On the Race, I have had many incredible experiences, but some of the best have been during worship. My favorite worship nights are when the whole squad is together, and Caleb, Mark, and I lead. It’s only 2 guitars and a Cajon (box drum), but it has literally been some of the best worship times I have ever experienced. The weird part is, Caleb and I have never had a single practice together, we don’t even decide on a song set before we start.
Music has always been a part of me. My dad has lead worship at my church my whole life and when I was 9 he put me in piano lessons. I started learning guitar when I was 12 and by the time I was 15 I was on the church worship team switching between guitar, piano, bass, and occasionally throwing in some other instruments if it fit the songs. Caleb has been playing guitar for a while and has an amazing voice; he also is a great writer. When we play, he will just start playing some chord progression and I will join in with whatever fits, mark adding in the percussion. Sometimes I know what song Caleb is starting, sometimes I have no idea what song it will be. Sometimes he literally makes up a song on the spot! Now this may seem like a very poor way to lead worship, but this is how we have been doing it and so far, it has led to some of the best worship nights I have ever been a part of. Caleb has even told me that he does not ever want to go back to doing worship that is all planned out and structured, and honestly, I like this way better too. Caleb leads as the holy spirit leads him, you can’t schedule the holy spirit in a worship set saying ‘during this spot the spirit will move’, The Spirit will move when he is ready to move and all you can do is follow.
When Caleb sings a new chorus that no-one has heard before he is not bragging at all, usually within 2 lines the whole squad is singing alone and don’t even realize the song is new! The new song is whatever song the Lord is putting on Caleb’s heart at that moment. There have been a few times on the race where we were told that we need to do some sort of practice and we need to have a set list and we need to have slides ready, and those worship times feel the most distant. It is so odd, how can 2 guitars and a drum, not knowing what songs they are going to play and not practicing, lead into deeper worship than a full band that spends hours practicing songs that everybody knows? I am fully certain it is the Holy Spirit. Also, if you play the same songs over and over and over, eventually the congregation will tire of these songs and start to sing it out of habit not in a spirit of praise and worship to an all-mighty God. When Caleb sings songs that are new, and adds things to old songs, and makes up songs, he is forcing the rest of the squad to think about what they are singing. When we play an old slow song with new chords and a fast funky beat, there attention will be fully on the song and what it means to sing it.
I am not saying that every church everywhere should use this freestyle method, I am saying nothing like that. In most situations with a full band, this sort of unstructured style will not work. It is just interesting to me the difference it has seemed to make, just letting the Holy spirit take full control of the music and the lyrics. In many churches around the world I have noticed that the Spirit seems to only be allowed to move during certain times in the service, and in these churches their worship seems dead. It sounds and feels like these churches are worshipping with music only because that is what most churches do, not because they want to spend time praising the God who makes and keeps us. So many churches have almost the same worship sets all the time, just think about it, how many times have you gone to a church and thought ‘man, I just heard this song last week, and the week before’? We can only sing Oceans so many times before it loses its meaning and singing it becomes boring and mindless to people. Let’s sing new songs to the lord, let’s bring praises to him from our hearts, let’s praise him as if he deserves more than the same old songs sung the same old way.
If you are a worship leader, I encourage you to follow the holy spirit as he leads, even if this means departing from the script a little bit.
