Figure 1: This live worship tape from the early Vineyard changed my life!

I've always loved worshipping ever since I got saved in 1976. The first church I attended was non-denominational Evangelical, and as someone who was classically-trained in piano, I soon found myself accompanying the hymn singing on Sundays. Full of joy and amazement at my new birth, I would often walk the streets at night loudly singing hymns like A Mighty Fortress is our God (Martin Luther, 1529), And Can It Be That I Should Gain? (Charles Wesley, 1783), He Lifted Me (Charles H. Gabriel, 1905) and many other classic hymns that I had memorized. 

But this was something different. My favorite hymns typically had several verses and often covered a lot of ground theologically. Most of the songs on this cassette tape however were short and used simple words. And while I loved how those old hymns glorified God, they sometimes left me feeling that God who is holy is way up in heaven, but I'm down here, a sinner saved by grace. 

Not that this is wrong of course, because it is the cross of Christ alone that saves me. But I'm more than just a sinner saved by grace. I'm also God's child, beloved by the Father and precious in His sight. And while the theology of the hymns helped me understand with my mind how much God loves me, the simple worship songs on the tape helped me feel God's love in my heart and express my love to Him in return. In other words, the songs helped me experience intimacy with God in a way I hadn't before. 

I think there's probably nothing we crave more as human beings than to experience intimacy. Something deep within our nature wants to know and to be fully known. At least this was true of myself before I met God. Perhaps that's why my first exposure to early Vineyard worship affected me so deeply.

What about you? Do you long for a closer relationship with God? Do you want to experience Him more deeply? Do you wish you could hear his voice more clearly? Do you hunger and thirst for His presence? Intimate worship can help you with these things. 

But while intimacy with God is what we seek for ourselves whenever we worship Him, it isn't the reason we should worship Him. We worship God because He's worthy to be worshipped, to be loved with all our heart, soul, strength and mind. Let's explore next how we can do this—how to worship. 

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How to worship

Worship should be an integral part of our daily lives as Christians. The apostle Paul makes this clear in various places in his letters. For example:

"…be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual song, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart..." (Ephesians 5:18-19)

"…teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God." (Colossians 3:16)

While the context of these passages deals with Body Life, our relationships with one another as Christians, worship primarily begins with how we relate to God when we are alone. In an article in the first issue of Equipping the Saints magazine where she talks about the home meeting that evolved into the Anaheim Vineyard, Carol Wimber tells how worshipping alone at home led them to a deeper experience of God when they worshipped together [note #2]:

"During this time when we were stumbling around corporately in worship, many of us were also worshipping at home alone… We noticed that as our individual worship life deepened, when we came together there was a greater hunger toward God. So we learned that what happens when we are alone with the Lord determines how intimate and deep the worship will be when we come together."

Carol correctly identifies here the relationship between worship and hunger for God. The more hungry we are to know God, the more we will worship Him. And the more we worship Him, the hungrier we become to experience His love and power in our lives. Scripture asserts the same in Psalm 84:1-2,4 where the Psalmist says:

How lovely is your dwelling place, 

 O LORD of hosts!

My soul longs, yes, faints

 for the courts of the LORD;

My heart and flesh sing for joy

 to the living God…

Blessed are those who dwell in your house,

 ever singing your praise! 

Because our hunger to worship God as individuals largely determines what kind of worship experience we can expect when we gather together in corporate settings, we will start by exploring how we can worship God when we are alone. 

Solitary worship

Although I'm a trained musician and have led worship in many home fellowships and played keyboards on worship teams, my wife Ingrid probably has more of the heart of a worshipper than I do. For example, if I enter the bathroom while she's taking a shower, I often hear her singing in the Spirit as she intercedes for people and problems the Lord has laid on her mind. When she is working in her office, doing laundry or getting dinner ready, she sometimes has a worship CD playing in the background. And before she has a time of reading and meditating on the Word, she often begins with worship as she describes here: 

"If you set aside a special time like I do such as Saturday morning for reading the Word, it's good to start off with worship. It can be just one song repeated a few times. Sometimes a song just comes to you, or even two or three songs. Repeating them is helpful because it gives the words more meaning. I find that worshipping like this helps to open me more to the Holy Spirit so I can hear His voice and be touched by Him."

I'm somewhat different. For me, worshipping when I'm alone often takes effort. I first have to disconnect from the world and put aside the pressures of life and work that weigh on me. I picture myself coming before God's throne and then open my heart to Him, thanking Him for all His wonderful promises and faithfulness. If a song doesn't come to mind, I browse through a songbook and either start with something familiar or try learning a new song if the words seem to speak to me. 

I prefer not to play an instrument when I'm worshipping alone. Playing keyboard takes too great a share of my attention, distracting me from the words of the songs I'm singing. Worshipping alone with a guitar is easier, but I'm only a novice guitarist and often feel dissatisfied with my playing which hinders worshipping. (This doesn't happen when I'm leading worship with guitar in a home fellowship as the singing of the others helps drown out my mistakes!) So most of the time my solitary worship is a capella which lets me focus my whole mind on the words I'm singing. Let me illustrate with a story. 

The other day I went outside onto our deck early in the morning to worship the Lord. My heart had been feeling dry, so to revive myself I had decided to work through an old out-of-print Vineyard songbook and sing five or six songs each morning trying to recapture what it meant to worship: 

Figure 2: Treasure from the past. Might be worth a lot someday!

As I sang through the first few songs, my mind wandered as I struggled to focus on the words and what they meant. Slowly however the truth of what I was singing began to penetrate my brain. Then I turned the page and began to sing an early Vineyard worship song titled Bright and Shining Star by Carla Martin & Tim White [note #3]:

Lord I want to know all that I can know about you.

Lord I want to go, where you lead me I will follow.

I suddenly realized that these words I was singing expressed exactly what was in my heart. Because ever since I met the Lord, my greatest desire has been to know everything I can know about him. The song continued:

Lord you are my bright and shining star,

and I know I'll never be too far 

from your love. 

A feeling of relief swept over me as I grasped once again how much God loves me. Scriptures like Romans 8:32 came into mind. The song concludes:

You're showing me the way,

I just want to obey,

oh teach me Lord I pray. 

My singing had now been transformed into a prayer as I found myself once again laying my life at the feet of Jesus, the Lord of my life. 

Worshipping alone may be different for you and for each one of us. You need to experiment to find out what works best for you. Maybe strumming on a guitar can help you get into worship mode. Try dimming the lights to remove distractions, and be sure to turn off your phone as well. Consider lighting a scented candle to symbolically remind you that Jesus is the light of the world, and his love is like perfume. Try stepping out on your balcony or into your back yard where you can see the heavens above, and lift your hands above your head as you praise His holy name. Instead of listening to the news as you drive to work in the morning, play a worship CD in your car stereo and sing along with it. Listen to one of your favorite worship playlists on your phone and sing along as you ride your bike or go jogging. There are lots of different things you can try doing when you want to worship God solo—the important thing is to do it.

As you learn to set aside regular times for worshipping the Lord, there will be times when His Spirit comes. When this happens, stop singing and just sit or lie in His presence, pouring out your heart to Him in words of thankfulness, or simply being silent before Him. Worship doesn't always have to be about singing; sometimes our deepest expressions of worship are beyond our words (Rom 8:26). 

Whether His Spirit comes upon us or not however isn't the point of worshipping God. We worship Him simply because He is worthy to be worshipped. Carol Wimber said it best when she reflected on the importance of worship in the early days of the Vineyard [note #4]:

When we look back and see God's presence moving on us, forming us, worship had such an intricate part through all this. Over the years we've seen things change-shift, but from the very beginning we understood that worship wasn't "for" anything, except for the Lord. Sometimes I get the feeling that we've shifted a bit too, "We worship in order for this to happen." Whatever "this" is—a great move of the Spirit perhaps. But that truthfully is the opposite of what we were doing in those early days. We were worshipping simply because God is worthy of worship. The wonderful things that happened were as a result of His presence. But we didn't worship so that His presence would come; we just worshipped!

Keep those words in mind as you worship God, whether you're alone at home or together with others.

Small group worship

Worshipping together in a home fellowship can be a marvelous experience. As I've previously related in my book Simple Kingdom: Home Fellowships, God will often reveal Himself in amazing ways during small group worship times. I won't go over this ground again here but will simply mention four ways you can enhance your worship experience in the small group where you fellowship. 

Learn songs. Try to memorize the worship songs you use in your home fellowship. Knowing songs by heart will enable you to sing them with your eyes closed to remove distractions. Knowing the words will also allow you to focus on their meaning as you sing them to the Lord. If your worship leader hands out songsheets for each meeting, take copies home so you can work on learning the songs. Recording your group's worship times on your phone can also help for learning songs, but make sure you first ask your group's leader if it's OK to do this because sometimes worship flows right into ministry time and you want to make sure you respect the privacy of those being prayed for. For this reason phones should generally be turned off during home fellowship meetings. 

Bodily posture. Home fellowships are where you should feel free to worship not just with your mouth but also with your body. Lifting hands, kneeling, bowing down, even lying face down on the floor—these are all common expressions of worship in the Bible (see Psalm 63:4; 95:6; 1 Kings 18:39; Revelation 22:8-9) and in a small group where people know each other you shouldn't feel self-conscious about giving yourself wholly to God. 

Being led. Allow yourself to be led by your group's worship leader. Western Christians are often too independent-minded and don't like submitting to others leading them, both in the world and in the church. Scripture however teaches us otherwise. Remember Ephesians 5:18-19 from the beginning of this chapter? 

"…be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart..."

The passage continues:

"giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ." (Eph 5:20-21)

The one (being filled with the Spirit) goes with the other (submitting to one another). 

Spiritual gifts. Worship with expectation when you are worshipping together with others. And I mean not just expectation for yourself but also for receiving spiritual gifts to share with others in the group. Perhaps the Spirit will give you a prophetic word of encouragement for someone in your group while you're worshipping. Or perhaps a word of knowledge, or of wisdom, or a revelation for the whole group. It doesn't matter how small your home fellowship is because even when only two or three are present, Jesus is also there among you (Matthew 18:20). 

For example, one time I was leading worship in a home fellowship we had recently started with another couple. While I was praying ahead of the meeting, I had a fleeting impression that Jesus was going to visit us somehow. As we worshipped together it became clear to us that we should move into a time of ministry. Several people then received prayer, and while one woman was being prayed for I suddenly felt that Jesus was standing behind me watching us pray for her. I saw this in my mind, not with my eyes, but the impression was clear. Then something strange happened: His body disappeared and only His floating, disembodied head remained! I shared my weird vision with the group and someone immediately gave the interpretation: we—our small fellowship—are His body, because we care for one another, pray for one another, love one another (see Colossians 1:18 and Ephesians 4:16). We all felt truly blessed by this revelation! 

Worshipping in church

So finally, regarding worshipping in church let me simply say this: how you worship at church Sunday morning should be no different from how you worship when you're in a homegroup or when you're alone. Doing this of course means you have to lay aside all your self-consciousness and focus your mind, heart and body on God. 

I still remember some of the earliest Vineyard gatherings Ingrid and I attended. I had so much hunger for God at the time that I often left my seat during worship and found a place near the back of the room where I could lie face down flat on the floor worshipping God. 

My suggestion then is that regardless whether you're worshipping alone, in a home fellowship or in a traditional church setting, you should try to worship God as if it's just you and Him alone there. Unless of course you happen to be the one who is leading worship—in that case it's a bit different. Let's explore that topic next: how to lead worship. 

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Leading worship

The main focus of this chapter is on leading worship in a small group setting such as a homegroup or house church. The reason for this focus is explained in my book Simple Kingdom: Home Fellowships, and for those who haven't read that book I'll repeat its key thesis here:

The mission of the church is to advance the kingdom of God. This is accomplished by making disciples who are obedient to Jesus as King. Discipleship primarily takes place in home fellowships because that's where church really happens. Home fellowships are where people can experience God's kingdom and learn to love one another. They're also where everyone gets to play, which allows them to safely develop ministry and leadership skills without worrying about failure. In short, home fellowships are where people can become more like Jesus by learning to do the stuff he did (and continues to do through us).

Because home fellowships are the place where church really happens they're also a place where genuine, Spirit-filled worship can happen (John 4:24). And although it's possible to have simple and intimate worship in a large corporate setting, it's easier to do this in a small home fellowship. And everything covered in this chapter about how to lead worship is just as applicable to leading worship in Sunday morning church services and in large gatherings like celebrations and conferences.

Skills and qualifications 

The skills and qualifications for leading worship are simple:

Basic musical competency. To lead worship in a home fellowship you just need to know about a dozen basic guitar chords and be able to strum and keep tempo [note #5]. You should also be able to sing in tune and with confidence i.e. loud enough so others can follow. It's not necessary to know how to read music as you can learn most songs by listening to them and using trial and error to find the chords you need to play. But it does help to have some basic knowledge of musical notation, especially if you want to write worship songs and share them with others. 

An honest and humble heart. Be assured you will make many mistakes as you try to lead others in worship. You'll play songs too fast or too slow. You'll start songs in the wrong key and hear people's voices cracking or growling. You'll pick songs that are too difficult for some to sing or unsuitable for where most people are at. But if you keep at it you'll eventually start to see people engaging in worship and connecting with God. It's beautiful when you see this happening and you realize God is using someone like you to bring others into His presence. 

Phases of the heart

Before we look at choosing songs for leading worship, it's important to understand what happens in people's hearts as they worship God. In the Equipping the Saints article mentioned earlier in chapter 1, Wimber described five basic phases through which leaders attempt to lead the congregation during worship. You can read John's full description of these phases in the article in Renewal Journal [note #6] so I'll just briefly summarize them here:

Call to worship. Songs are selected that convey the idea that "God deserves our worship so let's do it, let's worship now." The goal here is to get people mentally focused on God's love so they can begin to worship Him. 

Engagement. Worship starts to flow freely as the people connect with God, praising Him for who He is and what He has done. 

Expression. Worship becomes more intimate as people express their hearts to God. Expressions of adoration, thanks and repentance are accompanied by actions like kneeling, raising hands and bowing down. 

Visitation. The Spirit of God moves upon the congregation bringing salvation, healing, sanctification and deliverance. Scripture promises are brought to mind; visions and revelations may occur; prophetic words are received and delivered to strengthen and encourage God's people. 

Giving of substance. True worship involves not just singing but giving God our whole lives by freely offering our money, love, help and hospitality to those in need. 

Wimber also pointed out in his article that these phases aren't always separate and distinct. But while they often overlap, it's helpful when preparing to lead worship to choose a series of songs that can lead people sequentially through these different phases of worship. Let's examine this now. 

Preparing a worship set

A good way of understanding how to prepare a worship set (an ordered selection of worship songs) that follows Wimber's worship philosophy is to examine an actual worship set from the early days of the Vineyard and see what lessons we can learn from it. Below is a series of songs used by Carl Tuttle as he led the evening worship at the Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Anaheim during winter 1982 [note #7]:

1. As we gather 
2. In moments like these 
3. He has shown thee (Micah 6:8)
4. I want to praise you Lord
5. Jesus I love you
6. Lift Jesus higher
7. Exodus XV
8. A shield about me

Let's see what lessons we can learn by examining this worship set. First, only two of the songs (#6 and 7) originated with the Vineyard. The rest are mostly drawn from Maranatha! Music, a ministry of the Calvary Chapel association of churches to which the Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Anaheim had until only recently belonged [note #8]. Our first lesson then is that when you're putting together a worship set you should feel free to choose songs from various sources as long as they fit your purposes and flow together well. 

Second, all the songs in the set are short and easy to learn. If you're not familiar with any of them, google their lyrics and you'll discover that this is the case. This is important because the songs you select (or at least most of them) should be simple enough that people can learn them after singing them once or twice. This lets people sing from memory with their eyes closed so they can focus attention on God instead of on the overhead screen—or worse, on their cellphones. 

Third, if we examine the songs closely and the order in which they were sung, we can see that this worship set aligns well with Wimber's "phases of the heart" worship philosophy of leading people towards greater intimacy with God. To see this let's look at some of the words of the songs. The set begins with the following: 

As we gather may your spirit work within us... In moments like these I sing out a song...

Those first two songs are a call to worship that convey the idea "Let's worship, let's do it now." Next comes this song:

He has shown thee O man what is good, and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.

While the third song seems like an exhortation to live a godly life, what it also does is remind us who God is, that He is just and merciful and that He is our God and we are His people. And once the truth of Micah 6:8 penetrates our hearts, the engagement phase has begun.

I want to praise you Lord, much more than I do...I want to know you...I want to love you...I want to serve you...

Worship is progressing from engagement to expression with songs that express the people's hunger for God. 

Jesus I love you...Jesus I need you...Jesus I want you...

Worship now moves towards visitation as God's people experience intimacy with Him, pouring forth their praise and thanksgiving. Experiences of God's power may occur which are echoed in the words of the next song:

Lift Jesus higher! Lift Jesus higher! There's power power in His name...There's healing in His name...

The set concludes with songs that encourage the people towards giving of substance as they dedicate their lives afresh to serving God, trusting Him for protection and provision:

The Lord is my strength and my song...And I shall prepare Him my heart...Thou, O Lord, art a shield about me...

Simple and intimate—worship doesn't get any better! 

Being a servant

If you listen to the recording of live worship from the early Vineyard, you'll notice that the people enter easily into worship and seem fully engaged. As a worship leader it's wonderful when this happens, but what if it doesn't? 

If the people you're trying to lead don't seem to be engaged during worship, the problem is likely with you. Maybe you aren't perceiving where the people are at emotionally or spiritually. Perhaps there's a spirit of disappointment over the congregation, or resentment from unresolved conflicts, or weariness from too many setbacks in the mission of the church or in peoples' lives. Or maybe the air conditioner has broken down and the room is just too darn hot for people to want to stand up and praise the Lord. 

If any of these are the reason why the people don't seem to respond as you lead worship, stop and shift gears. I first learned this lesson when I was playing keyboards on Andy Park's worship team and we visited a church one Sunday to do the worship there. Our team had practiced several hours the evening before and had prepared what we felt was a solid worship set. But on Sunday morning after we finished our first song, Andy turned to us and said we were going to play some different songs we hadn't practiced. The result of this was that the people at the church had a wonderful time of worshiping God. 

How did Andy know that the songs he had chosen weren't the right ones for the church? He led worship with his eyes open, watching how the congregation responded instead of focusing inwardly on himself, his playing or his own experience worshipping. In other words, he was doing his job—serving others instead of himself. 

In his Healing Seminar recorded live on video in the mid-80s [note #9] Wimber taught us to keep our eyes open as we pray for people to be healed. John called this "praying for effect", meaning that as we pray for someone we look for signs of the Holy Spirit coming upon them like trembling or altered breathing or changes in posture. At the same time we also attune our hearts to God, asking Him to guide us by giving us words of knowledge about the person's condition. I believe the same principle applies when we lead worship. In other words we should lead for effect, keeping our eyes open to watch how the people respond while also listening attentively to the Spirit for direction. 

This way of leading worship contrasts with what I have often seen as worship leaders zone out while leading worship. It's painful for me to see a worship leader who, with closed eyes, chooses to blissfully ignore their congregation and focus instead on their own inward experience while the people disconnect and start looking around or checking their phones. 

It's easy these days for a worship leader, especially a musically talented one, to get caught up in focusing on performance or expressing themselves artistically instead of observing whether the people are engaged during worship. Perhaps the reason this happens is because in today's world gifted musicians and songwriters are seen as superstars, as idols—as gods. But in the kingdom of God, things are different. 

John Wimber was himself a talented musician and a gifted songwriter, so he well understood the temptations worship leaders face when they lead from up front. In her book about her husband's life and the early days of the Vineyard, Carol Wimber relates the following [note #10]:

He [John] couldn't be moved by the worship leader's need to express himself through the music. "It isn't about you, it's about Jesus, and your only job is to lead the people to him," he would say. Displays of artistic temperament and endeavour left him cold. When the worship leader would go off into an introspective indulgence of musical meandering, he commented, "I suppose to them, it's fraught with meaning, but I'm not impressed!"

"It isn't about you, it's about Jesus, and your only job is to lead the people to him." In a nutshell, that's exactly what being a servant is all about: doing your master's will, not your own. As Jesus said:

"For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45). 

If Jesus is our model, we should do as he did. 

Or as I sometimes like to put it: "Want to be a superstar in the kingdom of heaven? Eat dirt here [note #11]."

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Writing worship songs

Before we delve into the mechanics of songwriting let me clear the air on a couple of things. After reading the previous chapter some readers may think I'm on a nostalgia trip, that I miss the "good old days" and want us to turn back the clock and have us only worship with songs written in the late 70s and early 80s.

Well, I do and I don't. Those were exciting times for the Vineyard and other moves of the Spirit happening, and the songs that came out of that season were unique in many ways and are still very much worth singing. But my goal isn't just to reawaken interest in the worship of that period but to instill its values of simplicity and intimacy into the hearts of those of us who write new worship songs. 

Every move of God throughout history has produced a fresh outpouring of new worship music, and that musical outpouring helps empower and sustain what God is doing. But this doesn't mean we should value songs from previous renewals or revivals any less that what God is giving us today. Because every scribe (and worship leader!) who "has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old" (Matthew 13:52). So in principle I advocate making judicious use of both old and new songs when you lead others in worship. But new songs are the best, as it is written: 

Oh sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things! (Psalm 98:1)

He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. (Psalm 40:3)

Sing to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts. (Psalm 33:3)

I will sing a new song to you, O God; upon a ten-stringed harp I will play to you. (Psalm 144:9)

Even in Scripture we can see examples of how fresh new songs pour forth during seasons when God's power for deliverance is displayed: 

Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying, "I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.

The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him." (Exodus 15:1-2)

So let's see if we can learn how to write new worship songs that mirror the twin values of simplicity and intimacy that characterized much of the music of the early Vineyard, of its adopted progenitor Calvary Chapel, and even of some earlier moves of the Spirit. We'll do this in two ways: by examining in detail some early Vineyard songs, and by Ingrid and I sharing some of our own worship songs written during times of personal and corporate renewal. Let's begin with the simplest type of song, which I call a verselet [note #12]. 

Verselets

A verselet is a song that has only one verse and no chorus. A classic example from early Vineyard music is the song Just Like You Promised by Patty Kennedy which was the title song of the third worship cassette tape produced in 1985 by the label Mercy Records which later became Vineyard Music:

Just like you promised, you’ve come;

Just like you told us, you’re here;

And my desire is that you know

I love you, I worship you,

I welcome you here.

Some of the characteristics of this song are:

• It's short, which makes it simple to learn after singing it only a few times.
• It speaks to God instead of about Him by making use of the word "you" which conveys a sense of intimacy [note #13]. 
• It expresses the singer's heart, not just their mind (as songs about God often seem to do). 
• And although the song doesn't explicitly quote Scripture, it does allude to several things Jesus said (see for example Matthew 18:20, Luke 24:49 and John 14:18).

In my opinion some of the best worship songs ever written were simple verselets like this one. Examples include such well-known songs as:

• Father, I Adore You (Terrye Coelho)
• Jesus, Name Above all Names (Naida Hearn)
• Open Our Eyes, Lord (Robert Cull)
• Jesus What a Wonder You Are (Dave Bolton)
• I Love You Lord (Laurie Klein)
• All Hail King Jesus (David Moody)

Ingrid has also written several beautiful verselets such as this one (see song #1 in the Appendix [note #14]):

Jesus in you is life and joy,

In you is peace and rest,

In you is all to life's request;

I worship you, my Lord.

This song is simple and intimate, and its use of words like joy, peace and rest bring various Scriptures to mind as you sing. If you used this song as part of your worship set, you would probably sing it twice and then flow right away into another song in the same key with similar tempo. 

Here's another example of a simple verselet, this one written by myself (see song #2):

Because you are beautiful,

  I will seek your face.

Because you are wonderful,

  I will stand in awe.

Because you are marvelous,

  I will lift my hands.

Because you are glorious,

  I will praise your name.

This song got a strong positive reaction ("Ooh, that's my most favorite worship song ever!!") when I first introduced it in a house church we started with another couple some years ago. There's only one small problem: I have trouble remembering the order of the words when I lead worship with it—and I wrote the song! Does praise your name come before lift my hands or is it the other way around? And which comes first, beautiful or wonderful [note #15]?

But my song suffers from a weakness called "word salad". That is, there's no logical reason behind the order of the words. This doesn't make it a bad song of course. In fact some of my favorite Vineyard songs are word salads, beautiful songs whose lyrics I often get mixed up when I sing from memory. Check out the song I Will Worship You by Eddie Espinosa and you'll see what I mean. The answer of course is to sing such songs alone to yourself several hundred times until you finally get the lyrics down pat. 

Pattern songs

By pattern songs I mean songs that have a single verse which you repeat several times by varying one or more words. Eddie Espinosa's song I Only Want To Love You is a good example from the early days of the Vineyard:

I only want to love you (4x)

Jesus, You are my everything,

You are my life,

You are my God. 

I only want to praise you...

I only want to serve you...

Pattern songs are great: you only need to learn one verse and you can sing them for hours without getting bored! 

I exaggerate of course—you only want to sing three or for variations usually before you swing into the next song in your worship set. But in my opinion some of the best and most meaningful worship songs from the days of the Jesus Movement were simple pattern songs like these:

• Peace I Give To Thee (Vic Houser)
• In My Life, Lord, Be Glorified (Bob Kilpatrick)
• The Greatest Thing (Mark Pendergrass)
• Glorify Thy Name (Donna W. Adkins)
• Jesus, I Just Want To Thank You (unknown)
• I Believe In You (Greg Eckler and Randy Thomas)
• I Come To Thee On Bended Knee (unknown)
• I Want To Praise You Lord (Sam Scott and Randy Thomas)

Ingrid has also written a simple pattern song that we've often enjoyed singing in home fellowships (see song #3):

Merciful Father, merciful God

Merciful Father, merciful God

  Holy are you

  Oh, holy are you

Oh, holy holy holy is the Lord

Merciful Father, merciful God

Merciful Father, merciful God

  Mighty are you

  Oh, mighty are you

Oh, mighty mighty mighty is the Lord

Additional verses can be sung by using words like faithful, loving, awesome, worthy and so on. Usually we would finish off the song by singing holy again. A song like this is easy to learn and quickly becomes part of your life as you sing it in the shower or while you're making supper. 

I've written several pattern songs myself including the following one which we used to sing in some of our early home fellowships (see song #4):

I love you, I love you

I love you so much, my Jesus

Because your gentle touch

  Fills my soul with delight

  As your Spirit and mine unite

  And so I want to sing in the night

That I love you

I need you... I want you... 

The above song is not only simple to learn but also quite intimate in what it conveys about having a personal relationship with the Lord. Some believers have difficulty expressing love for God in such intimate terms, and I understand such concerns. I don't view the Song of Songs as an allegory of Christ's relationship with the church, so I don't much care for songs that are based on this theology (an exception being His Banner Over Me by Kevin Prosch which is a terrific song to get up and dance to the Lord). On the other hand I've had some experiences of God's love that I've tried to put into a song (see song #5 for example) so who am I to criticize anyways? 

Structured songs

By structured songs I mean songs that have at least one verse (V) and a chorus (C), or several verses, maybe some repetition of a verse or chorus, and occasionally even a bridge (B). Lots of good worship songs are of this category and their structures can range from the simple to fairly complex. The table below illustrates the structure of some well-known early Vineyard songs: 

The goal when writing worship songs that are structurally complex is to try and keep them simple and intimate so they can be learned easily by people. To achieve this, the songwriter should keep the following guidelines in mind:

• Keep the chords simple so that even a novice guitarist can play the song without difficulty. 
• Use "You" instead of "He" when referring to God so the song is sung to God instead of about Him. Doing this instills intimacy in the song. 
• Consider using "I" instead of "we" when the song is designed to express the heart of the worshipper (e.g. "I love you Jesus..."). Using "we" may be better though if the song is also intended to express truth (e.g. "We are your servants...")
• Use repetition wherever possible, especially in choruses, to make them easier to memorize.
• Include language that alludes to familiar Scripture verses as this too will make the song easier for people to memorize. 
• For songs with several verses there should usually be some kind of thematic thread linking together the verses. Doing this makes it easier to remember what comes next when singing through the song. 

To see these guidelines in action let's examine one particular song (All The Earth Shall Worship by Carl Tuttle) which IMO is the Best. Worship. Song. Ever. 

First, the chords of the song are E B C#m7 A Bsus D which are all fairly easy to play. Except B which I find difficult as someone who is still a novice guitarist, so I sometimes substitute B7 for B. (Full disclosure: I usually transpose the song from the key of E Major to G Major as that way the chords of the song are even simpler, namely G D Em7 C Dsus and F. Oh wait, there's that darn F chord again...)

Next, the song speaks to God:

Father, we adore You

You've drawn us to this place

We bow down before You

Humbly on our face

The word "we" seems more appropriate here than "I" because of the reference in this verse to a corporate "place" of worship where the people have gathered. 

Next, although there is no repetition in the words of this verse, the melody of the second pair of lines is the same as for the first pair of lines. Using repetition like this helps people quickly learn a melody. 

The above verse also brings Scriptures to mind as you sing it. The one that immediately comes to my own mind is John 12:32 where Jesus says "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself."

Finally, there is a clear connecting thread linking the three verses together:

Father, we adore You...

Jesus, we love You...

Spirit, we need You...

The progression through invocation of the Triune God, the allusions to the work of each person in the Trinity, the simple chords, and the melodic repetition all make it easy to learn this powerful, intimate worship song. 

Here's a song Ingrid wrote that has a simple structure of verse-chorus (VC) but is profound in how it helps us express our love and longing for God (see song #6):

I love you Lord

Your presence gives me life

Like a river in the night

Like a river in the night

I see your face

Your glory shining bright

Like a river in the night

Like a river in the night

Come, sweet Spirit, come

Holy Spirit, come

Examining the lyrics (and chords in the Appendix) we see that:

• the song alludes to Scripture (John 7:38).
• uses "you" which makes it intimate.
• is easy to play (it uses only basic Guitar chords).
• employs repetition making it easy to learn.

It's a good worship song! 

I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to examine the next song which has a verse-bridge-chorus (VBC) structure (see song #7) and see whether it follows the guidelines I've espoused. I wrote the song several years ago during a time of personal renewal when I gained a better understanding of what it means to be a servant (Mark 10:44):

You're the King most high

And I bow before your throne

You're the Lord of all

And I worship you alone

Here I am to do your will

Jesus use me for your glory

You can use me as you will

Jesus use me for your glory

I belong to you

Master I belong to you

Modding songs

Worship leaders should be free to mod (modify) worship songs to adapt them to meet the specific needs of their congregation, or even to improve on them. 

The above is just my opinion, but I believe it aligns with Scripture, for "the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof" (Psalm 42:1). This means everything belongs to God, including the songs you write. Songwriters should view their worship songs as gifts given by God to the church, not vehicles for their own personal fame or reputation. 

This doesn't mean of course that you shouldn't copyright your worship songs, or even earn royalties from them, for "those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel" also applies to being in the worship ministry profession. But in my opinion when you lead worship and are not recording for commercial reasons, you should feel free to make any modifications you want to the songs you're using as long as your intention is the edification of those worshipping. 

Let's look at a few ways you might do this. 

Changing He to You

When we first learned about the Vineyard approach to worship, we wanted to rigorously apply its principles to all of the songs we used in our worship times. This even applied to songs that originated from within the Vineyard. For example, one of the songs we loved worshipping with in our first home fellowship was Exodus XV by Frank Gallio whose melody makes beautiful use of sustained notes and repetition. The words start like this:

The Lord is my strength and my song

And He is become my salvation

He is my God

And I shall prepare Him my heart (3x)

We loved singing this song! But after singing it a few times one of us said, "Wait a minute. Vineyard songs should be sung to God not about Him, right? Let's change the words." Everyone nodded in agreement, so we changed the words to the following:

O Lord, you are my strength and my song

And You are become my salvation

You are my God

And I shall prepare You my heart (3x)

Looking back at this exercise in artistic presumptuousness, I don't think changing the words like this made the song any more meaningful for us or made us any more spiritual, but in the early days we often tried to diligently weed out any third-person references to God or Jesus in our songs and replace them with the second-person pronoun (and in Capital Letters). We don't do that so much anymore, but there's no harm—and possibly some good—in doing this for those who are just beginning to learn how to worship. 

Changing We to I

Another change we often made (and still make) is to replace "we" in songs with "I" to make the words more personal. An example would be changing the words of the song Come Right Now by Bill Dobrenen from its original words:

Lord we ask that you would come right now

Jesus come and heal us now

Spirit come and fill us now

We love You, we love You

We love You, yes we do

to the following:

Lord I ask that you would come right now

Jesus come and heal me now

Spirit come and fill me now

I love You, I love You

I love You, yes I do

Actually what we would usually do with this beautiful song is sing it a few times with "we" first and then switch to "I" as we moved from worship into ministry time in our home fellowship gatherings. 

Another song which came out of Calvary Chapel that we often sang (and still sing sometimes) is Open Our Eyes by Bob Cull. This familiar worship song goes:

Open our eyes, Lord

We want to see Jesus

To reach out and touch Him

And say that we love Him

Open our ears, Lord

And help us to listen

Open our eyes, Lord

We want to see Jesus

But we always sing the song like this instead:

Open my eyes, Lord

I want to see Jesus

To reach out and touch Him

And say that I love Him...

In my opinion this small change makes the song much more expressive and impactful. 

Adding to songs

A few years ago when we were singing Bob Cull's song Open Our Eyes during worship time, a thought came to me: "This song isn't complete—there's no mention of our mouths." So I wrote a chorus to be sung after the verse (see song #8). The chorus goes like this:

Open my mouth Lord

And help me say "Jesus "

Open my mouth Lord

And help me say "Jesus"

I want to love him

I want to serve him

I want to know him

And make him known

In my opinion this chorus gives the song an evangelistic feeling of "Let's do it, let's go tell people about Jesus" that lifts and energizes the perhaps somewhat introspective quality of the original song. 

I've occasionally added extra verses to some Vineyard songs as well when I've used them, for example My Delight by Andy Park whose two verses begin like this:

Father, You are my portion in this life

And You are my hope and my delight...

Jesus, You are my treasure in this life

And You are so pure and so kind...

As I was playing the song one day, I thought "What about the Holy Spirit?" So I wrote a third verse:

Spirit, You are my helper in this life

And you are always walking by my side

Those words might not be perfect (maybe change walking to present in second line?) but somehow adding a third verse like this makes the song feel more complete. 

Transposition

I usually play songs in whatever key they were originally composed in whenever I lead worship. But not always. Sometimes I change the key signature for one or more of the following reasons:

• When I'm having difficulty with one or more of the guitar chords in the song. Although I'm a pretty good keyboardist, I'm still a novice guitarist even though I've almost always used guitar for leading worship in our home fellowships over the years. 
• When I or the people I'm leading are having trouble singing the song because it's pitched too high or too low. Young people can usually sing high easily, but for older people a high-pitched song can sound screechy. The male/female mix of your group is also a factor to consider when pitching songs appropriately. 
• When we're singing the song and we've sung the chorus a couple of times and I want to get us to sing it more expressively, I'll play a transition chord that allows me to raise the pitch of the song by a tone, a third or a fourth. This usually has the effect of waking everyone up so they consider more clearly the meaning of the words they've been singing. 

When you transpose a song for any reason, you need to be careful that you stay within the register (range of musical notes) that people can sing without straining. One of the exercises I once performed in order to improve my ability to lead worship was to analyze the melodic range of notes in the vocal lines of 70 songs in a Vineyard songbook from the early days of the Movement. What I discovered was that most of the songs had lead lines for singing that lay between C4 (middle C) and C5 (the first C above middle C) with many of them having even smaller vocal ranges. Only a few songs dipped down to B3 or hit D5, and very rarely did any of the songs go below or above these two notes. 

Not having any vocal training, this was quite a discovery for me and it has helped me choose better key signatures for the songs I write. It was only afterwards through further research that I discovered that this vocal range (B3 to D4) found in early Vineyard songs can be comfortably sung by baritones and mezzo sopranos but can be difficult at either the high or low end for basses, tenors, altos and sopranos. I guess you can't please everybody! 

Another thing I discovered by doing this exercise is that my own singing ranges comfortably only from G2 to C4. This characterizes me as a baritone who has trouble reaching high notes, which explains why I sometimes pitch songs too low for the people I'm leading in worship. I have to deliberately pitch songs towards the high end of my range to enable the majority of the people to sing comfortably. 

So now you know why my voice sometimes sounds strained in the recordings of our worship songs on our SoundCloud page. 

Finding inspiration

Anyone who writes worship songs or does any other type of creative writing or other artistic endeavor knows that songs (or whatever you're creating) tend to either come into being easily or with great difficulty. I suppose this is due to whether inspiration is present or not. 

When I was studying a collection of songs from the earliest days of the Vineyard, I discovered something interesting. Many of the songs were written by people I had never heard of before, and when I queried their names in the CCLI SoundSelect database I discovered that most of these individuals have only written one song—or at least had only copyrighted one song. A few of these individuals had two or three songs attributed to them, but that's nothing compared to the corpus of such prolific Vineyard songwriters like Carl Tuttle, Danny Daniels, Eddie Espinosa, Andy Park, Brian Doerksen and several others. 

Why is that? Why would some write only one or two worship songs in their life while others write dozens and dozens of them? Inspiration and diligence are probably the twin answers. And from my own experience inspiration seems to pretty much be available to any of us all the time (Remember Wimber's "Vision of the Honeycomb"? [note #16]). But diligence—careful and persistent hard work and effort—requires a commitment that few seem willing to make and time that not many are prepared to set aside. 

Does this then make the multitude of songs written by Andy Park more valuable to us than the single or small handful of worship songs attributed to Bill Dobrenen, Scott Palazzo, Sally Beck, Victor Rubbo, Peggy Wagner, Frank Gallio or Patty Kennedy? Actually I think it's just the opposite! 

Consider for example the next two songs which were composed by an individual named Jude Del Hierro way back in the early days of the Vineyard:

Alleluia (Jude Del Hierro)

Jesus, I love You

I bow down before You

Praises and worship to the King

Alleluia, alleluia

Alleluia, allelu

More Love, More Power (Jude Del Hierro)

More love, more power

More of You in my life (repeat)

And I will worship You

  with all of my heart

And I will worship You

  with all of my mind

And I will worship You

  with all of my strength

For You are my Lord

  You are my Lord

Del Hierro's first song is one of the sweetest and most intimate worship songs ever written; we used to sing it often in our first home fellowships. And his second song practically became the anthem of the Vineyard during the first decade of its existence; the song was recorded almost a dozen times on various Vineyard CDs and it's been translated into several other languages. And it's also a wonderful pattern song as you can sing additional verses like "I will honor you... seek your face... sing your praise... bless your name... follow you..." and so on.

Yet despite the perfection of his two classic worship songs, Del Hierro seems to have never become prolific as a songwriter. Why is that? Did he fail to develop and apply his musical talents? Or did he just luck out on a couple of occasions and come up with two all-time hits? 

I believe what likely happened is that the Holy Spirit just gave him these songs as a gift for the church, probably all at once in finished form like a sudden download from heaven, and perhaps even during a time of corporate worship. I suspect this happened partly because of the stories recorded in Carol Wimber's book [note #17] about how God gave John songs like Spirit Song and Isn't He and partly because of what has personally happened to us on several occasions. Let me share a story to illustrate. 

Some years ago Ingrid was reading Mary's story from the Gospels in preparation for Advent. When she read the words "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God" in Luke 1:30, she felt the Holy Spirit telling her strongly that we too are favored by God. She immediately wrote out some words for a song that expressed this truth—the words just flowed from her pen. Then she came upstairs where I was reading, explained what God had told her, and said "I want you to compose some music for this song." 

"Sure, will do!" I said as I groaned inwardly. Yikes, it's hard enough to write your own song, but writing a song to someone else's words? There goes my weekend. But I gritted my teeth [note #18] and found some blank manuscript paper and started strumming my guitar—and in fifteen minutes I had the whole song written out with melody and chords. We played the song at our Advent gathering and everyone loved it, so I made a rough recording for our SoundCloud page and it got many more hits than any of my own songs I had recorded. The words go like this (see song #9):

Washed in his blood

Changed by his Spirit

Cleansed thru his Word

We are favored by God

Filled with his love

Sharing his mercy

Sent in his name

We are favored by God

Not for what we have done

But for what he has done for us

In the gift of his Son

We are favored by God

Does having a song fall from heaven into your lap like this negate the hard work that the craft of songwriting often entails? Not at all, but it does show that the ultimate source of good worship songs is God, and that our primary job as songwriters is to attune our hearts to His Spirit. 

So while it's good to apply yourself diligently to developing your talent, in the end we should be like Jesus who said that "the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing" (John 5:19). And that applies to writing worship songs too. So by all means work hard at writing worship songs, but be content that probably only a couple of them will be gold, a few of them silver, most of them copper, and a bunch of them chaff. 

And in the end what really matters anyways is that God gets all the glory, not us. Right?

A final word of advice

Let me finish this chapter by quoting Carol Wimber once again from her book. She writes that John said [note #19]:

"What good is it ultimately if we produce worship songs that only the experienced musician can play? What will the little churches do?" He [John] hated 'elitism' in whatever form it took, spiritual, as well as musical, and he also understood that it takes legitimate acumen and craftsmanship to write simply. He especially loved the guys who put aside what they had the ability to produce, and chose, instead, to write simple love songs to Jesus that anyone could sing or play on the guitar.

Copy out that last sentence on a small piece of paper and glue it onto the side of your guitar as a reminder to yourself whenever you're trying to write a new worship song. 

5

Worship and repentance

A close friend of mine, who had attended the Vineyard during the early 80s when the church still held its services in the gymnasium of Canyon High School, once told me that the early days of the Vineyard Movement were characterized by repentance, obedience and brokenness. It's out of such character of heart that Vineyard worship originated. 

Hardness of heart

The greatest problem in the world today is hardness of heart. Jesus warned us that the love of many would grow cold as this present evil age draws to its close (Matthew 24:12). He even stated the reason this would happen: 

"because lawlessness will be increased." 

Lawlessness is man's rejection of God's way of living and insistence on "doing your own thing" and rejecting all authority. In chapter 3 of his letter to Titus, Paul reminds us to be gentle, courteous and submissive to governing authorities (verses 1-2). He then goes on to describe in the next verse what people in the world around him were like by describing first what he was like before God saved him:

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. (Titus 3:3)

Hating and being hated, a phrase that characterizes what much of the world around us is like today. 

And unfortunately also much of the church. Jealousy and selfish ambition are rampant in the music industry, and gifted worship leaders and songwriters are not immune from such behaviors. 

But this is really nothing new. 

Phony worship

Ungodly, self-centred worship was the norm in the days when Amos prophesied against Israel (see Amos 5:21,23):

I hate, I despise your feasts,

   and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies…

Take away from me the noise of your songs;

   to the melody of your harps I will not listen.

Jesus echoed this judgment in Matthew 15:8-9 when he quoted from the prophet Isaiah:

This people honors me with their lips,

   but their heart is far from me;

in vain do they worship me,

   teaching as doctrines 

   the commandments of men.

I believe that Scripture passages like these express how God feels about much of the worship in the church today. In other words, He hates it. 

Our friends Rick and Sharon recently moved to Texas and started visiting churches to find one they could join. After attending services at a number of different churches, he texted me saying that with only a couple of exceptions "every church we go to seems to have substituted a rock concert and light show with smoke machines for real worship." This may seem like an extreme example, but worship as performance and entertainment is actually more the norm in the church today than the exception. And that should trouble us. 

In the previously mentioned Summer 1993 issue of Equipping The Saints magazine where Wimber explained how we should make worship our highest priority, he also warned against false, man-made worship:

Jubilation is that heart swell within us in which we want to exalt him… [But] I have been in some congregations where people try to create the jubilation level without doing the works of God, especially the works of salvation and restoration. But inevitably they fall short of true jubilation, because God's works elicit the jubilation. The former worship expression is fabricated, the latter genuine. If we do not exalt God in our private lives, jubilation becomes a phony exercise in corporate worship. 

Phony worship. Fabricated worship. Is that what worship ministry is like in our churches today? 

The way it was

Housegroups were a key priority in the early years of the Vineyard. These small groups, which were called kinships, were places where people learned to love one another, and where the "body of Christ" became an experiential reality instead of merely a theological belief. In an episode of his television program Healing for Today which aired in 1984 on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, Wimber emphasized the critical importance of small groups for churches by saying [note #20]: 

I think that probably the most crucial missing element in the church today is what we've been teaching on today: learning how to love. Learning how to really, generously care for other human beings, in very practical and pragmatic ways. Giving ourselves in care of and in love. And you can't do it in large churches and large situations. We have several thousand people that gather on Sunday in our fellowship. And you know, you're not gonna learn to love somebody you don't know who's sitting next to you. You've gotta do it in small housegroups. That's why we're so committed in our fellowship that every member should be in a small housegroup—where you can learn to love people that otherwise you wouldn't even like.

Wimber also taught that housegroups are the seeds from which churches can be planted and grow. In his book The Quest for the Radical Middle, Bill Jackson recounts how Wimber and Bob Fulton put on the very first seminar for teaching would-be church-planters how to start a Vineyard church [note #21]:

The main approach was to move to a city, get a job (the Vineyard offered help with moving expenses) and share the gospel via power evangelism. When people got saved, they were to be gathered into small groups. As previously stated, when two or three kinship groups were gathered, a Sunday night service was started. When that service reached 50-100 adults, it was time to move to Sunday mornings. 

In a series of articles describing Vineyard worship during the early years, well-known Vineyard songwriter and worship leader Carl Tuttle adds a critically important insight to the mix concerning this issue [note #22]:

During the early years of what was then Calvary Chapel Yorba Linda, a meeting was rarely held that didn't commence with worship. All our small groups had worship leaders, so lots of people had to be trained. As a result, I began what I called "Worship Leader Fellowships." Those who participated in these fellowships would bring their guitars and we would all play the songs together. Getting everyone in tune with each other was a trip. 

If "the way in is the way on" as Wimber was fond of saying, then reorienting the priorities of our worship ministry along the lines of what Carl describes may be the solution to the shallowness and self-centeredness that afflicts much of the church's worship today. 

Setting priorities

Many churches try to make their Sunday worship times powerful and exciting. They usually do this to attract the younger crowd, but also to give members an opportunity to get "recharged" so they can face the challenges of the coming week. 

I believe this kind of thinking is wrong. Worship ministry shouldn't be focused on prioritizing the Sunday worship experience. It should be aimed instead at making worship an essential part of each and every individual member's daily life. What are some ways we could change the focus of our worship ministry to achieve this? Let's look at three areas where our priorities may need alteration. 

Sunday worship

In the music world when an artist or band is going to perform, there first has to be practices and sound checks to make sure everything is perfect. Some professional studio musicians may also be hired to fill out the sound. But worship isn't performance, and worship ministry isn't a profession. Carl's description of his worship team in the early years and how they "prepared" for Sunday worship times startles us today with its simplicity [note #23]:

In May of 1977 we gathered for our first church service as Calvary Chapel Yorba Linda. That morning was the first morning we had a “worship team.” I led the worship on my acoustic guitar, John Wimber played the Rhoades keyboard, and Dick Heying played drums. We did about six songs. Again we had no list, no practice, no overheads or songbooks. I just hit the first chord and went from there. That night Jerry Davis joined us on bass and this comprised our team for a couple of years… John, Dick, Jerry, and I were the worship team every Sunday morning and night service from May of 1977 to May of 1983. On Sunday mornings we did about 30 minutes of worship and Sunday nights about 45 minutes… Our approach didn't vary during this time; we would get together and tune our instruments, pray and then I would simply start a song and the guys would follow. In all that time we never rehearsed, never had a set list, never had any monitors and never provided lyrics for the congregation. The songs were all so simple back then and our repertoire was only about 30 songs, so if you stuck around you learned them pretty quickly.

I believe that if we would simply focus less on making our Sunday worship sound professional and focus more on just worshipping the Lord and helping the people in our congregations worship Him, we will start to see change happening in our churches. As we learn, or learn again, how to worship, hunger for God will grow among us and the kingdom of God will advance. 

Housegroup worship

Instead of making the Sunday worship team our priority, or developing a second worship team, worship leaders should focus instead on recruiting, equipping and nurturing individuals who can lead worship in housegroups. In his article Carl provides some valuable insight relating to this matter by describing how and why John Wimber guided the development of the Vineyard's worship ministry [note #24]:

As time went on, it was clear that John did have some ideas about all of this. He knew if our worship music was going to be transferable that it needed to be accessible to the majority of churches, which are represented by small congregations. He knew keeping it simple would help accomplish this and he supported this. I think it's one of the reasons he was so supportive of me; with me leading, it was going to be simple. I am not trying to sound humble here. I’m just looking at myself accurately. I was always the least skilled member on our worship team, but the effect certainly was to make it accessible to a broader spectrum of people. The running joke, which I hear to this day, is if you could play three chords G, C and D you could play these songs. That wasn’t quite true, but it was close and there was no doubt it was directed towards me. We had many talented and gifted musicians coming to our church at this time, but John had no interest in having them become a part of the worship team, or replacing me, at least not during the time of the development of our worship style.

Carol Wimber says something similar concerning John's worship ministry priorities in her book [note #25]:

He [John] was the ultimate pragmatic artist, and because he was such a fine musician himself, he couldn't be fooled or intimidated by anyone's great talent. He fought to keep it simple, and I think he did a pretty good job. 

When seeking individuals who can lead worship in housegroups, we should look for those who have a heart for worship, who love the Lord and love to worship Him, and who also are committed to regular fellowship in a small group. You don't need someone with a lot of musical ability to lead worship in a small group—as Carl says, you only need someone who can play three chords on a guitar [note #26]. And sing on-key of course. 

As a worship leader you might be tempted to have the musicians from your Sunday worship team(s) lead worship in the homegroups they attend during the week. I would advise against this however. Worship team members should be attending homegroup to worship, not to lead others in worship. The reason I suggest this is because musicians need a break from playing so they can focus their hearts on God instead of having their minds constantly focused on their instruments [note #27]. It's also a test of character because if they find it hard to worship when a novice guitarist is leading, then where is their heart? 

Leading by example

Finally, your mission as a worship leader should be to create a hunger for God and a love of worship throughout your whole congregation. The way to do this is to lead by example—and this means more than just maintaining your own personal worship life and modelling for others how one should worship. It also means giving all your dreams and aspirations as a musician and songwriter to God. 

Wimber, a professional musician and arranger who was well on his way to success when he met Jesus, provides us with the example we should follow as Carol describes here in her book [note #28]:

A few weeks before, Gunner had taught on the pearl of great price and the treasure in the field. Afterwards, John told him that he knew of a guy that could only do one thing well and he made his living doing it. Would God require that man to give up his career to become a follower of Jesus? A pregnant silence followed, accompanied by the piercing gaze, and Gunner answered, "I don't know what God would require of that man, but I believe he would have to be willing to give it all up." 

"That's what I thought," John quietly murmured.

It wasn't very long until the Lord did speak to John about laying down his career... In the next few weeks, John sold all his horns except one that he traded for a painting he knew I wanted. It was a sad, hard time in our new life as baby Christians.

We had a station wagon in those days and John loaded up the entire vehicle with boxes of music and records and arrangements. His whole lifetime of the work that he loved went into those cartons, and on up to the city dump, where he pushed them out of the back of the station wagon and onto the piles of garbage and other discarded items. It made my heart ache to see him do that. He was totally silent the whole time.

I looked at what he was doing and I thought of the corn of wheat that has to die to bring forth much fruit, and I prayed that someday, one day, God would do something beautiful through John.

And look what God did do through John, releasing a wave of beautiful worship that has swept through churches all over the world. 

Best of all

Let me end with a short personal note. 

Many years ago I was on the worship team at Surrey Vineyard in BC, Canada, first with Andy Park leading us and then with a young man he trained to take over leading our team. I played keyboards every Sunday in church for several years, and also at some workshops and conferences. My goal in doing this was always to provide strong musical support for the other musicians in the band, and also to serve the congregation by enabling them enter into worship more fully. 

It was a good experience, I enjoyed it! 

I've also led worship with guitar in many home fellowships over the years. My guitar playing is pretty crappy, but our worship times were usually great and God sometimes showed up in even more powerful ways than we've seen happen in Sunday church services or at conferences. 

That was even better!

Then there are those many, many times when I've just worshipped God when I am alone. One such occasion in particular stands out clearly in my mind. 

A long time ago I used to teach high-school Physics, and in June when examinations are held, classes are cancelled. Being alone in my classroom, I picked up my guitar one lunchtime and began worshipping the Lord with some new worship songs I had written. As I started singing one of my songs (see song #10) [note #29], I suddenly saw the Lord in front of me, reclining on a couch. Realizing I was singing and playing for my King alone, I sang my heart out. All he did was lie on his side with his elbow on the couch and hand supporting his head, listening and looking reflective. Then after some time had elapsed, suddenly he was gone. 

That was best of all. 

That was worship.

Riches I heed not, nor vain, empty praise

Thou mine inheritance, now and always

Thou and Thou only first in my heart

High King of heaven, my treasure Thou art [note #30]

That's the heart of a true worship leader.

Be one today.