The past 30 years or so have witnessed the rapid development of the churches in China, which have made great progress in all aspects, including worship and praise. The worship and praise ministry have evolved from singing the traditional hymns, adopting the Canaan Hymns (or a collection of Chinese hymns composed by China's songbird Lv Xiaomin) to the current blossoming of various styles.
However, a brother named Zhao Wei (pseudonym) thinks that although the improvement of worship skills is acknowledgeable, it is more important to form a common understanding of worship among the team members. He has many years of experience as a full-time worship team leader in East China.
Brother Zhao Wei left his hometown at a very young age and went to a worship training school to learn the skills. After graduating from school, he started a full-time career in worship. Now he leads a ministry of Christian music worship in East China.
Currently, there are students studying music skills in Zhao Wei’s team. Brother Zhao hopes that his students can first establish a correct view of worship because he finds that many people’s understanding of worship is rather narrow or even wrong. Quite a few of them just want to learn musical skills and techniques.
So he very much hopes that all people can return to the simple and fiery heart at the beginning of their faith in worship, no matter whether this person is engaged in worship or not.
In addition, he hopes that worship team members can be humble to each other because musicians are people who can be proud so easily. “Over the years, I have met too many musicians who are absolutely individualistic, including me. Some personalities are good, but not all personalities are good. If you want to participate in kingdom ministry, you must have a broad mind; if you are better than me in terms of level and skills, that’s fine. Yet God is always the best. If people can integrate with each other instead of controlling each other, they can facilitate better coordination.”
Being a worship team leader, he is actually not proficient in any one musical instrument, but he has studied every instrument for a period of time in order to know what the other players are playing and why they are making sounds and processing music in a certain way. Therefore, he will ask every player in the band for advice. He learns, for example, from the drummer how to coordinate his hands and feet when playing the drums, he said. “Through learning drumming, I really understand why drummers do what they do in the process of playing music. Before I learned it, I was impressed by the cool beats, but it turned out that it was not about being cool. The real drummer beats exactly to the tempo or rhythm of the music.”
“Later, I learned to play the guitar—the strumming and decomposing. I learned that in performance there is a distinction between accompaniment guitar, chord guitar, and melody guitar. Then I learned how to play the electric guitar and bass. With more knowledge and skills, when I conduct my band, the result is much better harmony among band members in a rehearsal. After the rehearsal, I will let every player speak out their own ideas, and immediately we will try out those ideas as an experiment right there. Even if everyone has different opinions, after they practically go through the experiments, they will basically be very clear on what to do, and no objections will be heard. Because they have gone through various practices, they now have reached a consensus on how best to perform.”
“This is integration. I do not oppress people with authority as the leading person, but I help them integrate with each other to gain a common understanding of worship. This is the approach I am taking now. Because in worship, the band members must do it with a willing heart, even if there is a little reluctance, the member will be stumbled by many voices in the mind. People’s minds are like a scary staff, which, after being entangled, will generate millions of bad ideas.”
There is a significant amount of equipment in the band, and it is heavy. Very often, they need to be carried. However, Brother Zhao told that he, as the leader of the team, usually would not let the players carry the equipment because their hands are used to play musical instruments. If they accidentally hurt their fingers when moving things, their performance would be seriously impacted. But the vocals can help because they only need to hold the microphone when singing. He often says to the singers, “You should carry more because what you usually take is the lightest.”
Additionally, there is the backstage work. Brother Zhao often sternly asks band members to respect the technicians of the stage sound effects. Their work is backstage. The audience cannot see them during the performance. They serve silently and have much work to do. The technicians not only need to put all the equipment (music stands and musical instruments) up but also print out the music scores and carefully arrange them for the players. So they should be appreciated and respected.
- Translated by Charlie Li
