London based Lucy Grimble is a worship pastor and writer.
Lucy has been leading worship and writing songs for over 10 years, both as a solo artist and with her talented band of musicians and singers. Her heart in worship is simply to create a space for people to encounter the love of God. In her worship expression and the songs she writes, she want to create a sound that unites people and ignites hearts to love God, love themselves and love one another more.
Based in London, she leads worship, as well as writing and making music. She's released a number of records to date which you can find on all streaming platforms. She also loves to teach workshops on songwriting and worship!
Leading Stripped Back Worship
For me, and I think for so many people, the pandemic has forced us to take our worship back to basics. On a Sunday morning at the church where I am worship pastor, I've been leading live during lockdown, but just me playing the keys and singing. And that has been a huge adjustment, because I'm used to playing with a band on a Sunday morning and making a big sound. And then suddenly we've all been forced to sort of bring it back in and make it basic and make it simple. But it's actually in that process, I've found that these have been some of the most powerful times of worship for me.
I guess I want to start this blog by saying that stripped back worship is not less than big band or big production worship. It is just as powerful and it moves the heart of God! There's so many biblical precedents for stripped back worship the Bible. Think about David playing his harp up on the hills around Jerusalem. Think about Paul and Silas in prison just worshiping with their voices. Think about the disciples in the upper room, gathering together to worship together.
And those I believe were heartfelt, honest, intimate times of worship, but they were also powerful and world-changing. So I just want to encourage you that your worship is powerful, your worship changes atmospheres, whether it's just you leading on your own or whether it is you with a whole band! Our worship - when it's from the heart, when it is pure, when it is honest - it moves the heart of God and that's ultimately what we wanna do. I think the most important thing is in all things just to serve the Lord, making the best of what we have available to us.
I'm gonna move on to some practical tips! I'm mainly focusing this at people who have been forced to strip things back because of the pandemic, or people who are finding themselves leading just by themselves, or maybe with one or two other people.
1. Plan your set and practice
This might sound really basic, and actually I think this applies to all worship, whether it's just one person or a whole band! The more you can prepare, the more you are going to reduce the anxiety and the uncertainty that maybe you would feel when you get up to lead if you haven't prepared.
Think about your song list carefully, be thoughtful about the songs you're choosing. Be honest about your skill level on your instrument. Make sure you've been through it a number of times so that when it comes to the Sunday morning, you can just focus on leading and you don't need to focus on trying to remember the song This really, really helps me! It means that when I get up to lead on a Sunday, what's going through my head isn't, 'oh, I can't remember how that song goes', and 'how does the arrangement go?' or 'how does the structure go?' I'm just thinking 'okay, God, I want to worship you now', and 'I want to just lead people into your presence.' So practice, practice, practice, practice!
2. Practice the transitions between songs.
Again, when you're doing stripped back worship or if it's just two or three of you, transitions can feel awkward and clunky if you haven't practiced them and if you don't intentionally know how you're going to connect the songs together. You really want to avoid awkward gaps in your worship. Intentional gaps are great- if you want to plan in some moments of silence or some moments of reflection, that's amazing. I think what you want to avoid is the unintentional gaps where there is just a forced silence because everybody's a bit lost! Trying to practice transitions so that they can be as seamless as possible, so that the people worshiping along with you don't even notice it's happening and can just stay in that place of worship, is really good.
3. Choose your songs in either in the same key or in a relative key
This helps address the transition problem above, and that means that you can quite easily flow from one song to the next. So for example, if I'm doing the first song in Bb, then maybe I'll do the second song in F and maybe I'll do the third song in C, because they're all relative to each other and it just means it's easy to flow between them. If you're more musically gifted, then by all means, work out some complicated, interesting and juicy transitions between songs! But I think the main aim is to try and make those transitions as intentional and seamless as possible.
4. Encourage people verbally
Trying to worship through a laptop, as a someone who's trying to worship along with you, is a strange experience. It's probably quite a distracting experience. I think it's really important to communicate with the people that you're leading and to encourage them along way, encourage them to stay in that place of worship and to track along with you. You might want to literally encourage them to close their eyes, hold out their hands, do something physical, stand up. You might wanna pray for them, you might wanna share a scripture as an encouragement. The more you can try and make it a more of a two way interactive thing, encouraging people verbally through the set, the more encouraged and engaged people will feel.
5. Encourage people to actually remove distractions from the room that they're in
I lead a worship night with a friend of mine called Jake Isaac, which are intimate nights of worship in the round, with 150 people max. What we do on those nights is to encourage people to remove probably one of the greatest distractions that we all have in our lives: the mobile phone. We encourage people just to turn their phones off or put them away for the whole night. We say that we don't really want people to take photos, we don't want people to video the event, we don't wanna see it on social media. We just want people to be in the room and to be focused on connecting with God! You might want to try that with your congregation, the people that you're leading. Just encourage them, 'we're gonna worship for 20 minutes or half an hour. Maybe put the phone away and just focus on connecting with God, and let's make this time sacred and precious.'
6. Relax!
When you're leading in a stripped back way, it can feel like a lot of pressure and it can feel like you're very exposed and vulnerable. It's so important that you enjoy it, that you relax, and that you feel confident in that place. Things that really help me are:
- To pray before I lead, or to get someone else to pray for me for the set.
- Just sit at my keyboard and close my eyes and meditate on a scripture to remind myself that God is right there with me. That just fills me with confidence because I know if God is with me in worship, then we can just have some fun.
I hope those tips are helpful to you! And I just really pray that you're blessed as you worship, whether it's in a stripped back way or whether it's with a full band. I pray that you just really grow in confidence as you worship Jesus and as you lead people into His presence.
Lucy's new song (featuring Matt Redman) Nothing Can Separate is available right now - follow the link below to listen, plus find the official chord chart and sheet music right here on WeAreWorship. If you want to hear more from Lucy, head to her website.
NOTHING CAN SEPARATE LISTEN NOW