Last weekend I received an email response from a fellow worship leader ministering in Haiti. I was humbled by her kind words and gently reminded of the truth that really worship is all about the heart. A fact I know and believe, but just reinforced by the heart of Ann and her love of leading others to worship God without all of the cushy stuff we have at our fingertips in America. She was responding to my "10 Things on Worship Leading", "10 More Things on Worship Leading" and "Choosing Worship Songs" category.
I asked Annie if I could share her story here on this site and she said "yes"! Please pray for Annie and other worship leaders working hard to offer God all that they are in physical conditions that are challenging in hopes of helping others see the glory of Christ through worship. Here's her story:
Hey, My name is
Annie K.. I lead worship for an intra denominational church in ministering in
English in Haiti
.. Yep we have them all.. from
Mennonites to Assemblies. My family and I have lived here for 12 years. This
is where God begun the work of erasing the lines of the box I had put him in.
We have a very eclectic team. I'm the worship leader under the pastor. We have
a fantastic pianist, that but for the grace of God we actually have a grand
piano.. HUGE step up from off-key upright we used for years. (long story) In
the last 3 years we went from Hymns only to a combo of Hymns and choruses. I
laughed when I read that the first step for Grace was to buy the older praise
books.. THAT’S exactly what we have. (Thank you Lord for internet resources!)
We added drums 2 years ago (no plastic cage though lol )along with a bass
guitarist. Wow, we were humming then. Now we have 2 other vocalists, and our
bass guy.. returned to Costa
Rica
, only to be replaced by a 16 year old
anointed Guatemalan young man. WOW. Any given Sunday we have no less than 3
sometimes 4 different nationalities working to pull worship together. English is
the common language but that doesn't mean that every one has perfect English..
So I flip into Creole, to help my Haitian brothers and sisters, and try to slow
it down, because I talk fast naturally for my Spanish speakers. I myself am not
a musician, I can read music, I can sing lead.. nope can't sing harmony because
I just can't hear it.. frustrating. I love it when I find people to sing
harmony with the team. We have a transient team because Missionaries that are
not pastors, ie lay people like teachers, mechanics, and embassy people and UN
people get moved a lot.. So my team consists of who is actually available in our
congregation this month. Very few has a long term commitment to this country.
I think my family, and three other families are the long termers here at this
point. Out of a congregation of 300, we lost 20 key families last year to
attrition, for various reasons, and not the things like.. well I don't like the
music, but things like "our mission is pulling us to another country" or our
contract is up and so we are moving back to ______ fill in the blank for what
ever country they may have been from. We have 1/3 our congregation is Haitian
Males who are there to try out their English, about 1 percent of those men are
serious and committed to the church. We just added one such man to the team, as
I watched him for over a year and felt that he really has a worshippers heart.
His first answer was no. I loved that! He came back the next week and said.. Ok
I prayed about it and I will try. Several times a month, I get young men who
walk into the church for the first time and come up to me and say.. "I sing" me
sing with you week next?" Most of the time we require a year before you can
step into such positions.
If there was one
thing I would add to your list of 10 things to know about leading worship is..
(our motto) We strive for excellence, but only God is perfect and if it (the
set) messes up. Let it go right away, and stay in worship mode. One of the
things I've learned is I keep a entire section of scriptures printed in LARGE
text in my worship book, so that as the spirit leads, I pull these scriptures of
encouragement, exhortation for those in between times that we have to change
keys or we have a lull, or while a microphone glitches
etc.
All of this comes
from the point of view that we worship in a large cement building with exposed
metal rafters and a tin roof, and open windows. (it’s a sound tech nightmare).
The words are still projected on a old fashioned overhead projector with
plastic film. We have no A/C and our sound board has only 6 input places.
Sometimes we have electricity, most times the generator works. Medium temp is
usually 90 degrees and higher.
I loved your time
line for your team.. ours is like this.. Kendall
family loads into the car at 7:00 sharp, stops by
mission generator house to change generators.. (wait 5 minutes for change over)
Pray and hit the road.. arrive at church any where from 7:45 to 8:05.. you never
know what traffic/road blocks will be like. My son runs the sound board with a
new trainee, they quick set up what we think will walk through the door in the
next 15 to 35 minutes. At 8:30 little kids get the sanctuary for their praise
time for 15 minutes or more. We as a team are praying and going through Gods
word in prep.. as the little ones scamper out of the sanctuary to their outdoor
classes we, pick up our chairs, move them back into the sanctuary.. and begin to
practice. Which means we will do our service back to back (practice then
service) of course the entire Sunday School classes can hear what we are
practicing so we try to keep it low volume, but some weeks its hard. Hate to
upset the teachers and classes. Any given week team members get called away, or
can't get to the church or something unexpected happens. So unless it’s the
pianist (who is Haitian) he always calls me in advance if he can't make it for
some strange reason. We run on the fly. It has stretched this very organized
mother of 6 children, to make changes at the very last minute.. let it go and
move on. Our pianist came from a conservative background where in their church
it was the worship leader who started the music and pianist who found what ever
key the church was now singing in! Very different from this style. I
have found myself on a spotty cell phone (very spotty in this third world
country) calling for a back up pianist on the way to church when I had no
guitarists. There have been Sunday's when I've said.. Ok.. Lord you'd better
bring someone quick or I'll be leading acappela the entire service.. eeks! We
pump praise music through our car, and try not to talk about stuff of the week..
having to drive an hour helps to begin to get your focus in
line.
The term vertical
mode is new to me, but I intend to use it this tomorrow.. Love that term.
I didn't mean for it
to be so long... Bless you .. keep bloggin, you have blessed me
today!
