In most churches one man is given the oversight of song leading.  He is the only person who is given responsibility that directly relates to church music.  So, he becomes the leader of “the ministry of church music” by default.    However, his ministry is very narrow – his only responsibility it to fill the pulpit with a song leader every time the church meets.  Most assume that a cappella congregational singing does not require a “minister of church music” with any additional responsibilities.  It is assumed that only denominations that have instrumental music and choirs would need a music leader with broader responsibilities.  This is a extremely narrow and inadequate vision of the ministry of church music, and this  vision is harmful to churches because it neglects a number of important dimensions in church.  And this neglect diminishes the quality of our public singing.

It will be the purpose of this presentation to open the reader’s eyes to wider horizons of leadership.  A vision of wider horizons will help us to meet needs that are currently being neglected.

 The Ministry Of Song Leading

Churches with 100 members or less will usually have one or two men who can lead singing.  Most of those men usually have no formal music training, they cannot sight read music, they feel inadequate if asked to lead a new song, but they can lead singing if the songs are familiar (older songs).  Churches with 200 members may have three song leaders.  The average church of 300 or more may four or more such men.  Thus, the average church has approximately 1% of its membership with the ability to lead singing.

You will most likely find competent, skilled song leaders  in larger churches of 200 or more members.  However, only 10% of all churches of Christ have 200+ members.  So, our best song leading talent tends to concentrate in only a small percent of churches.

Training

If a church suffers from the lack of talent, the leader of  music ministry should encourage his best candidates to seek training.  Abilene Christian University offers a one week summer program to train song leaders.  This service is offered once each year in mid-July.  Ministry leaders in church music should get acquainted with this program and make arrangements for potential song leaders to attend the school.

Should a church offer an in-house training class instead of sending people to ACU?  The average song leader will need a minimum of 50 class hours of training to develop competence in song leading.  That person would need an in-depth study of music theory, sight reading, and song leading.  The average congregation would have great difficulty creating an adequate 50 hour program, and most candidates would not be willing to attend a 50 hour program in a local church setting.  For these reasons it is better to utilize an established training service like the ACU Singing School.

The ACU Singing School will be offering a special training class in the subject of this booklet in the summer of 2002.  If you are a leader in the ministry of church music, then you should consider attending the singing school and taking an in-depth study of this subject so you can develop your own vision and competence for your role in the church.

The Primary Song Leader

Churches universally understand that it is important to have one primary pulpit preacher.  We know there is a need for skill and competence in the pulpit.  We should not allocate the pulpit to every man in the local church who wants to preach a sermon.  We demand skill and competence in the pulpit.  We do understand that the skill of the preacher makes a big difference in the quality of achievements that come from pulpit preaching.

But somehow we have failed to extend this vision of skill and quality to song leading.  We need competence in our song leader.  We should not allocate the work of song leading to every man in the local church who wants to lead a song.  We should demand skill in song leading as we do in preaching.

We also understand that if one man is in charge of preaching that he can take a strategic approach to selecting sermon material so that his sermons help the church to move forward in growth and development.  But we fail to apply this same principle to song leading.

A single, skilled song leader can also take a strategic approach to the ministry of congregational singing.  He can select songs to meet needs.  He can work to avoid repeating the same songs too frequently.  When you have many song leaders sharing the pulpit this quickly results in a sense of collective irresponsibility.  Song leaders will sing the same songs too frequently.  They will have a total absence of strategic vision.  For this reason we should limit the number of men who lead singing.  If you need only one pulpit preacher on the average Sunday, you should not need more than one or two song leaders as prime leaders from week-to-week.

Problems

Some men who want to be the primary song leader actually have a state-of-mind that is known as a narcissistic personality disorder.  These men are overly preoccupied with the beauty of their singing voice, their own handsome looks, and their charming personality.  They feel they deserve to stand in the spotlight and be admired by the church every Sunday.  These men want praise from the local church.  Their egotistical approach to song leading will cause  interpersonal problems in the church.  If the most talented song leader in your church has narcissistic personality disorder, then you should not make that person the primary leader.  For the sake of peace and harmony in the church it would be better to put your second best leader in the pulpit as the primary song leader.

The Ministry Of Music Education

In order for the church to have excellent singing we need church members who have some education in church music.  It would be very helpful for your church to have a number of people who understand basic music theory.  We need people who can sight read music, and we need some people who understand our historical heritage of music.

In the past public schools provided enough training in music that many people had some degree of competence in those areas.  But in the last 20 years schools have had to eliminate universal music education in favor of other priorities.  Public schools still train children in music if they choose to be in the band, the orchestra, or the school choir.  But in today’s schools music education is limited only to those young people.

Because of changing priorities in music education we are finding a growing number of people in our churches who know nothing about music.  Leaders in the domain of church music can no longer depend on public schools to educate all our people in music basics.

Public schools do not offer any education in the history of church music.  If our people are to have any understanding about our music heritage they will acquire this education at church.

Churches that offer music theory education discover that most of their people have no desire to develop their skills in that field of study.  In most congregations no more than 20% of your people may be interested in developing competence in church music.  What should we do?  We should train the 20% who are willing to develop their skills.  It is better to have 20% of your people with some skills than to have only 3% of your people with the same skills.  If we can help 20% of our people develop some skills, then we will see a significant improvement in the quality of our church music.

We recommend that music theory classes be taught in a special voluntary program on Wednesday nights during mid-week services, or offer a similar program late on Sunday afternoon.

A study of our heritage in church music could easily be included in our Sunday School curriculum.

Where can we find trained people to teach these classes at church?  If you do not already have such talent in your church, you can develop that kind of talent by sending people to the singing school at Abilene Christian University.

Music Repertory

This writer performed a survey in 1962 to measure how many songs our brethren knew and could sing on Sunday.  The average number was 265.  A decade later the number had risen to 285.  When Howard’s hymnal, Songs of the Church, appeared the number began to rise again.  Soon the average was 355.

What had happened?  Howard began promoting the expansion of the churches repertory by offering audio cassette tapes that introduced many of the songs in his new hymnal.  Many of the newer songs were also introduced at some brotherhood lectureships and this resulted in an expanding repertory.

Churches that have welcomed the newest generation of praise songs have seen their repertory increase by an additional 150 or more newer songs.  Again, the use of CD’s and the promotional work of brotherhood lectureships have had a positive effect on the church’s repertory.

A major weakness in the repertory of most churches is that nobody has assumed a leadership role in deliberately promoting newer songs.  Churches that use praise teams are doing a much better job at introducing new songs to the church than many of the churches that lack praise teams.  However, it is not necessary to have a praise team to introduce new songs.  New songs can be introduced in other ways, but praise teams do tend to assert leadership in the development of the church’s repertory.

Leaders in the ministry of church music should seek to stay informed about the better newer songs that are appearing on the church music market.  In today’s high tech world this is not hard to do.  Worship leaders should select new songs and find ways to introduce them.

New songs do not have to be praise songs.  New songs appear on the market each year in many styles.  Hymns composed in the classic style can be found on the contemporary market.  Some writers still create songs in the gospel song style.  Churches should promote more than one style of singing.

Church Copyright License, Inc. of Portland, Oregon helps many church to find new songs and supplies them with the legal license to reproduce them and use them in any format.  This service has been a real blessing to the work of expanding the church’s repertory.

Assembly Enrichment

The ministry of song leading tends to be focused primarily on the development and deployment of talent.  Leaders in the ministry of church music should look beyond the management of human resources and consider the enrichment of the assembly.

The average church never develops a strategic plan for the Sunday morning assembly.  Brother A is asked to lead the “main prayer”, Brother B is asked to lead singing, Brother C is asked to read a scripture, Brother D is asked to serve communion, and so forth.  None of those men ever get together to coordinate anything.  Every man who participates in the assembly “does his own thing”.  As a result the assembly is a random collection of prayers, scriptures, sermons, and songs that have no connection to each other.  This does not produce a high quality assembly.

The ministry of church music is an excellent place to begin the process of enriching the assembly.  The song leader is the only person who stands before the church repeatedly during the church service. He leads songs before the “main prayer”.  He leads songs before and after communion.  He leads songs both before and after the sermon, and he leads singing at the close of the service.  This frequency of visibility in the assembly makes him the central figure in the assembly-at-large.

Defining Objectives And Goals

The core objective in a public assembly cannot be defined by the popular concept of “worship”.  Hebrews 10:25 - 25 and 1 Corinthians 14:26 define the primary objective as being mutual encouragement.  The assembly must build up the church.  We must inspire our members to a greater resolve to live for Jesus.  Songs and prayers of worship become a part of the process of mutual encouragement.  Worship builds up the church.  But so do other aspects of the public assembly.

The term “goal” takes us beyond our primary objectives.  It points us to a specific plan of action to achieve our objectives on a specific Sunday.  The Bible defines our objectives.  We must define our own goals.

Planning

Most men who lead in public worship have no interest in participating in the process of planning a high quality assembly.  This would take too much time out of their busy week in their opinion.  Besides, when could they ever find time to get together to plan a higher quality assembly?  It just seems like it is more practical to allow every worship leader to “do his own thing” and hope for the best.

Most churches could easily put together a planning session for the public assembly on Wednesday night during classes.  All men who are involved in the assembly could come together and spend a few minutes building a plan of action for Sunday.

For the sake of the efficient use of time we suggest that the worship leader should have a general idea about the type of strategy that should be implemented on Sunday.  The essence of the meeting is to help each man to see how his activity contributes to the larger whole.

There are several principles that can facilitate this process in a fruitful manner.  Consider the following:

(1)  All public assemblies do not have to be satellites in orbit around the sermon.  Many  sermon topics do not lend themselves to companion songs and prayers.

(2)  All public assemblies do not have to focus on a singular theme (like faith, hope, love, grace, or the cross).  There are effective ways to produce a high quality assembly without focusing on subject themes.

(3)  All assemblies do not have to have the precise same format of a specific number of songs before or after specific events.  Leaders can modify the sequence of events to fit a specific purpose and produce an assembly that is beneficial even though it is a little different.

The above comments were made to inspire a worship leader to consider the options and opportunities he may possess to produce an assembly that is greatly enhanced.  When leaders limit themselves to specific themes or specific sermons, then the task of assembly integration can become very difficult and discouraging.  We want to encourage leaders to be creative, not discourage through too many constraints.

 Congregational Development 

The term “development” will be used in this section to denote the process of facilitating change.  Many congregations need to make changes in church music.  A church may need a new hymnal, or it may need to change to the use of a video projection system that utilizes the Paperless Hymnal^â. 

Most churches will have to change the status quo in order to begin the process of providing training in congregational singing and to provide special opportunities to learn new songs.  Why?  Because most churches do not have a heritage of music education or repertory development.

In the average church you will change the status quo if you wish to promote a system in which all worship leaders work together to produce a coherent, connected, smooth, and effective public assembly.

Attitudes Toward Change 

Four percent of our people are innovators.  They understand the positive value of change and they look for ways to generate change so the church can be more productive and successful.

Ten percent of our people are not innovators, but they are early arrivers.  They are willing to cooperate with innovators and help them reach their goals.

Thirty-three percent of our people are an early majority.  They are not innovators.  They are mildly resistant to change.  When they see something new they want to think it over before they decide whether or not to support it.  After a short period of time in deliberation they decide to support the process of change.

Thirty-three percent of our people are a late majority.  It takes them longer to think things over.  They are a little more resistant to change.  A few months after the early majority decides to support change the late majority will eventually decide that change is OK.

Twenty percent of our people are laggards.  They are the most resistant group when it comes to supporting change.  They are the very last people to decide that change is OK.  Some of these people will never support change.

Leaders in the ministry of music must be aware of these realities of human nature.  What should a developmental leader do?

Education For Change

The first step in leading the church to adopt positive, fruitful change is to educate people.

The first thing our people need to learn is the difference among truth, tradition, and taste.  Many members of the church live in a state of denial about traditions.  Some people think that traditions are truth.  They think that their personal tastes are truth (If I like it then it is right, and if I do not like it then it is evil).

An adult Bible class on Truth-Tradition-Taste can help to set the stage for some changes in the church.  First, teach the New Testament theology about truth.  Truth is reality; it is timeless; it is absolute.  Popular fads and fashions cannot negate truth.  Popular opinions cannot alter truth from being absolute to being relative.  God’s word is truth.  Second, teach the New Testament theology about traditions.  A word study of the term “tradition” will open our eyes to the fact that all religious groups do evolve a culture.  Culture is invisible to insiders, but it is very visible to outsiders coming in.  Culture is the sum of everything a group of people learn as they search for ways to be successful and adapt to their challenges and struggles.  It can be very good or very bad.  Culture is not the same thing as truth.  The changes we should make in the church are never in the realm of truth, but should always be in the realm of culture.  And finally there is taste.  Taste is what we like and dislike.  Taste mirrors our personality and our experiences in life.  We may dislike a new idea, but that does not mean it is wrong.  We may like an idea, but that does not mean it is good.

The second thing people need to learn is the need for change.  This too can be handled in a Bible class environment.  We can introduce the area of church life in which we see the need for change.  What is God’s will for this area of church life?  What purpose does this area serve?  What goals are appropriate?  In the past, how successful have we been in achieving those goals?  How successful have we been in recent times?  What has gone wrong?  Has our culture changed?  Have our methods become out-dated?  What should we do?  Should we just try harder without making any other changes?  Or, should we look for some new methods?  What new methods might be helpful?  Would these new methods be unscriptural?  If these methods work, would they be desirable?  How should we feel about this?  Should we be reluctant to support these ideas? 

Demonstrating New Ideas

We want people to rationally understand the need for change and what the specific change might be.  But we know that some people oppose change for emotional reasons.  Not all human behavior is driven by rationality.  If we feel comfortable with old ideas, then we may resist change.  If new ideas make us feel anxious or otherwise uncomfortable we will oppose them.

To help people adapt to change we need to find opportunities to demonstrate what a good idea we have.  We will have to compromise with our long-term goals and accept some scaled-down short-term plans.  For example, if introducing new songs is our goal, then we might start with a single new song.  If our people learn one new song and really learn to like it and appreciate it, then learning more new songs will be less threatening.

As people have small experiences that are positive, then they will begin to move away from emotional opposition and turn to a more rational attitude toward the change that needs to occur.

Churches that wisely manage change can find that they accomplish two things: (1) they increase the church’s productivity, and (2) they maintain the unity of the church.  Both of these achievements are desirable.

More Information

This booklet is not a complete presentation of material on the subject of the ministry of church music.  Our purpose in this presentation is to open your eyes to wider horizons and to begin to examine some ideas that could be beneficial in your ministry in the church.

The Singing School At Abilene Christian University offers a complete course on this subject for men who are advanced song leaders.  This course will be presented at ACU during the week of July 14 - 19, 2002.

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