Have you noticed that in today’s contemporary churches, worship ministries often fall into two camps? The first focuses only on the spiritual aspect, spending most of their time and resources pursuing how to lead in partnership with the Holy Spirit. The second spends their time and resources pursuing solely the technical or excellence aspect of leading worship. Both aspects are valuable and necessary. However, if we only focus on one, the ministry becomes lopsided and cuts us off from a holistic view of who God is, cheapening our worship of Him and to Him. Ultimately our teams and congregations suffer greatly.
If we focus on only spiritual or technical, we cheapen our worship of Him and to Him.
Marrying these two aspects can be especially tricky for worship vocalists. Why? Because everyone has a voice. A guitarist or pianist has an advantage because there was a time they didn’t know how to play the guitar or piano and they needed to be instructed on how to properly use the instrument. Too many take the voice for granted, subscribing to the belief “I got what I got.” Unless you can’t hear or have a vocal pathology, you can speak and sing. It is an instrument unlike any other. Yes, an instrument. You can think of the voice as part wind and part stringed instrument. Wind instruments are powered by a stream of air, and stringed instruments produce sound when their strings are touched or struck. When you sing, sound is produced when you exhale (stream of air) which enables the vocal folds (strings) to vibrate rapidly, striking each other. So, if singers are taking their voices for granted, and they don’t view it as an instrument, how will they know they need to develop or improve it? Great question.
Here’s how we marry both the spiritual with the excellence… we start by understanding that through ALL we do, we aim to bring God glory.
Through ALL we do, we aim to bring God glory.
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31). ‘Do’ here can also be translated as ‘to form’, ‘to make ready’, ‘to prepare’. If we can glorify God by ‘making ready’ or ‘preparing’ to eat and drink, certainly we can when we sing. John Piper says this about God’s glory:
We must constantly remind ourselves that we are speaking of a glory that is ultimately beyond any comparison in creation. “The glory of God” is how we designate the infinite beauty and the infinite greatness of the Person who was before anything else. This beauty and greatness exist without origin, without comparison, without analogy, without being judged by any external criterion. God’s glory is the all-defining, absolutely original STANDARD of greatness and beauty. All created greatness and beauty comes from it and points to it, but such things do not comprehensively or adequately reproduce it (https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/soli-deo-gloria). If I were you, I’d read the highlighted quote again.
Or consider the words of Isaiah: I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, WHOM I CREATED FOR MY GLORY, whom I formed and made. (Isaiah 43.6-7)
When we sing, we are creating more greatness and beauty that should point to the absolute original standard of greatness and beauty. I’m willing to bet each singer, me included, has plenty of ‘making ready’ and ‘preparing’ so that we can bring more glory to the One we are worshiping. Let me be clear: we will never reach his perfect standard of glory. However, we would be missing out on much of His character and sanctification if we do not understand we are to seek him first in ALL we do AND prepare, or make ready, the skills and abilities He’s given us.
Do you see, now? Seeking the spiritual side of worship and seeking to pursue excellence are one and the same. One without the other rips apart what is true authentic worship of the great Creator of beauty. How privileged are we that we get to sing to the Lord and to all the earth declaring His glory among the nations!
Oh sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth! Sing to the LORD, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples! (Psalm 96:1-3)
How privileged are we that we get to sing to the Lord and to all the earth declaring His glory among the nations!
What a glorious gift and calling!
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Kate Bissinger is a vocal coach with WorshipConsulting.com. She has a Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Performance and participated in all three levels of Somatic Voicework℠, The LoVetri Method, at the Contemporary Commercial Music Vocal Pedagogy Institute at Shenandoah University. She specializes in vocally coaching worship leaders and worship team members. She lives in a sweet little town outside Philadelphia with her husband, two constantly energetic boys, and one neurotic cat. |
