praise_team_92203

Posted: 9/19/03

Everyone's the praise team at this church

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

NEW BRAUNFELS--First Baptist Church may have the largest praise team in the world. At least the music minister thinks that way when planning worship services.

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Posted: 9/19/03

Everyone's the praise team at this church

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

NEW BRAUNFELS–First Baptist Church may have the largest praise team in the world. At least the music minister thinks that way when planning worship services.

Wally Black views his full 35-person choir as the praise team and the congregation as the choir when planning worship services.

The notion has nothing to do with worship styles. Bringing several members of the choir forward to sing with microphones does not match Black's theology, he said. The sounds of praise are depicted biblically as a multitude of voices pointed toward heaven, not a couple of people singing in front, Black noted.

Praise teams can hurt a choir psychologically, he argued. They can make non-members of the praise team feel they are less important than those at the front. Black works to accomplish the opposite effect.

“I want every one of my choir members to feel important,” he explained. “I want every one of them to feel like leaders of worship.”

His image of a corporation of worship leaders is apparently making a mark on the choir members. Diana Clendenin, a choir member, pictures worship as “people who are so enraptured with God that they forget who they are and give themselves to God.” The choir is key in achieving that at First Baptist Church, she said.

“They believe what they are singing. They believe the words coming out of their mouths,” Clendenin said of the choir members. “They're ministers.”

The worship service is directed toward God, Black said. If God is the only one to hear the voices of the congregation, that is sufficient, he added.

“That's what worship is. It's singing to an audience of one,” he said. “It's us in front of the Lord.”

God-centered worship is one of the 11 characteristics of healthy churches adopted by the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

At First Baptist, church leaders use a variety of musical pieces to serve a congregation that runs the age gamut. Black writes or arranges all the music he uses in the services. Music includes a wide range of hymns and praise choruses. Occasionally he weaves a hymn and a chorus into one piece.

While he enjoys newer material, he believes the stories behind hymns add depth to the songs, and the lyrics provide theological information that believers need. Songs remain with people longer than a sermon, he said.

“I'm not one of those guys that's stuck in the past. At the same time, I'm not going to be divorced from the past,” Black said. “You always have to go to lyrics. As worship leader, I have a responsibility that for 20 or 30 minutes people are going to focus on 200 to 300 words of my choice.”

Black ties the music together thematically and connects it to Pastor Regan Miller's sermon when there is a long-term topic schedule.

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