Venues, Volunteers and Leading Worship

Well, this past week we finally did it. We had our new venue kick off. Eric was up in Cook auditorium leading worship while I was leading worship in the NLC.
It was very exciting to know that while we were singing songs of praise in the NLC, Eric was in cook leading the same songs with another group of worshippers and we were all on the Mountain campus.
I really haven’t lead worship here at Mountain in awhile. With Eric here leading I usually play keys and every once-in-awhile sing on a praise team. And then also being gone for almost three months it all feels a bit new to me again. I have to say I was a bit nervous about leading worship again. Several reasons for this feeling I think. On Thursday (our rehearsal night) I only got to work with the vocalists for about 30 minutes before I had to leave for choir rehearsal. Then add to that that our keyboard player got sick and I had to call in a sub (April) at the last minute. She came to rehearsal not knowing what we were going to play until she picked up the music that night. (Oh, and she did a great job playing!) My electric guitar player couldn't make rehearsal either due to Back-to-school-night and sickness in the family. But I do have a great group of people to work with.
I also had choir rehearsal for a little more than an hour that night starting at 7:30. Only after choir rehearsal was over (8:40) was I able to get onto the stage and practice with everyone. By the time rehearsal ended (9:45) we pretty much had it down. We still needed to practice more on Sunday morning though. But everyone was really cool with the extra practice.
Thursday was a bit of an unusual night anyway. The schedule was set up before the regular worship team schedule was set. So it was kind of an add on, only it was at the beginning not at the end. The schedule from now on doesn't have me trying to be in two places at the same time. That’s a relief.
Sunday went well in both venues. So you know how it works here’s the scoop.
Both venues will have live music, a host, and a campus pastor, a kind of ‘face-for-the-place’ person. We will be DVRing (kind of like TiVo) the message in the NLC. That’s so we don’t have to have the two venues locked into a specific time for both worship teams to be done with the music. In the NLC we will try and get the message started by about 20-25 minutes or so into the service. Then we’ll give Cook another 10 minutes or so before we start playing the message on the screen. So there is some flexibility found in both places.
The NLC praise teams are pretty much the same in size, 5-6 singers and a full band. About the only thing that will be missing will be percussion. In Cook we will have a keyboard, bass, percussion and acoustic guitar with three singers. I’ll be playing keyboard and leading. So you can tell from the size of the group the sound will be a bit different. Because Cook is smaller (just under half the size) we wanted to scale down the worship team to fit the venue. On some weekends we will even do some different music in both venues because of feel of a song might be good for the NLC but would be too big for Cook. The theme or core point will stay the same but the way we package it might be different in both places.
Everyone is very excited for what this means for God's kingdom here at Mountain. But we also know that it means a lot more work for us and a lot more work for our volunteers. Here’s an example of the kind of volunteers we have here at Mountain. On Saturday one of our tech guys Richard was here on his own time to check out some audio lines that were a bit noisy during Thursday night’s rehearsal. He was here making sure that when Sunday worship came the sound would be as clean and as clear as possible. He did it because he understands what excellence means. The sound was going to be the best it could be. No one asked him to do this. No one called him up and told him to do this. He did it because of his understanding of what worship leading is all about. Even though Richard may only be plugging cables in and out and checking the audio lines, he is a worship leader. He is doing his best so that the Lord can be glorified during the Sunday service. He is making sure that the congregation can fully participate without any annoying sound interference. He is helping lead worship. Richard is a worship leader.
The people who set up chairs (and tear them down) each week, run cables, hand out bulletins, greet you as you come in, the ushers, all the techies, the ones that make sure the bathrooms are clean (have you thought of helping out there?) they are all helping to lead worship. They are all Leaders of Worship. They may not get the exposure like the singers or band, (and this is a topic for another blog) but they are leaders of worship in the very truest meaning of the term.
How about you? Are you a worship leader? Are you a leader of worship?
John
PS if I get some pictures of the worship service in Cook I'll post them. And I'll also post pictures of what the NLC (New Life Center) looks like so you can get an idea of what the two venues are like.