Archives For Training

Which Kind of Passion do You Have?

Ryan Egan —  March 16, 2007 — 4 Comments

One of the mission pastors in the Lifechurch.tv network has a post on Swerve today which I think is really important to remember.

If a group is struggling I always ask the leader what fueled their desire to lead in the beginning.  In nearly every case, the leader discovered that the group had strayed from its original purpose for beginning, which was the leader’s source of passion. As leaders we have to stay connected to our passion point.  Drift from it and the people you lead will shrivel up and eventually leave.  But, if you stay connected to it and lead with passion, you will draw people who will follow you with the same level of intensity.  In the immortal words of John Wesley, “When you set yourself on fire, people love to come and see you burn.”

Our passion is the first thing we cannot compromise.  But here is the problem: what is it that we are truly passionate about?  I believe there are two kinds of passion, and one of them is not good.  And, unfortunately, even people who are leaders in the church can get caught up in this passion and it will destroy them.

It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God;” 1 Thess. 4:3-5

This, certainly is a kind of passion that many people are involved in.  Lust will destroy you, and uncontrolled, unconfessed lust will destroy your ministry.  If you are a church leader dealing with this, get help!  Many other places throughout the New Testament, Paul talks about getting rid of worldly desires and passions.

Now, the second kind of passion is the kind Jesus had.  It was a burning desire to see people come to know Him and to live for Him.  It was with power and authority that He taught to the people.  Even after His resurrection, He was passionate:

After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.” Acts 1:3 (emphasis added)

So, Jesus’ passion is what we need, and it is a passion that should not be compromised.  But now, here’s where I would love some feedback.  What happens when you burn out?  What happens when you pour so much passion into a ministry that you just can’t take it anymore?  How do you keep this from happening?  I have some thoughts…but I’d love to hear yours.

In Leadership, Training
permalink

Tuesday Training – Piano Playing vs. Keyboard Playing

Ryan Egan —  March 6, 2007 — Leave a comment

I believe that understanding the difference between playing the piano and playing the keyboard is one of the most difficult concepts for church worship teams.  Most churches have two types of musicians:

  • The musician who reads notes really well but can’t read a chord sheet.
  • Or the musician who can’t read notes at all but can play from a chord sheet perfectly.

Most piano players are the former.  For whatever reason, most piano players grow up learning how to read music very well, but are never taught to apply basic music theory.  Yes, most piano techniques go through music theory, but I don’t think teachers help students apply it enough.

So, is there a difference between piano playing and keyboard playing?  Absolutely. We’ll get into why it’s important later.

The Difference Between Playing Piano and Playing Keyboard

The main difference between playing piano and playing keyboard is this:  the piano player always wants to be in charge of the music, and the keyboard player knows how to submit to the whole of the group.  For instance, what’s the first thing you notice when you see a piece of music written for praise and worship teams?  It’s a piano part that plays everything. The piano has the melody, chord harmony, and bass, all in one part!

Unfortunately, most praise and worship teams at churches aren’t blessed with a full band, so the piano usually acts as the whole band.  Now, for a setting without a whole band, this actually almost works.  The piano needs to play the bass and the harmony, but if there are strong, confident singers, the piano shouldn’t play the melody.  This is the beginning of learning to be a keyboard player instead of a piano player: knowing what not to play.

Playing With A Group as Opposed to Playing Solo

Now, if the church is blessed with a whole band, it is even more important that the piano part becomes less and less.  When an acoustic guitar and drums are carrying the rhythm, the piano doesn’t need to play every note that’s written on the page.  When there is a strong bass player involved, the piano should not play the bass notes at all.  When there is a whole band involved, and the piano keeps on playing every part, everything gets very muddy, and the crisp clean professional sound that is needed isn’t there.

Playing the keyboard involves learning to listen to who’s playing what, and off when it is necessary.  Unfortunately for many people who have played the piano for years, this can become quite boring!  But, for the greater good of the team, sometimes the keyboardist needs to be a bit bored to make it all sound good.  Many times, electric guitar players will just play one chord every four measures.  Now that’s boring!!

The keyboard player learns to fill in the cracks where there is no vocal going on with nice melodic fills.  The keyboard player learns how to use strings, pads, and many other cool things that add lots of texture to the band.

Is piano playing now abolished?  Absolutely not!  There are many times when the piano should drive a song, and the piano parts can be played as a beautiful compliment to the rest of the band.

So, how do you learn how to do all these things and learn how to become a keyboard player instead of a piano player?  And why is it important to understand these concepts? Those are topics for another post…stay tuned.

Are you more of a keyboard player or a piano player?

In Training
permalink

Tuesday Training: DON’T Do it Yourself

Ryan Egan —  February 27, 2007 — Leave a comment

I was going to blog on the difference between playing piano and playing keyboard, but frustration with designing this blog has led me to a different post.

I’m decently average at quite a few things, including internet languages.  I can find my way around html code, can sort of decipher php code well enough to understand it a little bit, I can sort of do css code. I can run most computer applications fairly well, but….

I’m only great and well-skilled at a few things.  I am not skilled enough to tweak and design this blog on my own, as I found it after breaking a few things and having to reinstall a few things today, so I really need to ask for help from someone who’s really skilled at php and css.

So often we as leaders think that we can do everything ourselves.  We live in a society with D.I.Y. TV shows and magazines.  But we need to realize that we need to ask for help. Asking for help shows that we posess a few things that leaders should have:

  • Humility. We aren’t afraid to admit that we don’t know how to do something and can’t do it.
  • Trust. We need to be able to empower others and let them know that we trust them with something important to us.
  • Encouragement. We need to able to encourage others and help them use their skills whever they can.

It is especially important for those of use who are young that we ask for help and never assume that we are smarter than those who are in authority over us.  It’s Biblical to submit to authority and as Peter writes

“Young men, in the same way be submissive to those who are older. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 1 Peter 5:5

I think it’s vitally important that we get help for things that we can’t do on our own.  So, when this blog is finally looking the way it’s supposed to, don’t credit me!

At what kinds of things do you just have to say “I need help! I can’t do it myself.”?

In Leadership, Training
permalink

Leading Worship Without Distraction

Ryan Egan —  February 20, 2007 — Leave a comment

One of the greatest challenges that worship leaders who oversee a team of church musicians have is the whole issue of quality vs. quantity.  Bob Kauflin just wrote his response to quality or quantity on the worship team.

The first thing he says is “Don’t apologize for using the most gifted musicians to serve.”

I agree, but those musicians need to be humble and understand the purpose of the worship team or it won’t work.

Our job as worship leaders is to help use music and the Word to point people to Jesus without distraction. One of those distractions can be someone always buried in their music, focusing so hard on making sure they know where they are.  One of those distractions can be someone who knows that they know the music, and lets everyone else know by not having a servant heart.

When you can get a combination of someone who is very gifted musically, and very humble and knows that they are on the platform to point people to Jesus, beautiful things can happen.  Distractions from not knowing the music are eliminated and distractions from arrogance are eliminated.  The people see a musician who is dedicated to glorifying God with his gifts and they are able to glorify God all the more through the music.

So, if you are a worship leader, teach how to be confident.  Don’t just be the only confident one on the team.  Train and equip.  If you are on the team, practice. Get to know music so well that it comes naturally, and so that you can then just focus on worshipping Jesus with all your strength.

What do you do to minimize distractions in corporate worship?

In Leadership, Training
permalink

* Updated: The Learning Process (or how I learned the hard way how to take care of my guitar)

Ryan Egan —  February 13, 2007 — 4 Comments

Are you a life-long learner?  I used to be so bored with school and used to not care about it at all.  I am working through some issues in my life that really hindered how good of a student I could have been.  And I am finally learning to actually want to learn.

Part of learning is being responsible.  And unfortunately for me, I’m learning responsibility the hard way.

If you have (or are planning to get) a nice instrument (for example, a Martin DXME Dreadnaught acoustic guitar), take care of it! You know that little booklet that came with it that says, “The care and feeding of your Martin guitar?”  Yeah.  Read it!  You know the advice that the people at the music store give you?  Yeah.  Listen to them!  You know those little humidifiers that you can buy to keep your instrument in good shape?  Buy them and use them. You can also get a hygrometer which monitors the temperature and relative humidity in your instrument case.  Way cool.

Unfortunately, a temperature change and me not taking responsibility for my instrument has caused the top to cave in and dry out.  There is maybe some hope that with re-humidification I can salvage it, but I’m not getting my hopes too high.

So, the lesson I have learned is that if you have an opportunity to learn something new, do it.  Don’t just glance at the instruction booklet and toss it to the side and hope you’ll do things right.

With that in mind, if you are a life-long learner and you are interested in knowing more about things involved with worship within the church, Worship Leader magazine is going to be offering online correspondence courses that look awesome!  They range from song-writing to production to sound mixing to personal accountability.  They are going to be offering these courses for $39.  You can find the general information here or you can register here.  The only problem I have with these is that they are only 1-hour long classes.  $40 for 1 hour seems a bit steep, but at least they’re offering them!

So, always keep learning, and hopefully you’ll avoid learning the hard way.

Please let my guitar be okay, please please please 🙂

*Well, as of today, March, 2nd, my guitar is actually looking like it’s going to be revived!  I’ve been making sure to keep it humidified and trying to get it back to the right level of humidity, and right now there’s still a little bit of a warp in it, but it plays beautifully again!  Hopefully it will completely un-warp.

What hard lessons have you learned in your life that have forced you to make better decisions?

In Training
permalink