Why does a successful worship leader need new ways and styles ‘to tell the story’?
Because people have only a vague idea of the gospel...
“There is always the danger that a worship album can be very beautifully produced... but contain no great songs at all!”
Dave Bilbrough stirs his coffee in the underground bistro at St Paul’s cathedral and grins. As one of the pioneer songwriters of the modern charismatic movement, he has written his share of great songs, and reckons that his records today must follow the tradition of the psalmists – who, he observes, knew when they really had something to say, and how to say it.
He is working on that theme for both an album and a new small-theatre show.
“The album is part of a Kingsway Records series called ‘Personal Worship’, which is an attempt to get to the heart of worship leaders, and involves some songs which might not otherwise have seen the light of day - they were just between me and God.
“I did an album called ‘Secret Places’ which was a turning-point towards this. A good producer encouraged me to look deeper into the songs I had laid on the table, and to ask myself if, instead of writing catchy worship songs, could I go deeper in my lyrics?”
Dave’s ‘catchy worship song’ credentials are established. His ‘How Wonderful, How Glorious’ is an accepted charismatic church singalong standard, his ‘I am a new Creation’ pre-dates much of the charismatic revival... and long before that, his first decent song, ‘Abba Father’, was a worldwide favourite. He became a pioneer of modern worship in song by asking why religious music should be written in old-fashioned language.
“I listened to hymns which were very well-meaning, and didn’t do anything for me... but Paul Simon was writing that ‘the words of the prophets were written on the subway walls’, and that hooked me.
“I wanted to bring that feeling into worship. So we started off with fifty of us crammed into a front room, nervously singing new songs, with no accepted liturgy or ground rules to follow... and as music became so important in the new church movement, I got the chance to be in at the forefront of it.”
And today, he still sees a job to be done by new songs and new sounds.
“In the old days, songs told stories – and the great challenge for us today is to tell the story. Our generation learned the story through songs at church and Sunday school... but people don’t do that any more, so now, thirty years on, people have only a vague idea of the gospel.
“So I’m preparing some evenings geared to those on the periphery of the church. It fuses some of the Dylan and Paul Simon secular songs that influenced me, with the ones that tell of my hunger for the everlasting truth. For the audience, this is a safe and non-threatening outreach, and for me it’s a challenge to use my experience of ‘reading’ the mood of a congregation, but on a secular audience.”
There is more to that remark than meets the eye. Dave leads worship in ‘Spirit-led’ churches, where a singer may feel driven to launch into an unexpected song, or a congregation member may stand up and read a prophecy at any moment, or speaking and singing in tongues may happen.
This all needs a leader who can keep his wits about him, because an inexperienced leader can easily lose the plot completely. If, in Dave’s own wonderful phrase, leaders ‘let their brains go out the window’, there may be no way to bring the meeting back under control... a recipe for disaster, he acknowledges cheerfully.
So how on earth does a worship leader dare to control the flow of the Holy Spirit?
“To lose your self-consciousness and go with the flow is a skill, and to know how to bring it back needs some well-oiled experience.
“To go into a 20-minute free-form worship when it isn’t appropriate is just exhibitionism, and to do so and forget to take the people with you is unforgivable. The band may come off and say how well they played, but they may not have fulfilled their job, if they didn’t actually lead the people in worship.
“So, the skill is to know how to be stirred when the prophetic does come upon you, and how to keep control. Although the worship is Spirit-led, you have to remember that God has commissioned the worship leader to give direction.”
Even so, Dave Bilbrough quite typically continues to take a few risks by bringing in new worship styles, particularly in his use of ‘world’ music. While several Christian singers have adopted celtic folk styles, he is one of the few to have gone farther and used barn-dance or Cajun, an even more wild and often breakneck dance music from the swamps of Lousiana. He features African and middle-eastern drums, Tibetan bells, Tamil conch shells, and the occasional Chilean rainstick (it makes a slow ‘whoosh’ sound – very useful for helping contemplative atmosphere along).
How do congregations take to all this?
“If it was just exhibitionism, then it wouldn’t be appropriate – but the reason that ‘world’ music is important is that it reminds us how there are other peoples on the map, and that we are upholding them in our worship.
“If the use of it signifies God stirring and allowing us to broaden our horizons, that’s good.”