North Valley Baptist Church is known as “The Singing Church.” Our services are exciting, and a revival spirit among the people is easily sensed.All who are involved in the church music program should pray daily that God would use them to be a blessing. We often receive questions like this one from a pastor in Alabama, who wrote this week, “How do I make the service more enjoyable for my people?” Please allow me to share a few thoughts for breathing life into your church service—and, in effect, taking it off “life support.”
Choosing Congregational Songs
There are many different kinds of songs in our hymnal, Songs & Hymns of Revival. Some songs are exciting, while others are more meditative. Use evangelistic songs for the first congregational song. Examples would be Blessed Assurance, Since Jesus Came into My Heart, Jesus Is Coming Again, and At Calvary. It would be a good idea to go through the hymnal and choose songs that would be appropriate to use as “first” songs. Choose songs that your people know well and love to sing.
Finding a Song Leader
Even if the pastor is a great song leader, it is a blessing when someone else in the church is able to lead the singing. If you are unable to hire a music director, do not despair. Look for a layman in your church who is a faithful, godly man who can sing; then begin preparing him to lead the music. Find someone who will sing out with enthusiasm. Able men are usually easy to spot during the congregational singing. If someone is mumbling during the song service when he is in the pew, he probably will not shout it out when he is leading music from the pulpit.
You may not have someone with a great deal of musical training or experience, but it is most likely that you have someone who could do the job. A happy spirit and a willingness to sing out are both more important than having a great deal of musical training. However, training is certainly helpful; and it seems that any musical training is helpful. You can ask your song leader to take piano and/or voice lessons. You may want to consider sending him to the Song Leading Seminar at Golden State Baptist College this summer on July 9 - 10.
Energy
Everything that happens in your service needs to be infused with energy. This is not simply hype. The Psalmist said, “While I was musing the fire burned” (Psalm 39:3). If you will think about the message of the words of a song long enough, your heart will be filled with the truth that must be conveyed. Good song leading and good preaching have something in common here, and that gives the pastor a special edge as he is giving the song leader guidance.
Even when announcing the song, the song leader’s countenance should be radiating the message and his voice must be filled with energy. We cannot expect that the congregation will be more stirred about the song than the song leader.
When the song leader is stirred, the people will soon follow. A smile is contagious. Excitement is contagious. One Christian whose heart is aflame soon spreads the fire to those nearby. The song leader is called upon to fill a very important spiritual role in every church service.
No Dead Space
Consider what takes place moment by moment during your services. Are there times when nothing is happening? Dead space is a real killer for the service. This dead time allows people to become distracted. Those awkward moments interrupt what God has been doing in the hearts of the congregation. Find the dead space, and cut it out of the service.
Perhaps you need to have the special group move into position during the congregational song. Maybe you need to have the piano player begin the introduction for the choir special right after prayer. The person who will make announcements might need to walk toward the pulpit during the last line of the congregational song. Consider what you can change so that there are no dead spaces between events when everyone is waiting to see what is supposed to happen next.
Brief, Upbeat Announcements
Announcements have the potential to kill the spirit of the service, but they also can be very exciting. Think “short and sweet.” Do your best to make the announcements positive, and make them quickly. This will give more time for the preaching of God’s Word.
Special Music
The special music needs to prepare the hearts of the congregation and the pastor for the preaching. Choose singers who put their hearts into their songs. Choose music that has a message that will move the hearts of the people. This can definitely be done without selling out to the contemporary music style that has become so prevalent in our churches today.
These are ideas that will help breathe life into your church services. Of course, there is no substitute for prayer. All who are involved in the church music program should pray daily that God would use them to be a blessing, and that He would speak to the hearts of everyone in attendance as they minister in song.
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