Worship Matters: Book Review

Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God by Bob Kauflin

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
If you follow Bob Kauflin's blog, you know that his routine of answering people's questions about church music ministry is done very deliberately. He doesn't rant. He encourages right relationships first. He emphasizes biblical principles, and in the end he'll get around to answering the question, an answer that usually seems more obvious once he cuts to the heart of the issue, and what is really important. It is no surprise then to see his book written in the same style, and with the same patience we've come to expect from him. Worship Matters is more than just another book about worship, and it is more than a little commentary and list of suggestions on how to "do music" better.

Summary

Bob Kauflin's book Worship Matters is a very useful guide for church music volunteers to music directors to worship leaders, to senior pastors. The book's primary focus, however is on worship leaders. He takes his time patiently addressing each topic, even sometimes repeating himself, but not to anyone's detriment. The book serves as a healthy reminder to those who would lead worship-musical or non musical, as to what is important and what should be remembered, and what can safely be discarded.

The book is divided into four main sections. The first deals with the worship leaders in five short chapters. What is important, what should be important? what are the things the leader should love? what are things the leaders believe? what are the things leaders practice? what are the things leaders model?

It is a great centering area of the book for worship leaders to ruminate on even before proceeding further along in the book.

Part two of the book deals specifically with what a worship leader does. Here he presents his definition:

A faithful worship leader
magnifies the greatness of God in Jesus Christ
through the power of the Holy Spirit
by skillfully combining God's Word with music,
thereby motivating the gathered church
to proclaim the gospel,
to cherish God's presence,
and to live for God's glory.

He spends the next several chapters exegeting his own statement, exploring and giving insight phrase by phrase. Here Kauflin gives a nice mix of scriptural, philosophical, and practical teachings and suggestions for understanding the worship leader's role.

The third part to his book explores what he terms "Healthy Tensions." Using the following principles, 1. Do what God clearly commands. 2. Don't do what God clearly forbids. 3. Use scriptural wisdom for everything else.

Even though he spends time expanding on these tensions, I find that the most insight is gained by pondering the existence and identification of the tensions alone. Not meant to be a comprehensive list, Kauflin lists the following:

• Transcendent and Immanent
• Head and Heart
• Internal and External
• Vertical and Horizontal
• Planned and Spontaneous
• Rooted and Relevant
• Skilled and Authentic
• For the Church and Unbelievers
• Event and Everyday

The fourth part deals with Right Relationships: Church, Team, and Pastor. It is always good to be reminded of healthy relationships, and their importance, particularly in church leadership. This section of the book was probably the most meaningful to me, as with great humility Kauflin framed healthy church leadership relationships in light of submission to the pastor, seeking to give encouragement, seeking biblical steps in resolving conflict, nipping personal pride, and seeking evaluation and reproof. Proverbs 12:1 "Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid."

The end notes to this book contain a robust annotated bibliography, short on music sources and heavy on theology. This is no surprise as his writing is rich with scriptural references and one of his fundamental perspectives is that the worship leader, just as all followers of Christ, should first seek to be a theologian.

Some favorite quotes:

A worship leader who barely knows the Bible can't be a faithful worship leader.

We're good theologians if what we say and think about God lines up with what Scripture says and affirms. We're bad theologians if our view of God is vague, unbiblical, distorted, or based on our own opinions.

Misconception: We know God better through music than through Words.

When we're dodgy about our theology, we're really saying we want our own Jesus.

[God] never gets tired of hearing believers' almost-in-tune, somewhat together, faith-filled offerings of worship.

If our doctrine is accurate but our hearts are cold toward God himself, our corporate worship will be true but lifeless. Or if we express fervent love for God but present vague, inaccurate, or incomplete ideas of him to those we're leading, our worship will be emotional but misleading-and possibly idolatrous. Neither option brings God glory.

If you have a role in leading worship in church or parachurch, this book will be well worth your time. Whether you're the primary worship leader, a "chief musician," a volunteer, or a senior pastor, I highly recommend this book and it's valuable insights to you.

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Philosophy of Orchestration (part 1)

I had a lot of fun gearing up a for a little presentation I did today at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary's orchestration class. The professor, Joshua Waggener, asked me to give some perspectives of "real world" church orchestration and techniques for writing for rhythm sections.

I blew it all out in a matter of fifty minutes. So much to say, so little time. Those poor students.

The following represents the beginning of some things we discussed related to orchestration and your orchestra. The context was specifically church orchestration since that is generally the orientation of the music program at SEBTS.

The first question to ask yourself when considering orchestrating a hymn, chorus, or other song for your church orchestra:

Does the song need an orchestration?

Here I could write almost an entire blog post in response to this question. (in fact, it turned into one!) As music staff we probably don't wrestle with a bigger question: just because the orchestra is sitting there, does that mean they should play? Or asked another way: What is a reasonable amount of material to expect an orchestra to play on?

The tension here lies in the "worth it" factor. If you have three services in the morning, as we do at Providence, is it wise to ask your orchestra volunteers to come and make themselves available for all three services in order to accompany one anthem and a hymn? As servants, we would say, yes, they should be happy to come in and play only the refrain of just one hymn and be glad they got a chance to serve.

A steady diet of this, however would strongly affect their morale and before long, there would be very little orchestra left for whom to orchestrate!

The flip side of this coin, and frankly the side we error on more than the other, is to make a programming decision based on the fact that the orchestra is scheduled to play. An observer might perceive this as the tail wagging the dog. Honestly, this is sometimes the case as we occasionally are forced to change what we felt was an already strong service plan in terms of flow in order to satisfy the "worth it" factor for the orchestra volunteers.

Being forced to make decisions like the one above is wrought by everything from bad planning on our part to an overall lack of quality arrangements available to us. Sometimes, however we are blindsided by another factor: partial orchestrations.

On a day in which the entire orchestra is scheduled, we may plan a service and congratulate ourselves on how frequently we managed to involve the orchestra. Upon closer examination, however, we realize that on song A, B, and D, only the strings play, while on songs C, and E, only the brass play, and on song F, the lone orchestrated hymn selection, the woodwinds get to play.

Planning well requires answering the original question: Does the song NEED an orchestration? If it is decided a song could be enhanced by an orchestration (another subjective decision), the project needs to be set into motion weeks in advance of the service, not only for the sake of the arranger, but for the sake of rehearsal.

But let me just be clear about this one thing: Some songs in the pop world, Christian or secular or not bettered by the finest orchestration. Some band-led songs often need to stay that way. Any attempted horn lick or string line can diminish the pathos of the song in it's original state and derail the emotive qualities of a song. Again, a subjective call, perhaps, but would we really want to try to add to All the Saints Join In, or This is Who I Am? Great skill would be required both by the arranger and by the performer!

Upon answering the question in the affirmative regarding the need for an orchestration, we have several more to answer. (Stay tuned)

What would You Do?

This evening, I began preparing for our annual pastor's retreat. This is an ironic event because I am technically neither a pastor, nor are we under duress such that retreating is required. Still, it is a staff get-away sanctioned by the elders as something healthy and even necessary for our team so we do it. Since I've been on staff we head to West Jefferson, a nice little community in the northwest corner of the state in the mountains far away from things like cell phone towers and the internet. That's not actually true (and as such, I'll try to keep you updated on twitter), but it is serene enough that it sometimes feels that way. In my office, I have a lot to do. At home, Janet and the kids wouldn't mind if I stayed around for the next few days, but I do genuinely enjoy the guys on staff, even if it means I have to play golf.

This leads me back to the part about the preparation. The last time I played golf, was on last year's retreat. And the time I played golf before that was on the previous year's retreat. You get the idea. Golf is fine if you have unlimited time, financial resources, and patience, and since I lack in all three, it receives very little of the required dedication from me.

So my preparation for this event entails removing my golf bag from the corner of the garage--where it has sat since--well, since I cleaned out the garage a few months ago--and literally taking a broom and brushing off the dust, cobwebs, a couple of spiders, and whatever other interesting stuff accumulates over the course of a year on an untouched item in one's garage.

I went through the pockets to check and see if I actually had any golf balls. I haven't lost them all yet, so I'm good. I even have a few tees and a glove.

I was surprised, however, to find in one of the golf bag pockets two snack items.

Before I go any further, I need to introduce you to my taxonomy of favorite snack items. There are three things that I will snack on at just about any time: peanuts (I prefer to crack them out of the shell), popcorn (butter doesn't hurt) and Doritos.

What do I find in my golf bag? A little Planters package of salted peanuts, and a small little Doritos bag. The expiration date on the the peanuts reads 2/17/08. That seams pretty clear. However, the Doritos bag has a slightly ambiguous "8/14" printed on it. No year.

You may not appreciate my struggle. I would really like to load up on those snacks tonight! In spite of the dates (they always go to the safe side by at least a year, right? plus the Doritos bag didn't give a year so it could be THIS year, right?), I could either

1. Eat them anyway
2. Feed them to my kids (see if anything happens)
3. Mix them with fresh items, see if I can tell a difference
   
4. Save them for a White Elephant gift exchange
5. Keep them for some of the neighborhood kids at Halloween
   
6. Throw them out

Any other suggestions? What would YOU do?