Mark Peterson

I think that in song leading, there are 2 things going on. First, the leader is indeed worshipping God individually, and I think needs to be sincere and to sing from the heart. People in the congregation take their lead from this, and join in. When we all do that together, our worship takes on one aspect of its corporate dimension.

In that sense, I am not too fussed about eyes closed, hands clapping or in the air. I’m much more interested in the person displaying an overall appearance that is convincing! (eg smiles in songs of joy, reflective looks in reflective songs etc). A parallel example might be leading the congregation in prayer, where your own physical approach to prayer will help people in their prayer. Some do it with eyes open, others with eyes closed.

The second thing that’s going on for songleaders though is a communication with the congregation. Not only are we expecting them to copy us, but we’re also deliberately trying to get a message across to people. Music is a ministry of proclaiming the word, in a similar but not identical way to preaching, or bible reading. I reckon that in this aspect of the role we benefit from eyes open, since it’s hard to communicate to someone in front of you when your eyes are closed. I do sometimes find it difficult when I’m in a congregation to engage with the song leaders if they’re closing their eyes to me.

To make the point another way, another important aspect of our corporate worship is the actual focus on our togetherness. In our awareness and engaging with each other, we build one another up in the truths of the gospel. When we do this, God is worshipped, a point that the New Testament makes very clear (eg the sheep and the goats story in Matt 25, where in serving Jesus’ brothers, you are serving Jesus himself).

My own practice is that my eyes will be open and shut at different times when I sing, depending on the situation. If I’m doing an item, especially one that is personal and individual, often I’ll sing with my eyes shut, but never for the whole song, because I still feel that there’s a communication element to it. Most congregational songs I’ll have my eyes open for the majority of it, but at times when I’m particularly aware of God’s interest in me personally, my eyes will shut for parts of it.

At my own church, I don’t tend to make rules about what people can and can’t do. This seems to me to be unnecessary and can I think smother the ministry of music! We try to think about what we’re actually doing when we lead singing, and leave it to individual songleaders to make up their minds.

Once again, yes and no, in my opinion. From a classical music perspective, being a great musician is like being a great gymnast. You learn routines, which are performed as well as possible. All sorts of considerations are relevant in judging who is great, but essentially people are sizing each other up and comparing each other, to see who is the best.

This is also notably relevant in the jazz scene, where there is a grand pecking order or “food chain” that each musician tries to work his or her way up.

Additionally, from a commercial point of view, music can be about promoting self. You perform and promote in order to sell products and remain viable.

However I think it’s just too big a statement to say that being a great musician is essentially about promoting self. Music is first and foremost a form of art. We can and do use it as a communication vehicle, but this is primarily because of the way it appeals to the human soul at a deep level.

A person who engages deeply and powerfully with art is not necessarily promoting him or herself. In a true unfallen (or redeemed) sense, people may be rejoicing in and praising the creator! That is of course what art is meant to do: display the beauty of God. Music is not just a means to an end, where it is either exploited for self or for service. It is a place in which a person can dwell, a place that is so easily affected by corruption, as people worship the art form instead of the great artist himself!

Yes and no, in my opinion. The reasons why music must be good are different from the reasons why lyrics must be good. It’s a bit like comparing apples with oranges, I think. In one sense, the answer must be yes, because we’re talking about the gospel, the word of God. That is the thing that makes lyrics especially important, and means we must get them right. One of the risks of not getting them right is that we will misrepresent God, which we mustn’t do (E.g. we could slip into heresy or idolatry, or just plain old shallow, ill-informed theology). The other thing that we can do wrong with lyrics of course (often not mentioned much in my circles, since we tend to focus more on “correctness”) is just make them unpoetic, or unengaging. All the best songs in the world have gripping lyrics. So yes, lyrics are critical. They carry the message, explicitly.

But I would argue that the musical side in a sense is just as important, but its importance is measured in different ways. The tune carries the message, perhaps implicitly, or indirectly (as distinct from explicitly or directly as in lyrics)

If a song has a brilliant tune and harmony, then regardless of how good or bad the lyrics are, people will quite likely want to sing it! If it doesn’t, they won’t. You then do the lyrics either a service or a dis-service, but how important therefore is the tune, if it can make people either sing or not sing the lyrics!

Think of what happens when the melody is good and the lyrics are poor… people sing bad (or shallow) theology. And you can’t stop people getting into it because they love the music. The music has a power over people that ‘correct theology’ doesn’t have. I’m not denying the power of the Spirit to work through poor tunes! I’m just saying they’re operating in different realms, pulling on different heart strings.

In summary, I don’t think it’s a good idea to put lyrics and tunes up against each other, since both need to be good for a song to be considered good. Perhaps it’s better to focus on the consequences of doing each poorly. The consequences of doing lyrics poorly are far greater than the consequences of doing tunes poorly. With one, you can commit heresy or idolatry. With the other, people simply won’t sing the songs.

We recently installed a new PA system in our church building. It increases the potential volume considerably. That’s not strictly why we bought it, but now that increased volume is a possibility, it is also quite often a reality!

It has led me to wonder what are the pros and cons of loud music for congregational worship…

At my church (Holy Trinity Adelaide), our biggest and most successful congregational worship event of the year is our Christmas carols service in the Adelaide Town Hall. (Quick plug: you can buy the DVD and check it out at www.emumusic.com/albums/carolsinthecitydvd)

Things are loud. A combination of a large reverberant room and a lot of people singing songs they know very well, and the decibel metre is reaching high numbers!

Yet rarely do we get any complaints about the volume. There is something awesome about that kind of singing experience. It’s not about the PA. It’s about the 1000 voices. There’s actually an old hymn by Charles Wesley called, “O for a thousand tongues to sing”, which delights in the awesome power of that number of voices singing in unison, and longs to have it for oneself. When we encounter the true God in our lives, we can be spurred to sing with all our might. Imagine having the power of a thousand voices to express praise of my maker and saviour…

Having said all this, it’s not every Sunday that we experience hearty, loud singing. Many factors come into play to prevent it. Uninspiring song leaders, uninspiring preachers and service leaders, a building that deadens the sound rather than resonating with it, a band that cannot get it together and express the heart of the song. And, of course, an inadequate PA is one of the biggest constraints on congregational singing.

In a sense, this seems like a contradiction, since it’s not the band we’re ultimately trying to amplify, but rather the voices of the members of the congregation. But in the end, there really is only one reason that there is a band in the first place, and that is to urge the congregation to sing! You could do the same with a pipe organ, or a choir or an orchestra. But then you’d probably be playing traditional music, and not all churches want to do traditional music, especially not your youth service. So the contemporary equivalent is a good band and a good PA. For any reasonably large sized congregation, you will need both, from my experience.

The problem with a small PA is that it is like trying to use a small portable CD player. No matter how good the CD is, it won’t sound any good in anything bigger than a small room. It’ll just sound tinny. And if you push it loud, it’ll sound harsh. Harshness, in my opinion, is the main cause of “volume” complaints in the churches I’ve attended. I know that in some churches, it is just plain too loud. And I know that some sound operators can manage to make it sound harsh no matter how good the PA system is! But often there is an impression of loudness created by the fact that the sound source is not adequate for the building size.

It’s the same principle at work that led our forefathers to build large pipe organs for our old church buildings. If you want people to be moved by the music, then the music needs to be generated by a source that can actually, literally move people. Rarely do people complain about the volume of the organ (not these days, anyway!). I wonder if that’s because over the centuries of organ-building they eventually got the size and volume right!

In the Adelaide Town Hall, the organ effectively occupies an entire wall, protruding several metres from it. It is a massive sound source. With modern technology, we can be much more efficient of course. We can use loudspeakers to move large amounts of air, and give the warmth and fullness that is required to spur on loud singing.

But there are still limits. You’ll never get that warmth and fullness if you use small speech-oriented speakers. You need a bass speaker. And subwoofers are not just for showoffs in their hotted up cars! They’re for churches.

At Holy Trinity, we are trying to use our new PA to inspire loud singing. I always think that the volume of the congregation is a good place to start when working out if our music ministry is effective or not. It’s not everything, but people need encouragement to praise with strength and volume.

As a music director, my role is not really to direct the music at all. It is more importantly to urge and encourage the singing.