Is Excellence Necessary? Part 3

I don’t have time.  We all know that we take time for what we think is valuable.

I don’t have money.   Learning a craft or a skill can require an investment of money as well as time. Consider asking your church to host a seminar or invest in coaching for your worship team. I work with worship teams coaching and providing lessons on a regular basis. This can be very helpful and effective and a worthwhile investment for your church. After all there IS a scriptural precedent for it.

Be careful. Sadly, as in any profession, there are good vocal coaches and not so good ones. Be careful to check into the qualifications of the coach you select. Just because they speak at conferences, have a nice voice, teach, have a web-site and DVD sets or charge a lot of money does not mean they are really qualified to teach. Look for coaches that have an actual background in vocal training and education from a qualified university.  These are the ones who have been uniquely trained to train and teach-not just perform.

Unfortunately many of the Christian colleges, which so many of our music ministers have attended in the past, have not had the highest of standards when it comes to music education. This trend is changing thankfully. I see common vocal errors being taught among conference teachers that even a very rudimentary study of voice would expose. We are so hungry for knowledge in the church that we can sometimes be easily led astray. We need to be ‘wise as serpents’ and use our resources carefully.

Your local community college can be a great resource. Many have a great and reasonably priced music program that you can attend part time and can include private music lessons and classes pertaining to music theory, sight-singing and ear-training, all of these are invaluable to the modern worship musician.

I pray that we will begin to set the bar higher on the road to excellence in worship. Let it start with you and with me.

TO BE CONTINUED….
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