It's Different

Like most musicians born in the 60s, I've played music with lots of people, played in lots of bands and have made some great and some not-so-great music in the process. It's from this perspective that I would like to explore the how and why of developing and sustaining a great worship band.

While a band's job is to perform great live music, worship bands differ in some key ways from their secular counterparts. Understanding and harnessing these differences can actually enable a worship band to rock the house and have a great time doing it.

Top Differences I can think of today:

1. We are not 19 with a part-time job with a lot of spare time on our hands
2. Meeting girls (or boys) is NOT one of the primary reasons we are in the worship band
3. Who's in "The band" often changes week to week
4. We don't obsess about the good and bad qualities of the band's name
5. We don't usually have a 'lead vocalist' with a huge ego who writes all the songs
6. Others people tell us what songs to play and often how we should play them
7. Most of the written feedback we get reads "too loud"
8. Our drummer sits behind a wall of plexiglass
9. The 12 page song charts we get work great for a piano and an octopus with a really wide music stand
10. The song list changes EVERY WEEK
    

Any of this ring true for you? I spent most of my life avoiding church. My band roots are embedded in high school dances, college frat parties, acoustic gigs in coffee houses and lots of time in the studio. Bringing these experiences into a Christian church has been interesting to say the least. Christ has flipped my ill-guided life on its head and I am forever (as in truly forever) transformed. Solid as the Rock is one of the ways I hope to give back some of what has been given me.

--
Carl