KEYS
GOT THE RIGHT TOOLS? | Ed Kerr
Well, friends, I have a confession to make. I
don’t know what to do. Seems like every project
I start ends up unfinished. Everything’s in chaos
all around me.
Do I have your attention now? I’m not kidding
about unfinished projects. That’s something I’m
very aware of right now because my wife and I
have pulled the carpet out of the second floor
of our home so we can install laminate flooring
there. Read that sentence carefully. So we can
install flooring. Yep. We’re going to do the job.
Did lots of prep on the subfloor and started the
installation on Saturday. By the end of the day
Saturday after working really hard as a family,
we unfortunately discovered that two of the
boards had come out of place and were ruined.
Ugh! Like I said up there in my first paragraph,
it seems like everything’s chaos all around me,
at least upstairs in my house. You know what
I’m learning could’ve helped our installation
go more smoothly? Taking more time in
preparation. It turns out that a floor needs to be
relatively free of significant dips or humps, and
things like staples and screws and nails need to
be removed. We did a good bit of prep but now
know that more prep is needed.
I’ve been thinking how this painful realization
relates to what I do on Sundays when I’m
leading worship. I play my keyboard. I sing. I
talk to the crowd between songs. Sometimes
I pray in or out of a song. I start and stops
tracks if we’re using them. I start and stop
our metronome app. I spontaneously create
musical transitions between songs from time to
time, often changing keys in the process.
Quick disclaimer: this article is being written
during the Covid season and my church has
only done services via Livestream for several
months. As we all anticipate the wonderful day
we’re able to gather as a faith family for worship
services, I imagine that many of you are like me
and have a fairly long list of things you do when
you’re serving on your worship team.
And those things relate to my laminate
installation how? They relate because
preparation is involved in each of the things I
listed that I’m doing on Sundays. It took me a
lot of preparation to develop the skill set that
allows me to play keys and sing at the same
time. It took a lot of preparation to be able to
pray confidently (and coherently) as I’m playing.
It takes lots of preparation to be sure that my
software for track playback or metronome play
is set up correctly. It takes a lot of preparation
to be able to seamlessly change keys between
songs.
You get the idea. If you and I expect to show up
for our church services or our rehearsals without
having done any prep on our own, the results
could get messy, like the mess we discovered
when our subfloor wasn’t quite ready for the
laminate to be installed over it.
So, how can you be well prepared for your role
on your worship team? First of all, you take a
realistic look at what your responsibilities will
114 July 2020
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