WORSHIP MATTERS - A BOOK REVIEW

There is a niche in Entertainment Business that has a unique and meaningful twist to what most consider entertainment: Leading people in worshiping God through music. Some hesitate to call it either entertainment or business, but it's all there...working with being on stage, sound, lighting, managing teams, organizing a set, lyric presentation software, even money (payment). I think worship leading falls into the entertainment business category. The band Third Day is a good example. They mostly do concerts where people are looking for a professional musical experience.

However, there are distinctions that make this niche different. Instead of seeking fame to promote themselves, the performers are seeking to promote God and draw people closer to Him. To look a little closer into Worship Leading, this blog post will review Bob Kauflin's book called Worship Matters.

I agree with worship leader Matt Redman’s comments on the back of book, "Bob loves God, values theology, and cares about people.  This mix is found throughout this wonderful and helpful book." The book is divided into four sections which I will touch on.

• Part I – The Leader
• Part II – The Task
• Part III – Healthy Tensions
• Part IV – Right Relationships

In Part I on The Leader, Kauflin says a leader is anyone in front of others who is influencing them (singers, readers, drummers, etc.).  I like how Kauflin describes many of the little things that consume us as leaders:  what people think, attitudes, musicians not showing up, and even technical things going wrong.  However, the most important thing is giving worth to God.  Worship matters to God because He is the one ultimately worthy of all worship.  Worship matters to us because we were created to worship God.  It also matters to leaders because it is one of the greatest privileges to lead others to encounter the greatness of God. Over four chapters, Kauflin identifies four important aspects of leaders

• My Heart:  What Do I Love?
• My Mind:  What Do I Believe?
• My Hands:  What Do I Practice?
• My Life:  What Do I Model?

These questions are a good way to check your passions, motives, lifestyle, and character. This is something everyone in the Entertainment Business should do.

In Part II, Kauflin covers The Task of worship leading.  He beautifully gives a working definition of the purpose in worship leading with the following sentence:

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.

There is a wealth of practical and helpful insights in this section going into detail about what the focus is for worship leaders.

Part III explores the process of putting together a worship service and the Healthy Tensions that are a part of that process. He looks at nine critical areas that must be embraced and kept in balance. Issues like Head & Heart, Internal & External, Vertical & Horizontal, and Planned & Spontaneous. These are seemingly opposites that need to be emphasized and balanced to be effective.

Finally, Part IV describes how important it is to have Good Relationships in worship ministry:  Right relationships with the church (the people you see every week in your congregation), with your team (musicians, technicians, ushers, etc.), and with your pastor (or pastors if you have more than one pastor you work with). Since God is all about relationships, it follows that we should be all about relationships too. The program is important, our theology is important, but relationships matter most.

When it comes to our relationship with God, worship matters! He wants our love. I'm sure He must really enjoy it when we come together to worship Him with singing and praise. Many bands like Third Day, Casting Crowns, Tenth Avenue North, and Big Daddy Weave, do concerts with the emphasis of leading the people to worship God. Churches are doing this too, of course, but some are leaning heavily on the entertainment emphasis with fantastic lights and projections. I think this is good. What do you think?

Worship leading is a part of Entertainment Business and shares many helpful aspects. Kauflin has brought to the table, in his helpful and educational book, how the element of worship brings a unique distinction to this special musical and cultural genre.

A LOOK AT LES PAUL - LOVING MUSIC AND PEOPLE

When it comes to music entertainment, it’s about people as much as it is about music. The legendary guitarist and innovator, Les Paul, was born 100 years ago today. He passed away 6 years ago, but left a legacy of performance in jazz, pop, and country, as well as inventing the famous Gibson Les Paul guitar. Many people only think of the guitar when mentioning "Les Paul." In today's article by NPR Music called The Man Before The Guitar: Remembering Les Paul At 100, Paul's friend and band member for 30 years, Lou Pallo, explains that during some performances, Paul would say to the audience, "See, I'm not a guitar. Here I am. I'm Les Paul!"

Paul loved to perform especially in front of live audiences. Deep down, he wanted to connect with people and enjoyed bringing delight into their lives through music. His first performing experience was playing and singing country music on the radio in the morning, but then he would play jazz at night. Art Tatum and Fats Waller were jazz masters that heavily influenced Paul in the 1930's. Tatum was known as the "musician's musician" and was one of the greatest improvisers in jazz history. Waller was lovingly known as the "clown prince," a comic showman who entertained crowds with his playful stage antics. Even Django Reinhardt, known for his style called "gypsy jazz," became a good friend with Paul. Influenced by these and others, Paul became a skillful performer with increasing popularity.

This is a good example for all musicians who desire to perform. If you seek to connect to your audience, they will appreciate you, enjoy coming to see you again, and want to buy recordings of your music. The opposite would be to love music so much that you only care about the music and not about your audience. I would call this "practicing on stage" rather than truly entertaining. You may want something meaningful, enlightening, even spiritual to touch your audience. This can happen with stories about the songs, expressiveness during songs, even lyrics in the songs. But, you must be intentional and deliberate to present more than just music. Music is communication and the people in the audience are who you are communicating to.

Paul's career really took off after marrying Mary Ford in 1949. They wrote hit songs and performed for seven years on their syndicated TV show called "Les Paul & Mary Ford At Home." You can view many YouTube videos of their songs. One of their hits was The World is Waiting for the Sunrise.

However, there is another aspect of loving music and people that we can learn from Paul's experience. We must not let our love for entertainment business destroy our closest relationships. In 1969, Ford and Paul divorced because she wanted to stop touring. She wanted to settle down for a home life, but he was too caught up with his music and wanted to keep touring. In an earlier NPR Music article called Guitar Legend And Innovator Les Paul Dies, that came out the year Paul died (2009), it explains that Paul was so affected by the divorce that he "retired from the business for ten years." What a paradox! I think he realized he should have made his relationship to Mary more important than touring. It took 10 years for him to sort through that mistake. We must make our marriages top priority as we journey deeper into the world of music entertainment.

The 2009 NPR Music article explains that Paul returned once again to the entertainment business, with even more passion for people. "He made his comeback in 1974 with an old friend, Chet Atkins. The record they made together, Chester and Lester won Les Paul his first Grammy." He played consistently for 35 more years. During these later years, was known for never staying in his dressing room, but always spending time talking with people during breaks and every free moment he had.

It's alright to love music, but let's keep our love for people a high priority as well.

INTRODUCTION

Everyone is on a unique journey both personally and professionally. I am so glad my journey has brought me to where I am today and I want to use all that I am to help others reach their potential.

In this initial post, I would like to give you a brief look into the elements that make up my journey right now. I will be mostly posting my professional endeavors and interests, so I'll start there. I am the Executive Director of Heartfelt Music Ministry. Our website is http://heartfeltmusic.org which gives a ton of information about what we offer like training workshops, concerts, CDs and other products for sale. I also teach at Valley Christian Schools in San Jose equipping students in their quest for excellence. As part of my continued professional development, I am working on an Entertainment Business Master of Science degree from Full Sail University. Feel free to visit my Tumblr blog, Reggie's Mastery Journal, which is dedicated to my Full Sail experience (inspirations, assignments, etc.).

To give you a snippet about me personally, I live in Mount Hermon, California, near Santa Cruz. I've been happily married for 31 years, have two boys in college, and love to play guitar (I am a Taylor Guitar Artist). For more details, visit http://heartfeltmusic.org/about/.