Worship Leading – 7 Keys to Becoming Invisible

Posted by on Jul 16, 2018 in GT BLOG |

Worship Leading – 7 Keys to Becoming Invisible

1. Worship Jesus in private
The secret of Jesus’ public success was His time spent in the secret place. In fact, Jesus said that He only spoke what the Father revealed to Him. Spending private time with Jesus in prayer, Bible reading and private worship is the main key to having a strong sense of His presence with you in your public worship time.

2. Live your life totally surrendered to God
True worship is surrendering your life to God. Paul said it this way…
I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all He has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind He will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship Him. ~ Romans 12:1 NLT
God is looking for people who are willing to lay down their own dreams and desires and follow Him completely. God will use you in ways beyond what you can even dream about if you willing lay down your life for Him.

3. Know the music so well that you rarely have to think about it
Leading worship at a strong level includes many activities that go on at the same time. There is singing, remembering lyrics, playing an instrument, remembering the chord structure and form, leading the band, engaging the congregation and the list goes on.
The more you have the music memorized, the more time you have to focus on the two most important things: Worshiping Jesus and leading your congregation to worship Jesus.

4. Rehearse the team so well that the music is second nature
As the leader of the worship team, you need to spend enough time in rehearsal for them to feel so comfortable with the music that they can also worship. Having a whole team on stage totally focused on worshiping Jesus is a very powerful key to becoming invisible in worship.
When people see the whole team totally engaged that encourages them to do the same. And paradoxically that leads them to focusing on Jesus and not the worship team.

5. Lead your congregation from just singing songs to worshiping Jesus
The first part of the worship service is often moving people from singing about the Lord to singing directly to Him. To do that successfully, you often need to pick songs that are upbeat, and easy to sing. From there you move people along to singing strong worship songs that are sung directly to the Lord. It is so important to pick songs that don’t just sing about Jesus but songs that move your heart to directly worship God.

6. Make sure your body language matches what you are singing
Your body language speaks stronger than your words. If your singing about the joy of knowing the Lord and your face speaks the opposite, people will get the message that you don’t believe what you are singing. When people sense and see your sincerity in worship that will lead them to focus more on worshiping Jesus themselves.

7. Purposely lead people to Jesus
My goal on Sunday mornings is to lead people to focusing on the Lord. I use the song choice, song list progression, musical keys and musical transitions with that one purpose: leading people to worship Jesus. That’s my main purpose as a leader and follower of Jesus: lead people to Jesus. Jesus is the one who saves them, heals them, gives them peace, gives them direction and brings joy into their lives. It’s all about Jesus.

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Worship Song Band App (Tutorial)

Posted by on May 5, 2018 in GT BLOG |

Here at GUIDETRACKS, we highly recommend the Worship Song Band App as your playback software for playing your multitracks.  All of our library is formatted for the WSB app. (Note – you MUST purchase the “WSB FILE PACKAGE” of the multitrack you are wanting.)

Here is a great tutorial that will show you all the function the WSB App offers for you.

You can download the app at :

http://www.worshipsong.com/band/about-worshipsong-band

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HOW TO SETUP GUIDETRACKS

Posted by on Feb 15, 2017 in GT BLOG |

This can feel overwhelming to read, but don’t’ be. You will be so glad you made this change and wish you had been doing it sooner.

First off, this is very common in the performance business and church worship ministries have greatly embraced it. Churches and Artists like Lakewood, Gateway Worship, Bethel Worship, Desperation Band (New Life Church), Jesus Culture, Passion, and many others use this concept.

Set-up:

Many churches are using in-ears systems for their monitoring. If you are not, you need to! It will solve many of your sound frustrations. There are many different ones out there. Some are more expensive than others. If budget is an issue, there is a great inexpensive way to do it.

Guidetracks can be set up in a couple different ways. One way is in a R/L stereo track. On the left is the click and voice guide of the song. On the right is the mix (pads, gtr, vocals, perc.). The other way is using a multi-track software (Abletone, Protools, DP, Logic, etc) and a multi out i/o interface. With the stereo track, you simply send the click/guide to the ears only and the mix instruments goes to the house. With the multi-track mix, same setup but your audio engineer has the ability to mix all the backing tracks separately (which they will prefer).

If you are only planning on using a click, then you send the click to the ears only for the band to hear. It is recommended that either the drummer or a band leader run the machine. Most metronomes have presets and are easy to use.

How to use them in the mix:

In-ears  – It is important that the click is clear in the drummers ears and your rhythm instruments.  Keeping time is very important.  Teach your musicians and even vocalists to relay on the click.  You will find that your band will be much tighter in there timing together.

House mix – The enhancement (additional instruments / vocals) track is a great tool for your audio engineers.  They should use that track to be there limiter in there mix.  Using a mix level 10-0 (10-highest level, 0-lowest level), your track level should be at the 8-9 level.  This allows your engineers to be able to place all other instruments in there supportive place. 

Bonus Tip:

The cues that are in the click side of the mix (that go to the in-ears only) is a great tool as well to send to your media/lyrics person in there own headphone mix.  This allows them to heart the cues in the song at really help eliminate wrong lyrics being put up on the screen. 

Low Budget In-Ear Solutions:

  • If your budget is super tight and a full blown in-ear system is not possible, you can start by just sending your drummer the click and the cues to a small mixer with a couple channels on it. (Behringer Micromix MX400)

– Your next step in your budget is getting a headphone distribution rack unit (normally 8 channels per rack – $140) and using headphone extension cables to each musician and vocalist.   

  • With this unit (Powerplay P1 Personal Monitor Amplifier – $50), you can send an auxiliary mix directly to your drummer.   

Hopefully this has opened your thoughts to a great tool that will truly help your team in so many ways. 

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