being paid by churches online or somewhere else.. So now, you strongly believe that your case shouldn't be different right?

Well my friend, hold up a sec! Just before you go to brewing animosity, rebellion or even instigating a revolution to "fight for your rights", let's talk about this issue a bit so we all have a better understanding and basis for our beliefs and actions. But first, I want to state two things as a way of laying a clear foundation about this theme of musicians being paid or not paid by churches, which has raised so much controversy in recent times between different schools of thought.

1.  I personally believe that it is a principle that has its root and origin in scripture as being instituted by God Himself, as a way of catering for the Levites who He set apart for special services in His house.
Deut. 18:1-5, Num.18:21,24

2. I also believe that the fact that it was spoken about specifically in the old testament, doesn't make it an outdated principle, since nothing in the scripture is really outdated. It just depends on our understanding by the Holy Spirit.

So, I would rather not belabor the issue from the popular "should they or should they not pay musicians" viewpoint, but will take this opportunity to speak to my fellow ministry musicians to help them acquire a better understanding of and thus, a better stance in the matter....

Now, why should a church pay you, ministry musician? Or put in other words, what would qualify you as a Levite that is deserving of the ordinance by God to be catered for by the temple (church)?

Let's define who a Levite is from scripture. A Levite is first of all, genealogically, a descendant of Levi, the son of Jacob, who is a grandson of Abraham. This implies that a Levite is a person of a strong covenant with God. In other words, he is someone who has a strong relationship with God by His Son Jesus Christ (in our dispensation).

Secondly, a Levite is functionally, a chosen, called or consecrated person. This is since God originally, chose and set apart these Levites for the specific task of serving in the temple, assisting the priests who ministered in the temple.. So, a Levite cannot be just anyone, but has to be someone who is called or chosen by God to the ministry (service) of God's house.
Num. 1:48-53, 3:5-10

Thirdly, a Levite is by qualification, a skilled or trained person. In scripture, it shows that whenever God calls or appoints a person or specific group of people for a unique task, especially those that are connected with the temple or ministering to Him, they were skilled in the very responsibility they were called to carry out. This was also the case for the Levites.
1 Chro.15:22, 25:6-8

So, for you to be a true Levite who then deserves to be catered for according to God's ordinance, you MUST be:

1. A CHRISTIAN (BORN AGAIN)
This is what defines your relationship and covenant with God. Just being a musician alone does not qualify you to be a Levite or ministry musician. This is especially since the task is a highly spiritual one that ministers to God first and foremost and then to God's people. So the church leadership has to be careful to not appoint or give responsibility to people in the ministry based only on qualification or skill, but primarily on the basis of their spiritual qualification. Ask yourself these questions "ministry musician":

A. Have you proven that you love God and have an ever-growing relationship with Him?
B. Have you indicated a true and sincere interest to be a part of the local church assembly or are you there just for your musical role?
C. Do you attend spiritual programs or activities that may not necessarily require your functioning like Bible study, prayer meetings, evangelism and so on?
D. Do you pay attention when the sermon is ongoing or just step outside to get some fresh air or snack on something during this "time out"?
These are key questions and considerations you must clarify to qualify calling yourself a church musician.

2. CALLED
So it is not enough to be a Christian, you must sense a calling to serve God with your musical gifting or talent. Now, there are going to be some people who though they are musically gifted, do not necessarily sense a call to serve with that gift, especially as their life's career or work. They may have another career path or work but can just use their gifting to serve in the church, just like every other Christian is expected to. These do not necessarily qualify for this unique privilege. The Levites were not allowed to do any other work asides ministry in the temple. In fact it was so serious that they were mandated to live close by the temple and didn't get any other land allocations like other tribes in Israel. So you must be called to serve in a full time capacity in a church with your gifting to qualify for this ordinance. Except your church is large and capable enough to give love gifts to everyone who serves in the ministry. In that case it becomes a gift not necessarily a rightful due.

3. SKILLED/TRAINED
The issue of skill and training is one that cannot be overemphasized when it comes to ministry. While the heart desire to serve and calling by God to ministry are the major prerequisite for ministry, gifting and skill are also required for effective ministry since as earlier stated, God always called skilled people to His service or placed on them the skill, gift or ability to do the responsibility required of them in excellence. So every church musician must endeavor to consistently and continuously acquire skill that ensures you are equipped to deliver excellence in your service. Afterall, God requires of us to "play skillfully" unto Him.

So when these 3 factors have been met, my dear ministry musician, God will by Himself set you up to be catered for either by the church directly or some other way. If you must talk about the issue of receiving a welfare allowance or salary, it must be done with wisdom and humility to ensure that it is seen only as a tool to enable you serve effectively and wholeheartedly. If possible, find a way to get someone else who recognizes the essence and is in the position to speak on your behalf to do so. That was exactly what happened in my case. I never had to talk about being paid by my church. I only indicated my desire and commitment to serve full time and God used my then music pastor to set up the privilege of being committed financially by my church.

Never let money or gain be your motive for wanting to serve in church. It should be born out of your love for God and desire to serve Him. Also, take into consideration the capabilities of your church to take care of you. You cannot expect your church to pay you beyond their capacity.
You must also learn to look at other ways to be a blessing to the body of Christ with your gifts beyond your local church and even to the world at large. There are many such ways that can help you to sustain for and cater for your needs that will be discussed and highlighted in subsequent posts.

In all, remember God always takes care of those He calls..!!

Grace...!!!

HELLO MUSIC MINISTRY DIRECTOR!

Tips For Leading Music Ministry Teams Effectively

1. Don’t Be Late
There is simply, in my opinion, no excuse for being chronically late. Lateness happens occasionally to all of us, but chronic lateness is a sign that something is out of order in someone’s life-either pride, organization, priorities, over-commitment…something.Whatever the reason, it does not honor God to hold everyone else up on a regular basis. If you struggle with this, make it a top priority to deal with it.

2. Lead Individually 
There are no catchall rules for dealing with people. The way you deal with one singer on your team may not work for another singer. Get to know your team members individually-what makes them tick, what they love, the dynamics their families and jobs bring to the equation. Give extra time and grace to those who need it. Your expectations and methods should be flexible enough to allow many types of personalities to coexist in your ministry.

3. It’s Better to Stop a Song 
Guitar horribly out of tune? Stop. Did the drummer start playing in 3/4 instead of 4/4? Stop. Are the singers singing a different song than the band is playing? Stop. Too often, our performance mentality dictates that we’re supposed to pretend that nothing is going wrong so the audience won’t notice. They notice. Just stop and fix it. I don’t have perfect pitch, so one time when my keyboard accidentally got transposed, I didn’t realize right away. Until the singer started to sing and couldn’t reach the notes. I should have stopped and fixed it, but my inexperience told me to keep going and pretend nothing was wrong. I think that singer has just now almost recovered from his head explosion.

4. Give Creative Authority Away
Are you the only person on your team making creative decisions? Shame on you. Start giving your team members creative input and authority. They have a responsibility to work within the parameters you set, but ultimately, they will shine when given ownership over some of the creative expression. My pastor, Rick Warren, wrote, “When you give authority with responsibility, you’ll be amazed at the creativity of your people.”

5. Don’t Let the Trends Dictate Direction 
Just because the latest and greatest worship song is a rocker doesn’t mean your congregation can no longer worship God with a favorite hymn. It is our human economy that lets us believe God cares at all about trends-He doesn’t. He’s already heard the latest fad long before it came out. And besides, fads are based on generalities that are often easily disproved. For example, modern worship, which is arguably most heavily influenced by U2’s music, tends to be marketed towards the 18-30 crowd. But U2 came out in the early 80s, which means their music is just as relevant to people in their 40s and 50s. Age, styles, tempos, volumes, instruments-it’s all up for grabs. Don’t get pigeonholed by trends. Authenticity beats hipness any day.

6. Identify Your Left-Brained and Right Team Members
Creative people tend to be bad administrators, and administrators aren’t always the best songwriters. Your methods of working (both how you work and what you expect from your team members) need to be based on these strengths and weaknesses. If you’re creative, get administrative help rather than let your team suffer under your bad organizational skills.

7. To Feed or Be Fed 
If you are in ministry, always remember that you have a responsibility to serve others. Sunday mornings are often chaotic and full of tasks, details, conflicts, etc. We can come home drained and feeling like we never “got anything out of church.” But the times when you’re serving aren’t always the best times for you to also be served. I tend to operate under the idea that on Sunday mornings, I am there to serve others, not to be served. It is up to me to be sure that I am getting fed spiritually during the week. Too often, we confuse “service” with “serve us.”

8. Team Devotions Should Be Focused
Devotionals times, while valuable for team building, can be misused. Team devotionals should either be related to the task at hand (worship, music, fellowship) or be related to the current teaching series of the pastor. They should not be used as your personal opportunity to preach or show off your biblical wisdom. Remember, many church members hear a message on Sunday mornings, a different message or two on the radio during the week, a Bible study in their small groups, a different study in their personal time, and then your weekly devotional. How are they expected to retain all these different messages? They can’t. Make this time count.

9. Don’t Get Sidetracked 
(A) Rehearsal time is forrehearsing. When people give up their weeknight to come rehearse, it is important that you don’t monopolize their time with stories about your kids. And you should always strive to be the most prepared person in the room. There is a big difference betweenrehearsing and practicing. Practice at home, then rehearse what you practiced with the team. (B) Fellowship time is aboutfellowship. Using social time to discuss “work” can be annoying. Use that time to just get to know about your people. Have fun-it’s not a meeting. (C) Worship times are for worship. Once the service starts, allow that things will go wrong. At this point, you either believe it is in God’s hands or not. You stay focused on God. If you focus on the problems, so, too, will your congregation.

10. Stay Connected to God
This sounds easier than it often is for people in ministry. I constantly struggle with getting so busy doing “God’s work” that I forget to check in with God in my own life. Daily time with God is the most valuable thing we can do, and how often do we simply see it crowded out of our schedule? If you get one thing from this list, I hope it’s this one. For me, too

TONY GUERRERO.

How To Prepare For Gigs And Make Your Live Shows Better

The very best way to get more people to repeatedly come out and see your band play live is word of mouth. When your live shows are great, people will like it and talk about you to their friends both online and offline. Besides the obvious point of playing good music that people like, there are 5 main areas of preparing for your gigs.

1. Your individual playing
The most important thing you can do (individually) to prepare for your gigs is to focus on playing your songs ‘consistently well’. To improve this, practice your songs in a wider variety of environments and situations. Play your songs standing, walking, in the dark, under a strobe light (if you have one), while talking, without looking at your guitar, while friends are listening, etc. The key point is to practice playing consistently well in all those different scenarios. This will help your individual performances on the stage.

2. Your band’s performance

When your band rehearses, you should NOT be focused on playing the songs correctly. If your band mates cannot play the songs flawlessly BEFORE the band rehearses, send him/her home to learn the songs. Once he/she has truly done that, then bring that person back to band rehearsals. Band practice is not about ‘holding people’s hand through the process of learning the songs which should have been learned at home. If you have a band mate who needs your help learning the songs, you can do this by meeting alone with that person to help. However, if this is a consistent problem, then you may need to replace that band member for someone who is better (or less lazy if that is the case).

Band rehearsals should be about the band playing the songs TIGHT rhythmically, matching dynamic levels in various parts of the songs and developing great stage presence (more on this later).

Because it can be very difficult to really know how good your band is in any of these areas as you are practicing, I strongly suggest to record your band rehearsals in 2 ways:

A. Video record your rehearsals. When you watch the video, turn the volume OFF and simply pay attention to how the band looks visually. This will help you to really focus on the stage presence and visual impact your band may (or may not) have on your next audience.

B. Audio record your rehearsals. Do this with computer based recording software and make sure each instrument is recorded onto its own track (multi track record). [Do NOT listen to the audio from the video recording!]. The first thing to do is LOOK at the recording on the computer screen. You want to notice patterns of rhythmic flaws. Is your bass player always playing slightly before the beat? Is your guitar player playing slightly behind (late) the beat? For many people it is much easier to ‘see it on the screen’ than it is to hear it. Once you see it, then you will be able to hear it afterwards much more easily. Doing this exercise will really help your band to play much tighter rhythmically (which is absolutely critical for any band). Also listen to how the dynamic levels of the band are changing? Does everyone get louder and softer at the same time? Or is everyone doing their own thing randomly? It almost always sounds best when the band does this together.

3. Your stage presence

When you play live, your music is only 50% of what most people in your audience care about. The other 50% is what they see. Remember, they came to ‘see and hear’ your gig. Great ‘sounding’ bands often lack bigger success because their live shows suffer from lame stage presence. If you want more people to consistently come out to your gigs, you must develop great stage presence.

As mentioned above band rehearsals aren’t about ‘learning to play the songs’. Schedule at least 50% of your band’s rehearsal time to analyze your stage presence skills (watch the video as described above and take notes on what you notice), then begin to implement improvements to this part of your live playing. You can make a lot of improvement on your own simply by some self analysis.

4. Eliminate (or at least reduce) stage fright
If you have cool music, a cool band and have prepared well to give your audience an awesome show, that can all be quickly destroyed if stage fright gets in your way. Many musicians simply don’t perform well on stage due to anxiety. Don’t let this happen to you and your band. You have worked too hard to let fear cripple you. Your audience deserves better, and more importantly, YOU deserve better! You are on stage to have fun, not to be nervous every moment of the gig. To eliminate (or at least to significantly reduce) performance anxiety, check out this
Istage fright article.

5. Performance logistics

In addition to stage fright, there are other things that may happen during your gig that can hurt it. The main two issues are not being able to hear and not being able to see. If you’ve already played gigs, then you know that every gig sounds different on the stage. One night you can’t hear the bass, the next night you can’t hear yourself, etc. When you are the opening band, you typically don’t get a sound check before you play, so you have no idea what you will be able to hear (or not hear) on stage until you start playing the first song. While there are many different ways to deal with this problem, I’m going to focus only on one of them here. One of the best ways to prepare for not being able to hear all the instruments is to practice your songs with you and only ONE other instrument. So for example, practice playing only with the bass player. Next, practice the song only with the drummer. This will prepare you for live situations when you can only hear the bass or only hear the drums etc.

The next common logistical problem is not being able to see. Often live stages are dark in some moments and then extremely bright in other moments, making it very hard to see your instrument. My eyes are very sensitive to light, so I always play with dark sunglasses on (since the bright lights often blind me on stage without them). For dark situations you can add white out (or even glow in the dark markers) on the side of your fingerboard, so even in very low light you can clearly see your fingerboard. Of course practice playing the entire song without ever looking at your guitar is also a great way to prepare for unexpected

SOUND CHECK PART II: "HELLO ENGINEER..."

Improve Your Sound Check: For the Audio Team
Mike Pankau

Sound check is one of the most critical steps in delivering an excellent weekend service. It ensures that all the complicated patching, routing, conversion, and reproduction are happening the way you want them to happen. When sound checks go bad (coming soon to your local Fox station!), it can put off the mood of both the worship band, the worship leader, and the production team. It is an easy way for the evil one to interrupt and distract you from the reason you are at church. By taking the time to prepare for your entire service, you reduce the chance for failure, distraction, and frustration.

To The Audio Team

Sound check is NOT the time to find out if your lines work, or if that sketchy DI is going to hold up another week. Before the worship team even sets foot on the property, you should have already made use of a tone generator (like this). If you can’t find $21 in your budget for one, ask your team to sacrifice their Starbucks for a weekend and buy one. The following items, at a minimum should be checked every single time:

For guitars, plug an instrument cable into that direct box and use the tone generator into the instrument cable. Checking this tests your 1/4, your DI, your XLR, etc.

For keyboards, turn it on and play it! It doesn’t need to be pretty to know if it works. If you don’t have the keyboard there for whatever reason, test with the instrument cable, just like the guitars.

For instrument mics: snapping in front of them works great. Never tap or blow on them.

For vocal mics: Stand in the position that the vocalist will stand and hold it properly. You are more likely to identify sources of feedback or other problems if you mimic the actual use as closely as possible.

For headworn mics: PUT THEM ON AND TEST THEM. These mics tend to have cables that fail frequently and see a lot of rough handling.  By putting it on, you’ll not only check that the mic is passing signal but that the ear piece or head-basket hasn’t been damaged. It also checks that the wireless receivers are working properly.

Check any videos/tracks/CD’s that you’ll be using and ensure they are working properly.

While that might seem like a lot, it should only take ~20 minutes for a typical setup once you get used to it. The important part is that you check EVERYTHING, EVERY TIME. While all of that is happening, you also need to be ensuring that the test tone, or test voice, is being heard in wedges and the in-ear system. Depending on your setup, this can be a complicated system and needs to be part of your pre-band routine.

As the worship team and vocalists enter, remember a few key things:

They may not know your setup. Help them locate their position on stage, their microphones, in-ears, etc. If you have new members, make sure they understand how to ask for changes and how to work your in-ear system if you have one. The audio team serves the worship team in this capacity and being proactive will help things go well.

Have a few common things handy. People make mistakes; they forget patch cables, in-ears, batteries, etc. Having these nearby the stage ensures that a simple mistake doesn’t derail your service while someone has to go dig a battery out of a case somewhere.

Communicate to everyone the best way to ask for changes. Do you have a stage manager that everyone should talk to? Should they shout to the booth? Have they been through the school of audio hand-signals? Establishing a prescribed channel for communication helps them feel cared for and allows them to not worry about potential problems.

Once the time for sound-check starts:
Politely remind the worship team to not play during sound-check so you can tweak and tune each instrument as quickly and effectively as possible.

Establish a pattern and stick to it. I personally prefer to do drums -> bass -> electrics -> keys -> acoustics -> vocals. However you do it doesn’t matter, but sticking to a pattern helps the worship team know what to expect and how much time is remaining.

For each instrument, check your gain, EQ, compression, and effects. Spend enough time to get the sound 90% of the way there. Save the last 10% for adjustments within the mix. You’ll probably change just about everything you set here anyway, so taking an inordinate amount of time here serves no one well. When you finish an instrument/player, check in with the musician and make sure they can hear themselves adequately and are satisfied with the sound.

Once each player is checked, ask the team to play through a single song so they (or you) can rough in wedge/in-ear mixes so they can begin rehearsal. After that first song, check in and ask if anyone needs changes. If not, you’ll all done – nice job. Now the band is off and running for rehearsal.

Sound-check shouldn’t be hard once everyone figures out why they do it and how much better a rehearsal can go once it is done. If you and your team do it different, I’d love to hear what you do and why! Everyone has a different setup, different cultures, and different solutions. This isn’t the end-all-be-all sound-check guide, but if you’re struggling with technical problems and inconsistency, it’s a solid place to start.

Grace!!

SOUND CHECK PART II: "HELLO ENGINEER..."

Improve Your Sound Check: For the Audio Team
Mike Pankau

Sound check is one of the most critical steps in delivering an excellent weekend service. It ensures that all the complicated patching, routing, conversion, and reproduction are happening the way you want them to happen. When sound checks go bad (coming soon to your local Fox station!), it can put off the mood of both the worship band, the worship leader, and the production team. It is an easy way for the evil one to interrupt and distract you from the reason you are at church. By taking the time to prepare for your entire service, you reduce the chance for failure, distraction, and frustration.

To The Audio Team

Sound check is NOT the time to find out if your lines work, or if that sketchy DI is going to hold up another week. Before the worship team even sets foot on the property, you should have already made use of a tone generator (like this). If you can’t find $21 in your budget for one, ask your team to sacrifice their Starbucks for a weekend and buy one. The following items, at a minimum should be checked every single time:

For guitars, plug an instrument cable into that direct box and use the tone generator into the instrument cable. Checking this tests your 1/4, your DI, your XLR, etc.

For keyboards, turn it on and play it! It doesn’t need to be pretty to know if it works. If you don’t have the keyboard there for whatever reason, test with the instrument cable, just like the guitars.

For instrument mics: snapping in front of them works great. Never tap or blow on them.

For vocal mics: Stand in the position that the vocalist will stand and hold it properly. You are more likely to identify sources of feedback or other problems if you mimic the actual use as closely as possible.

For headworn mics: PUT THEM ON AND TEST THEM. These mics tend to have cables that fail frequently and see a lot of rough handling.  By putting it on, you’ll not only check that the mic is passing signal but that the ear piece or head-basket hasn’t been damaged. It also checks that the wireless receivers are working properly.

Check any videos/tracks/CD’s that you’ll be using and ensure they are working properly.

While that might seem like a lot, it should only take ~20 minutes for a typical setup once you get used to it. The important part is that you check EVERYTHING, EVERY TIME. While all of that is happening, you also need to be ensuring that the test tone, or test voice, is being heard in wedges and the in-ear system. Depending on your setup, this can be a complicated system and needs to be part of your pre-band routine.

As the worship team and vocalists enter, remember a few key things:

They may not know your setup. Help them locate their position on stage, their microphones, in-ears, etc. If you have new members, make sure they understand how to ask for changes and how to work your in-ear system if you have one. The audio team serves the worship team in this capacity and being proactive will help things go well.

Have a few common things handy. People make mistakes; they forget patch cables, in-ears, batteries, etc. Having these nearby the stage ensures that a simple mistake doesn’t derail your service while someone has to go dig a battery out of a case somewhere.

Communicate to everyone the best way to ask for changes. Do you have a stage manager that everyone should talk to? Should they shout to the booth? Have they been through the school of audio hand-signals? Establishing a prescribed channel for communication helps them feel cared for and allows them to not worry about potential problems.

Once the time for sound-check starts:
Politely remind the worship team to not play during sound-check so you can tweak and tune each instrument as quickly and effectively as possible.

Establish a pattern and stick to it. I personally prefer to do drums -> bass -> electrics -> keys -> acoustics -> vocals. However you do it doesn’t matter, but sticking to a pattern helps the worship team know what to expect and how much time is remaining.

For each instrument, check your gain, EQ, compression, and effects. Spend enough time to get the sound 90% of the way there. Save the last 10% for adjustments within the mix. You’ll probably change just about everything you set here anyway, so taking an inordinate amount of time here serves no one well. When you finish an instrument/player, check in with the musician and make sure they can hear themselves adequately and are satisfied with the sound.

Once each player is checked, ask the team to play through a single song so they (or you) can rough in wedge/in-ear mixes so they can begin rehearsal. After that first song, check in and ask if anyone needs changes. If not, you’ll all done – nice job. Now the band is off and running for rehearsal.

Sound-check shouldn’t be hard once everyone figures out why they do it and how much better a rehearsal can go once it is done. If you and your team do it different, I’d love to hear what you do and why! Everyone has a different setup, different cultures, and different solutions. This isn’t the end-all-be-all sound-check guide, but if you’re struggling with technical problems and inconsistency, it’s a solid place to start.

Grace!!