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I have read arguments against the development of skill as a singer for a worship team, and honestly this baffles me a little. Yes…I agree that our first priority should be our relationship with God, our devotion to glorify him through our sung worship and a desire to follow the Holy Spirit when we prepare and execute our worship sets. However; I’m quite sure nobody would bat an eyelid at somebody who wants to take up guitar lessons or someone on the tech team showing a new joiner how the equipment works and what to do to get the best sound.
This is essentially what vocal training is - learning how your instrument works, how to take the best care of it and how to use it in a healthy and efficient way to get the best sound. It brings to mind Colossians 3:23; “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” Jesus endured the cup of wrath which I deserved so that I could be free and in relationship with my creator - the least I want to do is give him my very best.
What does God say about skill?
Before we get to any of my thoughts I think it’s important to look at what the bible tells us. Does God value a skilled person? Absolutely! Let’s take a look at some examples….
In Exodus 36:1, God chose people he had gifted with skill to carry out the work of constructing the sanctuary. This passage actually tells us that this skill was God-given. When we consider that ‘every good and perfect gift comes from God’ (James 1:17), we can see that skill is a good gift from above.
Kenaniah the head Levite was put in charge of the singing (1 Chronicles 15:22). This verse specifically points out that he was given this responsibility because he was skilful at it. This not only demonstrates a value in general skill, but in singing skill specifically.
It’s wonderful to sing and play music and give God praise…but he also asks us to use skill as we do so! Psalm 33:3 commands us to ‘Sing to him a new song, play skilfully, and shout for joy.’
In 1 Chronicles 25:7 we see that David; together with the commanders of the army and a load of other men who are listed in this chapter; are given the responsibility for the ministry of prophesying. Verse 6 tells us they were ‘under the supervision of their father for the music of the temple of the Lord, with cymbals, lyres and harps, for the ministry at the house of God.’ Verse 7 specifically points out that they were ‘all of them trained and skilled in music for the Lord’.
God clearly values skill, and we should too.
So with that in mind, let’s look at a few spiritual and practical reasons why I believe singers in the worship team should spend as much time learning and practising their instruments as anyone else on the team…
1. To glorify God:
Time and time again in the psalms we see David exalting God before anything else. In Psalm 34:3 he says; ‘Glorify the Lord with me: let us exalt his name together.’ This, I believe, is the first and greatest reason we should develop our skill as singers for Jesus. If my voice is healthy, free from tension, able to reach all the notes I need for the song and equipped to confidently lead people into worship; this glorifies God.
Let’s take a quick look at just 4 of the many commands to sing found in the bible:
- Psalm 105:2 - Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts.
- Psalm 95:1-2 - Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.
- Colossians 3:16 - Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.
- Ephesians 5:19 - speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord.
I believe God loves it when we sing to him, and I believe it honours him when we give him our best. As 1 Corinthians 10:31 says; ‘whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.’ Are we singing for the glory of God? Are we really, when we rock up to a Sunday morning with no preparation, guessing whether our instrument will function well that day, ‘hoping for the best’? There is a better alternative which I believe gives God the honour he deserves; investing some time into vocal training.
Developing your singing skill with voice training doesn’t harbour arrogance or self righteousness if we have the right attitude. After all, ‘who makes you different from anyone else? What did you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why did you boast as though you did not?’ (1 Corinthians 4:7). We already know that singing skill is a gift given to us by God to use for his glory. So, when we develop this skill it will inevitably point to the one who gave it to us in the first place. Getting better at your vocal technique honours God with your time and glorifies him with your sound. It is thanks to him that we are even able to make a sound at all.
My final point for this one comes from my own experience after so many years in worship ministry, and later in professional voice teaching. The more I work on developing my vocal technique, preparing my voice for Sunday, and warming up before I sing anything; the more I can focus on Jesus when I lead worship. I don’t need to stress about that tricky high note because I’ve worked on it in my practise time. My voice isn’t cracking or sounding grisly or sticking when I want to sing with a straight tone, because I’ve taken the time to warm it up properly, ready to sing its best. This means that I’m giving my very best offering of worship to the Lord, but it also means that I’m not distracting myself or my congregation with the technical elements of using my vocal instrument. As worship leaders it is our job to act as a signpost; pointing people towards the one we worship. It’s not about us; it’s about Jesus. Psalm 34:5 says that ‘those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.’ Wow! Our faces are radiant when we look to him. Let’s make sure our voice is well equipped, practised and warmed up so that we can look to Jesus when we sing, and point the people we’re leading towards him too.
2. To look after your instrument:
1 Timothy 4:14 says ‘Do not neglect your gift’. Do you believe that singing is a gift from God? All of God’s gifts are good. It only takes a quick google search for ‘the health benefits of singing’ to see that singing is wonderfully good for your body, mind and spirit. It only takes a quick glance at the psalms to see how singing was used to glorify and exalt God multiple times by David alone. It only takes one experience where you’re expressing your love for Jesus freely and you feel as though the song is bursting out of you, and you know that singing is a good gift from God. Paul’s instruction not to neglect our gift is one we should carefully consider.
How incredible that God created our bodies not only to make sound for communication, but for beauty too. To ‘make a joyful noise’ (Psalm 98:4) which not only glorifies him, but benefits us too. He is a good God.
But as a singer, your voice is your instrument. Just as we take care of our guitars by tuning them and replacing strings every so often, we take care of flutes by polishing and cleaning them, we take care of pianos by being careful with the keys and transportation - we should consider how to take care of our voices too.
A few times I’ve pointed out that your voice is your instrument. I like to tell my singers that their body is their instrument. The voice is within the body of course, but it also isn’t an isolated mechanism. It requires use of the heart, lungs, diaphragm, abdominal and pelvic floor muscles, throat muscles, facial muscles and articulators, even, and perhaps more importantly, the mind. Our singing voice is so intertwined with our bodies that anything we do which positively or negatively impacts the body as a whole, will affect your voice too. Your diet, how much sleep you’ve had, your levels of hydration, medicines you’re taking, your stress levels - these all directly impact the voice. I can’t stress this enough - your instrument is your body.
And what does Paul say in Romans 12:1 about worship and our bodies? ‘Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God - this is your true and proper worship.’ In order to offer my body to God as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, I believe looking after it is an important consideration.
Vocal training is the best way to ensure that you’re not only getting the best sound you can, but also looking after the health of your voice and ensuring that your technique is keeping your instrument healthy and strong. If you’ve heard any of my training tips or had lessons with me you’ll know that I often talk about the voice being an instrument of balance; with 3 separate components which each need to be in balance individually, and then together, to get the most efficient sound in the healthiest way. Any tip of that balance may result in overcompensation from some muscles, which can cause vocal fatigue, inflammation, or injury. A vocal coach will be able to help you correct course and find balance again before you run into vocal issues. Vocal training is excellent for looking after your instrument.
3. To ensure that your instrument lasts as long as God wants to use it:
This is a super brief point which follows along from my last point nicely, and it’s really simple. If you have a healthy voice, it’s going to last you longer. You’re going to be able to use it not only more often (and when you consider worship singers use their voices more frequently than the average person, this is important), but also for a longer period of time. This is true in the sense of lasting through a longer worship set (2 hours for example), but also for the life of your ministry.
If God has given you this gift of singing, it’s a good idea to be faithful with it. When talking about leaders in the church, Paul says ‘This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.’ (1 Corinthians 4:1-2). Be a good steward of what you’ve been given so that, as a servant of Christ, your voice can be used for as long as God wants to use it to glorify him, edify the church and further his kingdom. Like I said in my last point, vocal training is a great way to make sure your voice is healthy and strong for as long as this may be.
4. To serve others:
How many times have you had somebody in your congregation thank you for the worship time? I bet you’ve had a few. And while we don’t seek to get that praise for ourselves, (we want them to focus on Jesus), I believe it is good to bless others with our gifts and help them to draw closer to God through worship with our sung leadership.
Let’s look at some biblical reasoning for this. Firstly, Jesus himself says ‘I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters; in the assembly I will sing your praises.’ (Hebrews 2:12) Jesus wants to sing praises with believers. If it’s good enough for Jesus - it’s good enough for me! Congregational worship; singing together; is so important for us as the body of Christ.
Why, then, did God appoint David, commanders of the army, and a group of other men the position of music ministry because they were ‘all of them trained and skilled in music for the Lord'?(1 Chronicles 25:7) Clearly there was a recognition of their skill and ability to lead which would benefit the rest of the people.
But our sung worship doesn’t just serve our brothers and sisters in Christ. When we worship through hard times - that is powerful and impactful on non-believers too. Acts 16:25 tells us that while Paul and Silas were imprisoned, in chains and singing hymns to God at midnight, ‘the other prisoners were listening to them.’ When we sing worship…people around us pay attention. When that happens in my life - I want to represent Jesus and cause those listeners to turn their spiritual eyes towards God; not be distracted by how I’m singing; but be captivated by the one I’m singing about. Developing my vocal ability will increase this possibility by reducing the risks of technical vocal difficulties as I sing.
And if all of that isn’t enough to convince you that developing your skill as a worship singer will serve others, you could also follow the teachings of Paul when he says it quite plainly in 1 Peter 4:10 - ‘Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.’
5. To serve the rest of your music team:
As the famous saying goes, there’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’! Or as Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 12:27 - ‘Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.’
Being a good, contributing and functioning part of a team means playing your part and playing it well, but it also means respecting the other team members and communicating well with them too. If you have a larger worship team with instrumentalists as well as vocalists, you may have noticed that sometimes there’s a stumbling block when it comes to communication or understanding between them. Sometimes the key in which the singer wants the song to be played is a tricky one for the instrumentalists to play, or the guitarist and keys player are having a discussion about transitions which leaves the vocalist feeling confused and left out.
Notice that here I reference vocalists and instrumentalists - this is because I believe that all singers should be musicians. When I talk about musicians, I’m referring to the singer as well. Your instrument as a singer is different to another instrument; you can’t see it, you learn to play it through sensation based exploration, your physical and mental health directly impacts your sound; but it’s still an instrument nonetheless, and you should strive to be a musician. Doing this through vocal training not only benefits you personally, it also serves your team because it gives you better communication all around.
Unity in the church is hugely important. Unity in the worship team, I believe, is paramount. You will be working together to usher people into the presence of God and encourage them to seek his face, repent of their sin, accept his forgiveness and express adoration for all he is. That’s quite some responsibility. How important, then, is it for you to be in unity with each other?
Paul gives this instruction for the church in 1 Corinthians 1:10 - ‘I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you’re perfectly united in mind and thought.’ Vocal training will help you to communicate more effectively with the rest of your team. It will give you a broader understanding of things like musical keys, a way to explain to the team how a transposition sits in your voice so that they can better understand your position, and it’ll give you the tools to develop your voice to sing a wider variety of songs in a wider variety of keys, which will certainly benefit the rest of the team.
2 Corinthians 13:11 says, ‘Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.’ I want this for my worship team. I think we all do! Let’s strive for full restoration as the verse says and serve our worship teams by learning all we can about our instrument.
6. To give God your very best:
Last, but certainly by no means least - vocal training is a way to give God your very best.
Colossians 3:17 says, ‘whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.’
If I’m to do everything with all my heart, as if working for the Lord, in the name of Jesus, giving thanks to God, I want to go all in. I’m jumping in head first with both feet, grabbing the bull by the horns and all the other analogies. I’m giving 110%! I may not always feel like it…but reflecting on what Christ did for me makes me burst with so much gratitude and joy that I can’t help but give him everything I’ve got.
If I’m approaching my worship offering in a complacent way - content with the fact that I can sing in tune and it sounds fine and that’s all that’s necessary - I’m just not giving God my best. This is my personal reason for training my own voice…I’m always trying to improve this skill I have been given by God to glorify him, lead others but ultimately to offer it back to him as an act of worship.
Colossians 3:23 says; “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” I want to reiterate what I said in the introduction; Jesus endured the cup of wrath which I deserved so that I could be free and in relationship with my creator - the least I want to do is give him my very best.
So there you go! 6 reasons I believe that it’s a great idea to work on developing our skill as worship singers. What do you think? Are there any other points you’d add?
Is this your first time seeing my content? Welcome! My name is Amy and I’m a singer, vocal coach and worship leader with a passion for helping worship singers get to know their instruments and use them in the most effective way, all for God’s glory. I have a Facebook group you can join here which already contains some free videos, classes and audio exercise files, and through which I provide a free training over Zoom every month. I also offer 1-1 vocal coaching over Zoom or in person in my Barnstaple studio. If you have any questions about anything I’ve posted here or anything I offer, please get in touch. I’d love to hear from you!