Not you... me.
I mean I've started this blog without as much as a plan - after that speech I gave you about being prepared. Please excuse me while I take this big log out of my eye.
No effort should begin in a spiritual purpose without a spiritual foundation, so.... if you know how to pray and read at the same time, please pray with me.
....Jesus, Lord and sustainer of all life and mine, thank you for the gift of salvation that allows me to call you my Savior. Lord, in your gracious will, You have given me more than that - the gift of sharing Your praise and Your new song with the world. Thank you and may I never compromise the gift You have given with anything approaching lack of respect or honor that is due You and Your praise.
Lord, I begin these thoughts and writings in the hopes that You will bless someone, who like me, was floundering under the weight of supporting a music ministry or choir. You brought me through from a wide eyed classical pianist to where you've placed me today. Please let this seed you have led me to sow find good ground in encouraging someone who was frustrated and unsure as I was. Help us as musicians and ministers in Your modern day temples to be consecrated, called and committed to Your service. Give us Asaphs, Cheniniahs, and Davids, that will play skillfully and spiritually to uplift Your everlasting and righteous name. Lord, even bless the house I serve in, and my Pastor, and give me a platform of authenticity and gentleness that would never lift my ability above my attitude of service. Bless the reader now, and all that serve you in spirit and in truth, and may Your praise be perfected on Earth as it is in Heaven until the day of Your return, where we will carry the harps of God and sing the song of the Redeemed to You in everlasting praise and worship choruses of the highest order.
In your precious name, Amen.
Now that we've prayed and invoked God's presence, I will attempt to give a set-up to some of my writings. At least once a week, I'll try to touch on one of three main topics -
- Spiritual / Biblical Issues
- Musical / Reading Music / Playing, etc.
- Organizational / Working with Pastors / Resources, etc.
Starting with my next post, I'll look for quick solutions to nagging problems and enlist others that I've interfaced with over the years and try to include their advice. Lord knows if I had all the answers, I would not be here because God would have me leading a little band in heaven by now.
Keep Praying and prayzin',
miamimaestro
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
Knowing Your Role
One thing I've been challenged with throughout my career is learning what my job really is. We as ministers of music have several hats we must wear - musician, administrator, praise leader, media specialist, pastoral assistant - but the most important role might not be any of these.
I've found that my most important role is to be a converter. By a converter, I mean someone that can absorb one type of information or energy and convert it into another. As musicians, we do this every time we play. Visual notes become sound. Chords are moved into melodies. Songs are converted into praise choruses. We face human issues that need converting all the time. Negative issues must be converted into biblically based responses. Soloists that are nervous and unsure must be converted. Carnal minds must be converted into spiritual ones.
Our ministries are constantly challenged by this idea of conversion.
At every point in our work, we are given the job of changing what is apparent into something else. This demands a special kind of knowledge. One, the ability to know how to convert, and two, what needs converting.
The ability to convert requires emotional and spiritual intelligence. We must be sensitive to the flow of the Holy Spirit in playing and directing, and have a goal in mind at each point. What needs to happen at this stage? Should the mood change to prayer or praise? Does the key need to change to fit the choir better at rehearsal? You can only move a ministry, song, or a service in a certain direction if you know where it is going, and then develop the tools to move it in the direction that your Pastor or leader has given. It may take more lessons, or self development or management books, or more bible study. But our commitment to excellence will ultimately determine our ability to move ministry in the right direction.
To know what needs converting, we must know exactly what constitutes good or bad results. We shouldn't change things that are working just for the experience of newness. Neither should we tolerate or allow dismal performance for the sake of tradition. One thing that helps is being exposed to successful strategies from other ministries. It's really important to connect with other musicians that are also trying to improve, because there you can find out if there really is a better way of doing what you're doing. Workshops, classes, and websites such as Gospelmusicians.com can help expose you to other types of music as well.
In a future post I'll try to touch on how to make those kinds of connections...looking unto the hills,
miamimaestro
I've found that my most important role is to be a converter. By a converter, I mean someone that can absorb one type of information or energy and convert it into another. As musicians, we do this every time we play. Visual notes become sound. Chords are moved into melodies. Songs are converted into praise choruses. We face human issues that need converting all the time. Negative issues must be converted into biblically based responses. Soloists that are nervous and unsure must be converted. Carnal minds must be converted into spiritual ones.
Our ministries are constantly challenged by this idea of conversion.
At every point in our work, we are given the job of changing what is apparent into something else. This demands a special kind of knowledge. One, the ability to know how to convert, and two, what needs converting.
The ability to convert requires emotional and spiritual intelligence. We must be sensitive to the flow of the Holy Spirit in playing and directing, and have a goal in mind at each point. What needs to happen at this stage? Should the mood change to prayer or praise? Does the key need to change to fit the choir better at rehearsal? You can only move a ministry, song, or a service in a certain direction if you know where it is going, and then develop the tools to move it in the direction that your Pastor or leader has given. It may take more lessons, or self development or management books, or more bible study. But our commitment to excellence will ultimately determine our ability to move ministry in the right direction.
To know what needs converting, we must know exactly what constitutes good or bad results. We shouldn't change things that are working just for the experience of newness. Neither should we tolerate or allow dismal performance for the sake of tradition. One thing that helps is being exposed to successful strategies from other ministries. It's really important to connect with other musicians that are also trying to improve, because there you can find out if there really is a better way of doing what you're doing. Workshops, classes, and websites such as Gospelmusicians.com can help expose you to other types of music as well.
In a future post I'll try to touch on how to make those kinds of connections...looking unto the hills,
miamimaestro
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Practice Matters.
When was the last time you tried to do something without practicing first? Perhaps it was the latest new song that you just had to do THIS sunday, even though your band hadn't practiced with the choir first. Or the new chord change that would sound soooo good in that praise and worship chorus. Or even the run in the 2nd verse that the CD had. Of course you can pull it off. After all, God doesn't want everything programmed, right?
Wrong.
God calls for spontaneity and a "new song", but not at the expense of excellence. The idea that God accepts any kind of worship as long as we're sincere dies at the feet of Cain. The Bible doesn't say that Cain brought an offering that was bad, or rotten. It just says that God rejected it. Meaning, we don't determine whether worship is good enough. God does. If that is the case, it makes sense that we should prepare anything for God as if He were going to inspect it cover to cover and note to note.
This is not to say that unprepared worship music is unspiritual. It's just not sound planning. If you have a chance to go over something, make the time to go over it. There's the same 24 hours for all the other priorities in our lives, and practicing the music for the King can't be a bad use of some of that time He has given us.
Looking unto the hills,
miamimaestro
Wrong.
God calls for spontaneity and a "new song", but not at the expense of excellence. The idea that God accepts any kind of worship as long as we're sincere dies at the feet of Cain. The Bible doesn't say that Cain brought an offering that was bad, or rotten. It just says that God rejected it. Meaning, we don't determine whether worship is good enough. God does. If that is the case, it makes sense that we should prepare anything for God as if He were going to inspect it cover to cover and note to note.
This is not to say that unprepared worship music is unspiritual. It's just not sound planning. If you have a chance to go over something, make the time to go over it. There's the same 24 hours for all the other priorities in our lives, and practicing the music for the King can't be a bad use of some of that time He has given us.
Looking unto the hills,
miamimaestro
Friday, May 16, 2008
It's not about you.
This is the first sentence of Rick Warren's book, "The Purpose Driven Life". It also is the first thing I think every minister of music and church musician must realize. Our job often seems to be the one thing besides preaching that affects the weekly service the most. If we are skilled, anointed, and on the ball, God seems close and the service is high. If we have an off day, or worse, are ineffective, uninterested, and unspiritual, we can drag the service down. But this is all misleading from the entire point of worship.
No matter how much we link our human intuition and talent to the presence of God, we do not determine alone whether God shows up in our service. We are simply a part of the mechanism God uses to bring us into contact with his presence. Prayer, praise, and proclamation must all be present in order for a congregation to know the full presence of God, and music can not become a catch all or substitute for worship.
The good part for musicians is that you need not bear the blame every time the service fails to produce expected results. While we have a responsibility to worship God through music with a spirit of excellence, we must never make the mistake of lucifer and think that we are either the object or the main conduit of worship. It's most important that musicians have a private worship life that can be activated even without the accolades or congregational response. That way you are never unduly motivated to forget the purpose of corporate worship - to bring attention to
Christ and not to yourself, either negatively or positively.
Looking unto the hills,
miamimaestro
No matter how much we link our human intuition and talent to the presence of God, we do not determine alone whether God shows up in our service. We are simply a part of the mechanism God uses to bring us into contact with his presence. Prayer, praise, and proclamation must all be present in order for a congregation to know the full presence of God, and music can not become a catch all or substitute for worship.
The good part for musicians is that you need not bear the blame every time the service fails to produce expected results. While we have a responsibility to worship God through music with a spirit of excellence, we must never make the mistake of lucifer and think that we are either the object or the main conduit of worship. It's most important that musicians have a private worship life that can be activated even without the accolades or congregational response. That way you are never unduly motivated to forget the purpose of corporate worship - to bring attention to
Christ and not to yourself, either negatively or positively.
Looking unto the hills,
miamimaestro
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Welcome....Don't Leave!
OK, either my title grabbed your attention, or you googled your way into a dead end, or I begged you to come to this site. So stay a bit and see what comes next. Please?
If you tab over to Homeschooldaddy.blogspot.com, you can find out more of my personal details. This blog is more oriented to my professional life as a minister of music, songwriter, and music teacher. It is NOT a promo for my business - although I do accept cash and credit for projects and offers (that's for you, Kirk Franklin) - I sincerely feel there's a lack of real talk regarding musicians in the 21st Century Church, and I want to help fill it. So in the next few posts, I'll try to grab your attention quickly with some obvious, but not so evident, observations and tricks that might help struggling church musicians get out of a rut of devotion songs that go too long, singers that claim they know their key and always start 3 whole steps lower, and pastors that demand perfect praise with penny purchases. (not my pastor, just so you all know.) As I'll be posting within my busy schedule, many times I may only give a short tip, but I'll try to make it effective every time. Blessings and keep praying and prayzing,
Maestro
If you tab over to Homeschooldaddy.blogspot.com, you can find out more of my personal details. This blog is more oriented to my professional life as a minister of music, songwriter, and music teacher. It is NOT a promo for my business - although I do accept cash and credit for projects and offers (that's for you, Kirk Franklin) - I sincerely feel there's a lack of real talk regarding musicians in the 21st Century Church, and I want to help fill it. So in the next few posts, I'll try to grab your attention quickly with some obvious, but not so evident, observations and tricks that might help struggling church musicians get out of a rut of devotion songs that go too long, singers that claim they know their key and always start 3 whole steps lower, and pastors that demand perfect praise with penny purchases. (not my pastor, just so you all know.) As I'll be posting within my busy schedule, many times I may only give a short tip, but I'll try to make it effective every time. Blessings and keep praying and prayzing,
Maestro
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
