Today most modern churches have replaced traditional instrumentation with rock based bands that lead worshipers in song with guitars, drums, keyboards and the like. Most of this music is guitar driven, which has given guitarists an opportunity to use their talent to serve the church. For those looking to get started playing guitar for worship or to play guitar for church, here are some tips to get you going.
Express Your Interest
When you play, you pray twice!
This saying comes from a banner that hangs next to the band set-up at our church. It’s absolutely true. What you play and what you sing are your prayer as well as your witness. What you convey when you play church guitar says more about you than words could ever say.
Whether you are learning to play church guitar right now, or if you are adapting “secular” guitar playing to fit into sacred music, you are not very far away from performing the music you love. Many of the old Spirituals, such as “Michael Row the Boat Ashore”, as well as the hymns, such as “Amazing Grace” have very easy chord structures and the music is simple to play and/or sing. There is not a lot of adapting that needs to take place with these old and simple songs; if you have played Folk, Rhythm and Blues, or early Rock and Roll, you have played variations of these songs for years.
Over the past couple of decades the “praise band” has become more and more popular in churches. In the past, the only way the average church member participated in the music was singing the hymns with everyone else or singing in the choir. Either way they were singing with a larger group, so if they weren’t very good at singing, it didn’t matter. With the advent of the praise band, that changed and the result has sometimes been pretty bad. So, what do you do when someone who isn’t very good wants to be a part of the band?
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