Articles . Keith Drury . Volume 06 | Issue 04

Worship Music and the Senior Pastor

QUESTION: If you were a senior pastor would you have anything to say about the songs and chorus selection of the worship team?

ANSWER: You bet! I’d have lots to say. In fact I believe the senior pastor should be the final judge of which songs we sing and which we don’t. Not just to coordinate the music with the preaching topic (that approach can be argued either way) but because music is a powerful channel for teaching theology to the people—and if a senior pastor is not interested in the theology the people are getting he or she should go hang drywall for a living.

In fact music may be a more powerful delivery system for theology than preaching, though most pastors hate to hear me say that. After all, how many people will be repeating a phrase from your sermon ten years from now? You already know they’ll be humming phrases from their music. So the musical delivery system endures longer than preaching. And that’s not all. Music enters the heart sometimes while bypassing the mind. That is, music can become a part of us without being critically examined for its soundness in theology. This is why many churches today sing songs totally out of sync with their theology. They like the tune but have never seriously examined what the lyrics say (or more important what they don’t say—the “null curriculum.”) Most churches have never seriously examined what they sing compared to what they believe. They chose songs for musical delight, popularity, or (more likely) the mood they create.

This is why I think the senior pastor should be the final word on what we sing. It is as important (I personally thing more important) than what will be preached.

So if a senior pastor would actually take charge pf the first half of worship what policies might he or she implement? Here are three policies to consider:

  1. 80% of our songs are familiar songs. It is almost impossible for the people to worship with a song they don’t know. They’ve got to learn it first then worship with it. Constantly “churning” the music selections with new songs is a great way for musicians to show off, but it is not a great way to lead the people in worship. Thus 80% of our worship singing will be familiar songs—songs our congregation already knows and can easily use to worship. That means four out of five songs we sing are already familiar to the people. How will we know they are “familiar?” Simple—we will listen to the people sing. Whichever songs they sing robustly are “familiar.” The songs they sing passively and without conviction we will discard. Only one out of fine songs can be in this “new” category
  2. A song is “new” until it becomes “familiar.” A “new” song does not become familiar because the praise team heard it at a concert, practiced it nine times in rehearsal then introduced it just last month. A song does not become “familiar” until the people have sung it at least nine times in the last three months and they now sing it robustly (not necessarily loudly but they sing it with vigor—they really worship with it). Congregations “vote” on songs every week. They vote by how they participate. Worship leaders can urge, cajole and scold a congregation for not singing, but the congregation always gets the last vote. If they cannot worship well with a song they simply sing with no passion or even not at all. A pastor or worship leader who does not monitor the congregation’s singing does not deserve to lead worship. This is the trouble with worship leaders who “really get into it” while leading worship—they sometimes close their eyes and swim in a private romantic sea of their own worship they fail to monitor the people. After all, their real job is to lead the people in worship, not to “perform worship” for the people to watch. So what’s the policy here? We will keep singing a new song until it becomes a robust song fro our people. And in our church the senior pastor will decide when the “new” song has become “familiar.” Preachers already know how to monitor responses—they do it while they preach or they die. The senior pastor will decide when a “new” song can be promoted to the “familiar” category releasing space for more new songs. Until then (using the 80-20 rule) this song has to be counted in the 20% “new” category. And, if the congregation never adopts the song for robust worship the senior pastor will determine when it was a stillbirth.
  3. Our senior pastor approves all new songs. Given the power of a song to deliver enduring doctrinal positions, the senior pastor as the chief theological officer of the church will examine all new songs and determine if they should be added to the church’s repertoire of congregational singing. That’s why we hire a senior pastor, not just to think about the theology of the sermon, but the theology of the whole church.

OK these are three policies a senior pastor might consider implementing to return to the role of Chief Theological Officer of the local church—including worship. Thank God an increasing number of pastors are no longer satisfied at being a “guest speaker in their own church” delegating and ignoring what happens during the first half of the service. They no longer are happy to “show up to preach” in the last half of service. These pastors are coming to realize that the first half of the service may influence their people as much (or more) than the last half. These pastors are getting re-involved in the whole worship service. Many worship leaders are going to hate it. But it will be good for the church.

© 2006, Keith Drury
www.drurywriting.com/keith