Many, I know, would scoff at the idea of the sound guy as being a worship leader. Several worship leaders I have known simply cannot envision this concept. They view the role of the sound mixer as being a servant to the band, a minister with the gift of helps - and geeky knowledge of sound.
Thing is, though, worship leading is mostly a black and white job. You (presumably) schedule the musicians, pick the song selection, the song order, manage conflicts and the run the rehearsal, which is the same thing, really.
What does the sound guy do? Well, ehm… he makes things sound good. And if you were to categorize his job description in that manner, yes, you could say, “bah” to him being a worship leader.
On balance then because what the sound guy has to do is get in everyone’s mind and play a psychological game of chess. Think of it this way, why is it that Lord I Lift Your Name On High has become a musical oxbow lake? Why is it no longer at the top of the Top 30 Christian music charts? It’s because that song doesn’t move people anymore. In the same way, sound mixers, the way I was trained and the way I train people, is to mix according to audience reaction. You have to mix in a way that leads people away from the point where the merely listen to music as a consumer and say, “the band sounded good today” or, “the band didn’t sound good today.” And leading them away from that you have to take them to a point where they are able to simply worship.
The sound guy is the make-or-break guy in the entire process. Psychologically, people will tolerate bad video over bad audio. You could have Chris Tomlin as a guest worship leader, but if you don’t have someone who knows how to lead the audience in the subtle art of sonics, he’ll just sound like some middle-aged worship leader that has Dwayne for a middle name. Sure it’ll have all the earmarks of, “ooh that’s Chris Tomlin.” But it won’t move people to worship anything more than the Chris Tomlin Experience.
“If all you do is focus on the tools of ministry (ensuring technical excellence, making sure people don’t think it’s too loud, repairing broken equipment) rather than why the ministry is there in the first place, you become like Martha in Luke 10. What is required is not the servant mentality but a leadership mentality.”
One of the worship leaders I have known was a man named Aaron. He wasn’t very talented, didn’t have a great voice, and let’s face it his musical styling was… different. But what he understood was that in order to be effective he needed someone who knew how to make him sound better than his talent level. He gave me the freedom and authority to do whatever I wanted, not as the sound guy, but he rather informally made me a worship leader. He worked with me to help lead people in worship and he was very successful for it.
You don’t have to have amazing musicians, though you should get good ones, or amazing songs although Lord I Lift Your Name On High is very dated. What you need is a really good sound mixer and to give him the technical and creative authority as a behind-the-scenes worship leader to maximize the effectiveness of your worship time.
The role of the sound guy is so important. For one my mood for the morning is usually decided on my monitor mix.. so when everything sounding good the musicians are pleased. Sometimes the sound guy knows the band even better than the worship leader!
I can definitely attest to that. It took me a while, but I figured out how to read when our previous worship pastor needed more vocals in his monitor. He scrunched up his face in a semi-constipated look.
Developing a relationship with the band members is key as the sound guys, you learn what they need to hear when they haven’t even asked you yet. They appreciate your work more and are able to worship and play better.
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I had the opportunity to run sound at our college group this past Sunday.
I grew up running tech things, starting with the “teleprompters” where we displayed the lyrics to the songs we sang, later running the video switcher, and later running sound. At one point I switched to the band side of things. Having the tech experience helped me along the way to know how to better get things done.
The time I’ve spent leading worship has been experience that I feel I could not do without. So getting back to running sound this past Sunday, I very much felt like I was part of the worship leading experience. And even thinking back to when I ran words as a kid, I feel like that position is a part of it too!
The entire tech team plays an integral part of the worship experience, serving in “Levite-like” responsibilities. Bad sound is as painful as bad singing. Anyone who questions the contribution of techies reminds me of that joke where different bodyparts argued who was most important…we all know what part won that argument!
Wow Britt!
I remember that joke too. I also remember someone saying that there’s gotta be an anus in the body of Christ. Did I just say that? Yep I just did.
Here’s to you….sound guys! (diet coke raised high)
Thanks for bringing us your perspective. I will say that I, in the past, on occasion, have looked to you all and wondered, “why can’t I hear the guitar in the monitor?” But I know how demanding the whole process is and what a great thing it is when all comes together during that perfect worship set.
Hey guys…My cousin is a sound engineer and he constantly whines about the bad singing from the choir every Sunday….I usually say to him…sorry dude…an engineer will not solve this problem….
He needs to pass his whining to the choir director for doing a shabby job. Whining always goes up the chain of command, never down.
I must say ( as a worship leader ) that in some cases I would rather have no sound tech at all than one who doesn’t know what he’s doing. In our case, once the monitors are set at pre-service rehearsal I don’t want them changed without a discussion. Radical changes to my monitor feed during a set is a great way to cause a train-wreck.
I couldn’t agree more, Randy. Unless it’s necessary I don’t like to change things in the monitor mix. Occasionally when the band was running on the ragged edge of feedback during rehearsal I’ll pull the master’s down 1-2dB knowing that musicians play louder during service than rehearsal to stave off feedback. From my experience, the difference is not noticeable and therefore doesn’t affect the performance of the musicians
Good stuff!