On Mondays I’m posting about the 7 levels of musical worship leading. If you missed it last week, click here for LEVEL 1 – The Worshipper. Here’s the second installment:
The Creator (LEVEL 2 Musical Worship Leader)
The level 2 musical worship leader makes music with others. They use their musical ability to creatively work on the pace and structure of songs with a group of other people, be it a chancel choir, a rock band or a men’s quartet. They are more than just ahead of the congregation—they are crafting an experience that means something intentional—and they are doing it in such a way that musicians call “making music together.” Non-musicians hear that phrase and think of it as a perfunctory task, like laying bricks together. But musicians love to “make music together” in a way that feels like auditory alchemy. The Inklings group that including J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis & Charles Williams talked about something similar to this when they spoke of a “sub-creator.” Part of the idea is that when someone creates new worlds (in fiction) they are in fact worshipping the original Creator. The musical worship leader can do this–instead of merely imitating the Christian music station, or mimicking the original artist’s arrangement–they start to create together something that is truly new. By creating “The Creator” is a worshipper who is making music out ahead of others to lead them.
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Links to all 7 Levels of Musical Worship Leadership:
Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5 Level 6 Level 7
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Great stuff so far. I look forward to the rest of the series. It was fun to lead worship at FLAME this past week, because making music was a team effort. Even though I was the leader, we worked on things together. Occasionally we did something “the way they do it on the CD,” but many of the songs came out as original arrangements. There’s something about leading worship, not only when you have a level 1 leader, but even more fun when you have a level 2 leader and the creative process works together.
I also enjoy those times when you are “in the moment” and things happen that you didn’t rehearse and add to what is happening. Last week our drummer and bass player were great and we had a couple of those moments when it more than clicked, it was special. Add to that that the congregation was engaged with the music the band was playing and we had some special times last week.
Great thought, Dale. You’re describing what I’m trying to get at here… there is “something special” that happens for a team in these “Creator” moments.
Nice. Thanks for sharing.