In this episode, we explore the power of music and its role in our emotional well-being. Our guest, Abigail Williams, dives into the authenticity of music and how it should be used as a tool rather than a manipulative weapon. Abigail shares her experiences crafting worship sets at North Point church and the importance of starting with accessible songs before progressing to more focused content. We also discuss the challenges of giving and receiving feedback, particularly for women in the industry. Abigail sheds light on the unique pressures of leading worship at North Point and the balancing act between production and worship. We also touch on the significance of cultivating gratitude, seeking God’s guidance, and embracing discipline in the role of a worship leader.
Aaron:
Hey, Abigail, thanks so much for joining us. You are a worship leader by trade, and I know you have a few other things that you’re doing, but I would love for you just to tell us a little bit more about yourself.
Abigail:
And we yeah, thanks for having me, Aaron. I am so excited to be here. Yeah, I have been leading worship for over 15 years, maybe 16, maybe 18. Time eludes me, but I’ve been leading worship for a long time. I started, like probably many people did when I was in the high school band. And I had a good friend of mine, Roland Williamson, who kind of really fanned the flame of the worship leading career for me. And I’ve been leading at North Point, which is how you and I know each other, obviously, for about 13 years, 13 or 14, maybe. Coming up on 14. Yeah. So for a long time as a job, for a long time as a volunteer, I’m a Baptist pastor’s kid. So kind of grew up making the church services happen with my family, but it became a quote, unquote job about 14 years ago.
Dealing with scrutiny as a worship leader
Aaron:
Okay, very cool. Yeah, we met, like, seven years ago. And I would really love to just dive into sort of like, how has been your experience on stage with so many people? Like people like me, like some of our service programming directors scrutinizing every little thing that you do. And has there been ebbs and flows to that? Are we in an ebb? Are we in a flow? How’s that experience for you right now?
Abigail:
That’s such a fun question, Aaron. It’s a great question, in my opinion, because, yeah, it is hard. It has been hard at times feeling like as a worship leader, I’ve been under a microscope and sometimes a microscope with a scalpel behind it. When I first started singing at North Point, it was something I really wanted to do because I really admired the quality of the production. Not for the sake of the production itself, but because I felt that it was a nondistracting environment where people could come to church and pray and sing and encounter God without feeling uncomfortable. Or maybe, oh, if the transitions are bad. I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling awkward when I show up to an event and transitions are bad. Or if it’s not, everybody messes up.
Sometimes I myself mess up every time I walk on the stage. But I was really drawn to North Point’s level of dedication to excellence for the sake of reaching the unbeliever or the unchurched person as well as the person who is. So I understood coming into it that the high level of excellence was not to harm me, but to protect something in the service and to help elevate my work. It did come with a set of challenges back when I started leading at North Point. Some of us who lead around there will giggle about this. We used to record rehearsal, which we still do, but we would have to wait at the end because it would be burned on a CD. So the rehearsal would be burned on a CD and we would drive home and put that CD into our CD player in the car and listen back.
And what a lot of people who don’t sing on stage, maybe with in-ear monitors or with the opportunity to hear a playback that’s unedited is that you might be a solid singer who has great pitch, but there are times where you think you hear something that you don’t hear. And sometimes when you get that CD, you’re like, wow, I was really pitchy in that section. And I have no idea how that happened. And for me, a lot of the microscope involved being willing to listen to myself in a very microscopic level. The house where the congregation or the audience is sitting, whatever word you want to use where they’re sitting, it’s much more forgiving you’ve. Got a lot of great, beautiful things happening from these professional sound mixers. But back when we were getting sent home with these CDs, there was no tampering, no help, no reverb, nothing super.
You’re just hearing you and yourself out there and it was very humbling. It was humbling, but it was a good experience because it helped me to grow as a worship leader, because I became more dedicated to understanding what my craft was and how to hone that stuff in. I will say I had it. Oh, sorry, go ahead.
Aaron:
No, I was just going to say how have you figured out the balance between listening to that dry mix sounding? I mean, I would imagine it’s very vulnerable.
Abigail:
Oh, very. I mean, I would call it trash, Aaron. When I listen to it, I call it trash. Nobody’s harder on anybody themselves than themselves.
Aaron:
So you’re listening to that dry mix and then where’s that balance between that dry mix and then what you know, that the audience is going to experience because it’s two very different things. So do you really scrutinize that dry mix to death or do you give yourself grace? Or is that a learning process? Do you have to learn to give yourself grace?
Abigail:
That’s a great question. Let me take that back. I’m assuming for every worship leader, there’s a different path. But for me, it was kind of all of those things. I’ve had seasons where I’ve been like, I’m trash. This is terrible. I can’t believe anybody would pay me to do this. Then I’ve had seasons where I’m like, I’m going to put this to the side. I’m actually not going to listen to the playback.
There was a season where I refused to listen to playback, not because I was trying in any way to be unprofessional, but I knew it was distracting me to the point where I’m overly hyper focused on this. And now I’m in my head so much that I was becoming paralyzed. And so I took a season off from listening. Then I started listening again and started being gentler with myself, kinder to myself, because during that time, the people on the other side of me in the room, the SPD directors production, they were giving me feedback that said, wow, that sounds great. It feels full in the house.
So I was thankfully hearing other people who were out in the house who were contradicting the dry mix that I heard. And the great news is, I know, you know, what I’m hearing in my in ears is not the same as what I was hearing on that CD. You know what I mean? So the good news is that what I was hearing in my ears live was at least still a loving and forgiving mix because I made it with the monitor person. I curated it to my hopes and dreams.
So thankfully, that also helps. But there are just times where I’ve had to put that to the side. There were times where it was oppressive to me to listen to playback and time where it was helpful and what my experience was that working through that self doubt and even honestly for me, at times, shame. Because as a performer, sometimes for me, it’s hard not to equate my performance with if I’m a worthy person or not.
Sometimes I feel ashamed if I feel like I didn’t do a good job, but through that journey of, okay, I’m listening, this is awful to okay, I’m not going to listen. I’m going to be myself. To okay, now I’m more comfortable with who I am. I’ve had helpful feedback from the people on the other side of me. I’m going to take a listen again, and I’m going to just continue to hone. And I would just hone in on it, perhaps during the week, and then I would put it to the side and say, okay, I’m going to fix my breath support here. I’m going to focus here. I’m going to turn the keys up. So I tend to take my pitch reference off of the keys.
Growing up, it was the acoustic guitar for me, but now it’s the keys for me because acoustics, as we know, can get out of tune. That keyboard ain’t going nowhere. So if I need to crank it up now, I use it as helpful feedback. What used to feel like a condemnation now for me is just information. It no longer dictates to me my worth. I know that I’m not a perfect singer. I know I do a great job. I know now from hearing the most famous singers in the world, if you can hear their mixes, sometimes what they’re hearing in their in ears.
Taking feedback as a worship leader
Aaron:
One thing that I find interesting from sitting back and watching, because that mostly is my job. If everything is running smoothly, I’m very much an observer in the control rooms, and so I like it when I’m an observer. Of course.
And also being involved in all the programming meetings and stuff like that, and then feedback meetings and stuff like that. I know that there’s been major conversations on prayer moments and wrapping up a worship set or starting a worship set. Hey, are we going to welcome the crowd in these first four bars of the song? He did it great, but she didn’t. How is getting that kind of feedback? And are there better ways to do it than maybe you’ve received?
Abigail:
I’ve received, from several different campuses, different types of feedback. Every campus, as we know, has their own SPD director, and there are different people who give feedback, and some people are better at giving helpful feedback, and some people it comes out as a criticism. So for me, there’s also been a journey with that.
At first, getting those notes felt like death because I was afraid I was going to lose my job. Now, I want to be clear. Nobody was telling me, if you don’t do this perfectly, you will lose your job. And in fact, I worked with some of the most wonderful, gracious, generous people on the planet. I mean, truly I did. I was just so afraid because the quality of excellence was so high. The level of excellence was so high that I was afraid if I wasn’t perfect every time, they might realize that, uhoh, she’s just a fraud.
I definitely think most performers, not all, but many of us suffer from that impostor syndrome. And so I never felt like I belonged anyway. I kept thinking, they’re going to figure out any day now that I am absolutely terrible at this and they’re not going to call me back. It makes me laugh now in a healthy way, but, I mean, this was a very real fear for many years.
Once again, I was surrounded by loving people. But that’s just kind of sometimes the nature of working in a high excellence environment is that we all want to live up to it.
So the feedback can be challenging. I started when women did not give as much feedback on stage, or I should say, set up. We didn’t set up as much we didn’t set up the moments quite as much as men did. Usually there were two males and one female, or one male and two females, but we weren’t going to have as many songs to lead. We didn’t necessarily have my experience as many vision moments or prayer up. I felt like I was given way more opportunity than I ever had been in the past, but it still wasn’t to me what it is now. Now I could be on stage with just female leads.
That never happened for me 12-13 years ago. That wasn’t a thing. So sometimes my experience was that I would notice that men were given more opportunities to mess up than women. And I don’t think that was intentional. I do not. I want to clearly say that’s my next question. Yeah, I really think it was just one of those. Here’s the thing, Aaron. We had boundaries, right? So most of the leadership at the campuses that I were at were male leaders.
So they could take the other male worship leaders to lunch or to coffee, and they’re mentoring them, and they’re walking them through, here’s how you think through a setup, here’s how you think through this vision moment. And they’re giving them all this private coaching that is appropriate from male to male.
But like, I am a single female and I’m coming in and there’s all these married men around and we could get together at the church or in certain environments, but there was just what felt like a lot of barriers to getting helpful coaching. And for a while it was just tricky because we didn’t have a lot of women who were who were giving us coaching on things like that, specifically like setting up a vision moment. So for me, and again, this is just my experience, I’m not speaking for everyone. Other people may have had a very different experience.
But my experience was that I was terrified when I was given those moments because I thought, I really hope I don’t screw this up because they may not ask me again for a long time. And that was my experience. If I did something and it was shaky or off, I probably was not going to get asked again for six months to maybe even a year.
And nerves. Not many people perform at their best under pressure. Some do, not many do. And so often I would see that it wasn’t that people weren’t capable of doing well. It was just we needed more reps. We needed to put in more reps. And so that feedback that you were asking about in your original question of, okay, maybe this person did it well, but maybe not this person, and how does that feel?
It was tricky at times. Sometimes it felt a little bit like walking on eggshells and trying to figure it out. And everybody was trying to root for everybody. I really feel like we were all being given opportunity, but some of it just by the nature of the demographic back then, was just going to naturally lean in one way. Whereas now, like I said, there are women everywhere where I work. Most of my feedback is from women these days. It’s a little different than when I started 14 years ago.
Yeah, that’s interesting. I never really thought about that. But yeah, you’re right. Do you find that when you’re at another church, do you find that to be very similar in that getting feedback or getting those prayer moments or things like that? Or is it because I mean, North Point does things very specifically because of how we decided to do church, but other churches are more willing to have a longer prayer or longer vision and stuff like that. Do you find that to be the case?
Abigail:
Yeah, that’s a great question, because something people who may not be in the circle of North Point may not know is that most of our setups and prayers and stuff do have a clock. Now, there was a time where it was like, you literally have 1 minute and 10 seconds. Do not go a second over. And I used to baby write them down, practice it out. I mean, I had that sucker memorized. I was terrified.
And I want to say I was very encouraged when those I remember Todd Fields used to work there, and Todd encouraged me a lot. I realized that what I said earlier may sound like it was male to female negative, but I had a lot of male encouragement. It’s just that I wasn’t able to get in the same reps of coaching, if that makes sense.
That’s really it. But I had a lot of encouragers like Todd Fields or Eddie Kirkland or Reed Grevin. I mean, all of these people who were telling me you can do it, but it was like little snippets here and there instead of sitting down and working through the process. So those time clocks and stuff were terrifying to me. But I am a performer. I’m also an actor and a speaker, and so for me that wasn’t too too foreign, whereas I have a lot of other musician friends who that was a very foreign idea.
So the idea of wrapping all of this up felt fine. Putting a bow on it was fine. But now, 70 seconds, I don’t know about that. That was challenging. My experience was largely at North Point because that’s mostly where I am. I’ve been there at North Point or a surrounding campus almost every single Sunday for the last 13-14 years. Now, when I’ve gone to other churches around, I’ve had really great experiences, but most of them have been very similar to how North Point is run.
Some of them are more lenient, which is great. I love going somewhere where they’re like, you do. You great. I got eight days. I usually don’t take it all eight days, but it can feel nice to do that. But I appreciate what North Point is trying to do, and I don’t have a problem with it, if that makes sense. My attitude in the approach was you serve the place that you’re at. So when I’m at North Point and the leadership and the vision that I know is crafted, I’ve said yes to. And so they’re asking me to do this task. And so I would approach it with, I said yes to this. I agreed to it.
So I’m going to come under and support their vision. This is not the Abigail show. It’s not Abigail’s vision. And so how do I say if I feel like God’s put something on my heart to say what I need to say in a way that’s honoring to the place that’s asked me. And on a rare occasion, I have felt very rare. I have felt like it’s not possible in these parameters for me to say what I feel moved to say. So I’m actually just going to ask, hey, could somebody else do it?
That’s pretty rare for me that that happens, but it has happened a couple of times where I just knew what I have to say won’t fit this moment and your needs. And so I’m going to pause and give this prompt at a different place at a different time. But usually it comes that I can pray through those moments and think, okay, God, what are you putting on my heart? And how do I craft this in a way that’s honoring to the place that has asked me to do this moment? And for me, that’s the dance I’m working with.
Interacting with front-of-house engineers
I would love to hear your feedback on monitor engineers or your front-of-house. Those are the two guys that you work with the most. Monitor guys or girls?
Obviously, I’m sure you’ve had some good ones, some bad ones, and some great ones. What’s the difference between the good and great? What’s a good example? Maybe an incident where they didn’t know that it was like, maybe you shouldn’t do that.
Sure. I actually have one that comes right off the bat. I’ll start by saying this. The monitor engineers that I work with right now are all fantastic, my experience. Now, I will say that, and I can say that truthfully, I have built, and they have built with me a relationship over years of work where we know each other.
Now, some are more naturally going to be able to give me a mix that I’m looking for right away because they know me. Some people are just my experience with some monitor engineers is there. It’s intuitive for them. They just walk in, they feel it. They kind of know from a couple of the things that you say, what you’re going to look for, and they can just nail it. Oh, yeah?
Aaron:
What kind of stuff?
Abigail:
There’s one I’ll say a name, AJ. AJ. I call him FJ as a joke. AJ. And I know each other well, and he knows what kind of mix I like. So I usually don’t have to give AJ. Any notes because the second he turns my mix on, he takes a listen and he’ll say, oh, she’s going to want yeah. And he will literally start mixing. It’s very rare that I have a comment for AJ. We know each other. Again, he knows what type of mix I like. Terry up at Brown’s Bridge. Shout out. Terry is another one of those people who he just knows what kind of mix okay. I like. And he tends to just mix for it. He’s just very intuitive.
Aaron:
How long has that taken? I mean, like with AJ.
Abigail:
It did not take very long. I don’t think it took very long with Terry either. But the time I’ve known them all for years now, I just don’t know. I can’t remember. But I wanted to start with a very positive thing that I have a lot of wonderful people. I could literally name everyone. Now I feel like I need to name every engineer who’s mixed for me. And I’m so grateful for what they do because they set me free to lead worship.
Do you know what I’m saying? Like, without them, I’m distracted and I’m frustrated, and I can’t get it. That is not how I want to spend my time that I feel like God has given me to help lead his people that day. And they are helping lead me by helping me be free, and they’re also helping lead his people. So I’m thankful for how we all work together. A negative experience I had was way back in the day when I first started leading at North Point, and some of this has to do with just being new and shy, but there used to be some monitoring engineers, and they’re not around anymore, who would ignore my requests. So I would say, hey, I need more click.
And they would take a listen, and they’d say, okay. But nothing would change. And I would feel a little embarrassed, like, oh, maybe they gave me the change. And I just didn’t notice it. So I’d raise my hand again and say, hey, could I have some more click? And then nothing would change. And I’d be embarrassed because you don’t want to ask too many times when you’re the new one. Now, I don’t care because I’m too old to care, but like, back then I’m 20 and terrified and they wouldn’t change things on my mix. And I started asking around to a couple other people and we had similar experiences where they would tell me they had changed something, but nothing would change.
And then other people would ask and things would change and it would depend on who asked them. And the attitude behind that was, I know better than you do, you just don’t know what you’re asking. Was the attitude that I was met with really? That would really bother me. That was not often, but there were two or three people that I worked with initially that were like that, and it was very insulting, especially the older I got and the more mature I became in it.
Because I finally just sat there and be like, I need more, I need more. It’s not changing for me. Hey, I’m so sorry. It’s not changing for me. And that’s when we finally started seeing some results and I said, if you’ve changed it, it was not clear at all for me. So I think I’m just going to need a whopping change and then we can just go down from there. Some of that was just communication, but some of it was an arrogance and you know it when you’re experiencing it, but it would just be this whole attitude of I know better than you. Sometimes I would get my mix locked in and then while I was leading, they would change it and I would go over and ask, my mix just feels different.
Did anything change? Well, I was just tweaking it because I figured you might want XYZ and that would be very bothersome for me because if I’ve asked you to tweak it, and sometimes I will, that is wildly helpful. But if we’ve spent all this time locking it in and you’re making major changes, it just feels very disrespectful to me. I don’t know what qualifies me as having great taste in my in ears, but this is what I need. I know I’m not here for taste. I’m sure your ear is better than mine. I just need more of this and less of this.
In monitor people’s defense, sometimes we don’t know what we need. Sometimes I’m hearing a lot of treble, like a lot of high pitched sounds, and I’m not. And it just feels like noise to me. And I might say, hey, maybe I need less electric. Maybe I need more of this, but all of a sudden, I’m making it messier. In that case, I’ll say, hey, I am making a mess of this. Would you take a listen to this? Here’s my big problem. It’s noise. I don’t know what to do. Can you fix it? You know, you have a great monitor engineer. When they go, Let me work on that for you, and then they fix it. So I’m not saying that’s never appropriate.
Aaron:
It absolutely is, but you asked them.
Abigail:
But I asked them. Every monitor engineer that I know will go back to your mix and maybe enhance it. So I’m not saying that that’s like maybe opening it up with a little bit more effects here and there that they couldn’t do in the quick turnaround. But I’m again, talking about major changes. Sure, don’t do that. Sure, don’t do that.
Building a relationship with church production staff
Aaron:
Yeah, that’s interesting. So when we first started the conversation, the thing that stuck out to me was the relationship bit.
Abigail:
Yeah.
Aaron:
Like, you have a relationship with AJ, you have a relationship with Terry, Pat. How important is that to you? Your reservations just go away. When you walk in, you see AJ at the margin console or Terry there, you’re just like, yeah, all right, I’m good.
Abigail:
Yes. A resounding yes. But I will say this, it is very problematic to me when you have musicians who do not respect the time and the effort that your monitor person is putting into giving you a good mix. Sometimes there is this unspoken, like, well, that’s the band.
That’s the quote unquote talent. But if you’ve ever witnessed anything that is production, all the grunt work is happening in production. They are doing all of this hard backbreaking stuff to get you somewhere. So to not work, to have a good relationship with them or to treat them with disrespect or as if they’re somehow less than is, to me, the height of unprofessionalism and the height of disrespect, I am thinking they are better than me. Not that it has to be like that, but I’m thinking you guys are where it’s at because without you, I can’t be, like I said, undistracted on stage.
And so I think it’s important for there to be that relationship from the musician side as well as the monitor side. I want to be a safe space for them. I don’t want to be somebody that makes them feel embarrassed or called out. People sometimes forget that when people are doing monitors for you and you keep asking them to fix something on your mix, that can be a little bit uncomfortable because they want to get it right for you. You know what I mean? Like, they’re trying to get it right for you. And so if they feel like they can’t win or that you’re mad at them or impatient, oh, man, that’s really going to be a challenge to get what you. Want and what you both need, what you both want is for you to have a mix that’s successful. Right?
Aaron:
Yeah, absolutely.
Abigail:
I think that relationship is important, but it’s very important that musicians approach it with gratitude and humility because there’s a lot that goes in to crafting these mixes a lot more than we know. So I just think that’s vital.
Aaron:
Yeah. The relationship part, I think, can go a long way because there’s always sort of a certain rift, as I feel like a too big of a word, but maybe just a tension sometimes between band and production.
Aaron:
And I know in my experiences that also has an ebb and flow. I think it also depends on where you are, the environment that you’re in. Can you speak on that sort of tension and some places that you’ve seen it really well and then how to maybe get it there if we’re experiencing some major tensions between the band and production. Because then if you are experiencing that major tension, there’s not going to be that relationship, there’s not going to be that linking arms and going into the church service together and just putting on an amazing worship service.
Abigail:
Yeah, I would say, and I’ve seen it happen many times, traveling and singing at conferences and things like that. I’m happy to say that the bands that I’ve traveled with, we have tended to have very beautiful, close, good friendships with our production team. Like, we’re going out to eat afterwards. If we’re traveling, we’re going together. So, yeah, I’ve seen bands come in and just have a very rough relationship with the production, treating them almost as if they were servants or like, you guys are here to serve me and production people. Rightly. So don’t tend to like that treatment.
Now, I’ve seen people go above and beyond. Yeah, right. Because I wouldn’t like it either. Nobody deserves that kind of treatment. Especially when your production people had a 02:00 a.m. Load in and they’ve been there for all the hours and you just walked in with your really off brand, but super epically expensive coffee and you’ve been sleeping at the hotel with that beachfront whatever. They don’t want to hear that trash. It’s very rude and it does cause problems. Your sound checks can go longer. It just makes everything more frustrating.
And then if we’re talking about a worship experience and you’ve got all this tension, how do you approach a healthy, God honoring service with that kind of treatment? If you’ve got this tension, you’re coming into it with this negative whatever. Not that we can’t go to God with negativity. I mean, gosh, I do it every day. But the hope is that you’re approaching it with a pure heart, saying, God, if I’m leading somebody, what do you want from me with these people? How can I serve you? How can I serve these people? So if you have all of this tension, man, it’s just we’re missing the point. I mean, if we can’t love the people around us, then what’s this really about? Is this about numbers of adoring fans? Which is why I sometimes am uncomfortable using the word audience. But congregation feels real Baptist growing up as a pastor’s kid, but I don’t know what the right word is. I definitely don’t want it to be spectators.
Aaron:
Yeah, no, I feel the same way. Nondenominational whatever, like North Point. It is a congregation, but we don’t refer.
Abigail:
Right, but we wouldn’t say that. It could be attendees. Whatever. But the point is our relationship with our production people does, in my opinion, reflect a lot about us and our posture coming in now. We approach worship services, all of us, probably for lots of reasons. I need this job. I like what I do, I like the people I’m working with. I want to honor and serve God. I am not asserting in any way that those things are bad things.
But the heart I think of it is that we’re doing ministry and we should be here to serve other people. And if we’re treating the people that are helping us along the way like trash, then I’m really just wondering what’s the posture of our heart there? And is that honoring to God? And obviously the answer is no. On the flip side, I’ve worked with some production people that no matter how nice everybody in the band was, they were just in a bad mood and being rude as crap and just, like, wouldn’t give us the changes we asked for. And it was just like, what do you want from me?
I understand that these tensions can come from both sides, but I think if you make it a point to be overly gracious and grateful with the people you’re working with, that goes a very long way. So a practice that I have is like, I don’t ever want to leave sound check without thanking the person who did my mix or going up to them after I come off stage and saying, hey, thank you so much, I really appreciate that. My mix sounds great. If my mix doesn’t sound great, maybe I have a couple of tweaks and then it’s, hey, thank you so much. But at the end of the day, it’s always, thank you so much for what you did. I could not have done what I just did if you had not been in my corner. It’s like somebody in a wrestling ring and then the guy behind him, we did this together, you know what I mean?
Aaron:
Yeah, well, and I would say the inverse to that, in my experience, is that when a worship leader or a musician on stage is just off stage, not a very nice or person, it very much reflects my ability to engage with what they’re doing on stage.
And I started noticing that when I was in college because I went to the Christian University and there’s any number of the guys in the quad playing the acoustic guitar. And then you see them in class and they’re just like, complete jerks. And then at chapel or whatever, they’re on stage leading worship, and you’re like.
Abigail:
And they seem like they’re trying to come across as so they’re like, sincere. And you’re like, no, you’re not. You’re not sincere. You are a complete tool bag.
Aaron:
And that’s me seeing it. And so I know that other people in the school or other people in the congregation have also experienced that. So now you’re affecting all of those people’s ability to engage in the worship service. It’s tough worship leaders. It’s a very hard job.
Abigail:
Yes. I might assert that production has some things about it that may be more difficult, though. That’s not to demean my craft, because it does take a lot to do what we do, but we’re all working a craft here. And that’s what I think is important to realize, is that it’s all a craft. Some are going to be on the stage, but it’s just like, I think what we’re seeing in the film industry right now, there are people who are working on set hours and hours and hours getting barely any recognition for all of the work that they put in. And this movie could not happen without it.
And we’re just starting to finally come up and say, hey, it’s not just the people on camera who are making this film. In fact, it is largely and mostly in part, to the production people who are setting up the lighting, who are tweaking the sound, who are constantly committed to getting the right shots. I feel that a live production is the same. We all are doing this job. Some of us will be the face of it, some of us will be the brain of it, some of us will be the heart of it. And I think that we have to approach it as a wholehearted process or we lose, I think, some of our long term influence with the congregation. Whatever. Absolutely. To your point. They see through it and that’s not why they’re here. We’re here to engage with God.
Moving from worship leader to church music director
Aaron:
As far as worship leading and how that intersects in production, the production world or just the service programming world that we’re both intimately involved in. I know you’ve spent a few months up at one of the campuses in sort of music director role. How has that played into your view on worship leading, or is that the first time? Or have you done that before? How has that affected your view on worship leading and how you speak to worship leaders knowing that you’re planning the worship set and stuff like that?
Abigail:
Yeah. So I was contracting in that music director role with Brownsbridge for a short period. And while I was doing it, I was helping craft the worship sets and such. And that was not the first time that I’ve done that, but it’s one of the first times that I’ve had to go and give feedback to my friends. Now, I would say I’m a high communicator. I care a lot about emotionally intelligent communication. I want to be effective, and I also want to speak to somebody in a moment where they’re able to receive it.
And so being on the other side of that, in the SPD side of it, I was definitely more aware of how challenging some of these conversations can be. Because if I’m standing at the front of house and I’m watching, I’m like, yeah, that feedback from the SPD director or whoever, it makes a lot of sense. Whereas if I was standing on stage, I might have felt differently about it.
And now I’m thinking, I got to go bridge that gap. And I understand how difficult feedback can be, and it helps me to feel more open to the people giving me feedback, because I understand it’s not an easy task to tell somebody, hey, maybe not like this, or I could tell your heart was really in it, but it really just did not translate at all. You’re trying, but you’re just not doing it. That’s painful to have to tell somebody. But it was helpful information for me. Yeah, I would say that that feedback was very useful for me. And it’s just another layer of realizing we all really are doing our best to do our best.
And sometimes I would hear feedback, not just at Brownsburg, I’ve done this at other campuses, in different arenas as well. But you might hear some feedback that you think, I don’t know that I agree with that, and then finding a way to communicate with the worship leader, the heart of what they’re trying to say without having to say all of it, if that makes sense. Yeah, that’s the challenge that everyone is trying to figure out. I think when you’re bridging the gap between production and worship leading, it’s challenging.
And sometimes, even when your heart is pure, it doesn’t come out right, and it’s offensive. That’s just once again, why you have to cultivate a relationship with these people. It cannot just be a lot of people will criticize North Point and say, it’s just a pay to play. You just show up, blah, blah, blah. That’s not really true. It is true from a paycheck perspective, yes, I am a contracted employee when I’m showing up at North Point, but what’s not true is that we don’t get to know each other.
Most of us are contracted regularly at these campuses month in and month out, six months at a time. So we are getting time to get to know each other and we should get to know each other, because the more I know you, Aaron, when you give me feedback, because Aaron sometimes will run lyrics or he’s in charge of people running lyrics, sometimes Aaron will come to me and say, XYZ, sorry, this wasn’t there. Blah, blah, blah.
And I know that Aaron cares about my experience with being able to see those lyrics. So if I’m having trouble with something or if I need help, I feel absolutely safe to go up to Aaron and say, hey, Aaron, when this song gets to the bridge, could you guys come up a little quicker or whatever? I don’t think I’ve ever said that to you, but I would feel no, but perfectly safe to say that to you if I needed to, because I know you, and I know that, you know, I’m not criticizing anybody. I’m in need and I’m asking you to help me.
Aaron:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, and that’s what that’s there for, is for your confidence. That’s why it’s called the confidence monitor.
Abigail:
That’s right.
Choosing music for church services
Aaron:
In crafting and being the worst, or not the worst music director, can you give us some insight in what goes behind picking this song over that song? Why are we singing Jesus Paid It all for the 10,000 times or whatever?
Abigail:
Yeah, that’s a great question. So much of it will have to do with the church or the church campus that you’re at and how the lead pastor wants to filter worship sets.
So at North Point, we’ve had a model where we go from wide to small as the service progresses. We start out with something that really anybody could engage with, whether they’ve been in church since they were two days old or whether this is the first time they’ve ever walked in and they’re 47 years old. We want something that everybody can engage with.
So if I’m crafting a worship set, I’m thinking song number one probably doesn’t need to be oceans from Hill Song or something that’s going to take me to a quote unquote, deeper place or require a lot from me. I’ll say it like, that something that’s not going to require as much from me right off the bat. I need time, just like anybody listening to a well curated playlist to get into the vibe of it. And we’re trying to get hundreds, sometimes thousands of people, oftentimes thousands of people to a similar place when their demographic is completely different, their ages are different, their culture, age, whatever, jobs, all of these things may be different.
And we have to try to find a way to open up that funnel and say, everybody get in here. Everybody get in here. Now, not everybody has to have the same response or experience with the song, but when we’re crafting worship sets and again, the lead pastor or the SPD team, they’re going to have a big say in kind of what this feels like at your campus. That’s been my experience.
But we’re crafting something that fits that and then we’re getting narrower and narrower as we go in. That does not necessarily mean and this is a pet peeve of mine, let me take away it does not necessarily mean that the songs have to get slower and sadder. It just means that the content, in my opinion, needs to get more focused and specific as we go in. Maybe this day we’re talking about loss at church. So maybe I’m going to craft some songs that talk about God’s understanding of pain or sharing and suffering with Christ or even something about how much God loves us to remind us that he is good and he loves us and he never leaves us. If I know what the subject is, that’s what I’m crafting the set towards.
Some people will want you to craft your sets months in advance, and that’s totally fine. It’s helpful for production. But what I’m always going to do is revisit a week or two ahead of time and say, these songs don’t match. We’re not doing any of that. Sure. What’s funny is that there were some weeks where we didn’t have a lot of time. We were not going to have time for a rehearsal, and we had certain key production people who maybe there was a medical emergency and they were gone or were on vacation.
And so I’ve been asked before we need to do a set list that we have literally done before, like all these songs, so that we can kind of, from a production standpoint, copy and paste what we have because we’re missing key people that we just this is going to be with the volunteers that we have and where they are in their training level. Because sometimes you got seasoned volunteers who know what they’re doing, and sometimes you got brand new babies that you’re training up. And so the feedback was where we’re at with our volunteers in production. We need a copy and paste situation for this week only. Very rarely does that happen. And again, this was a campus specific, but we’ve done that before.
And that’s an example of working together with production on something that I didn’t necessarily like the choices that we came up with, but it was to serve the whole purpose, the whole team, not just the musicians who just didn’t want to do that song for the 8,000,000th time. Right, because we don’t like it either, but so that as a whole production, volunteers, band members can all cohesively work together and be successful. Yeah, a lot of times the reason we’re repeating a song is because when you’re trying to get thousands of people to learn a song. And most of them statistically, the most recent stats that I’ve heard, and certainly they could be different, is that they’re attending once, maybe twice a month, if that.
And so if I am doing maybe we’ve done this same tune a million times. The battle belongs. Phil Wickham we do that a lot at Brownsbridge. We’ve done that a lot. So you, Aaron, come on the first Sunday of the month and then you don’t come back again for another month. Well, if you come back and all the songs are different, and then the next time you come, all the songs are different. You’ve never had an experience where you came in the door and knew any of the songs we were singing, unless you listen to Christian radio, which many people don’t. And so some of the reason that we repeat so much is so that if you come in, you may not know two of the three songs, but you knew one of them. And so you had a moment where you could engage more fully because you were familiar with it. And that’s the hope there.
Aaron:
Yeah. Talk about how much is singability a factor. So this is like Oceans or what’s? The Billions song.
Abigail:
Oh, yeah, I know I was singing, so will I don’t ever ask me to sing that song. Way too many words. I cannot be up here doing that song. Oh my gosh.
Aaron:
Is that a big thing, singability? Or does that also depend on what we’re trying to do in the service?
Abigail:
It’s a big thing for most SPD teams. And this is a place where I tend to have friction and tension because I tend to think there’s so much more singability to songs than other people do. And I defer to the people who aren’t singers. I’ll say that I will ask people who have no experience with music, like when we’re singing this is this confusing, but I have a little bit of a rub to this because you know what pop singers and classic rock singers and all them are not asking, I hope, is this singable for my fans.
But how many fans get out there and sing queen songs, queen songs with 8000 harmonies to them and they’re singing it just right. So I kind of give a little bit of pushback on that because I’m like if the people like the song, they’ll learn it and they’ll sing it. Is it a good song? That’s the question I’m asking. Is the melody engaging? Not is it singable? But not everybody feels that way. And most SPD directors do not agree with me on that. And that’s okay with me.
Aaron:
Now, is there a difference between singability in singability of the lyrics and then singability in the melody?
Abigail:
Yeah, for sure.
Aaron:
I definitely focus more on melody. I grew up in band, not choir, so I grew up in melody. And so if it’s a great melody. I can get into it way faster than if it’s like, oh, these are super easy lyrics. If they’re super easy lyrics, I’m usually like, did they not try hard?
Abigail:
Right.
Aaron:
What happened in that writing room, he’s doing. But I didn’t know if there was a difference between those two.
Abigail:
There definitely is, because, to your point, so will I. I think that that song is beautiful, melodically, like, from a big picture standpoint, it’s a beautiful song. There are so many stinking words in that song. I hate singing it. I mean, the word hate may be too strong, but probably not.
Aaron:
And I hate running the lyrics for it.
Abigail:
It’s trash, not the song. Excuse me. Just to be clear, the song is not trash. Having to try to figure out what’s next feels like trash. Like, I can’t do it, my brain won’t do it. Yes, I believe there is absolutely a difference between singability to a lyric and singability to a melody. And there have been occasions where there is a melody that is incredibly challenging. Even though I really like it, I will admit that there are times where that’s true. I just personally don’t feel like it’s true as often as I have been told it’s true. But I also grew up in a household of musicians. I don’t know.
Is worship music manipulative?
Aaron:
Since we’re on the subject of crafting a worship set, how do you respond to the emotional manipulation sort of argument in a worship set or even just a church service? I know that that’s a topic now with well, maybe it’s always been sort of a topic, but just like, oh, the music is meant to emotionally manipulate you. And while I think all music is supposed to do that right.
Abigail:
That’s what I think about it. Like, you mean all music.
Aaron:
There you go. Yeah, I was going to say all music, but then bringing it into the church and just the people’s feelings around that manipulation already.
Abigail:
Yeah. I’ll say this, I don’t think all music is intended to be manipulative. So I was joking earlier. I want to say that, yes, in some ways, I do believe all music is meant to make you feel something. I don’t believe all music is obviously meant to manipulate you. I think music can be used as a weapon, even though it’s supposed to be a tool. But I don’t think that engaging our emotions with the truth is bad. I think when the scriptures talk about worshiping in spirit and in truth, that that’s important.
God gave us music as a gift. When we’re grieving, what kind of music do we listen to? Most of us need sad music. Why? It elicits an emotional response that we don’t know necessarily how to get out of us without it. I mean, the Greeks were doing this way back in the day when they were naming the phrase catharsis. You would go to a show and the hope of the show, why they had all these tragedies and all these big moments were that members of the audience could come and see this thing happening and have an emotional catharsis, an experience where they say, Me too.
And in doing that, they unlock something that was imprisoning them. And so I believe music is God’s gift to help us process hard emotions, good moments, joy. It’s an expression of joy. It’s why we dance at weddings. It’s why we get up and love to dance. It’s meant for all those things. And I think if it’s applied properly or appropriately is probably a better word with truth. It’s not manipulation. Now I know what some people are talking about.
Oh, the keys player is playing and they’re doing a giving moment and they’re just trying to whatever. Well, okay, sure, that has happened. I’ve also seen people manipulate for that outside of the church. That’s not just a church, a dirty church, I’ll say that. That’s not just a dirty church tactic. That’s just a tactic that people use. And if people in a church are using it for that, shame on them. That’s not in my belief, what music is for. But if somebody’s asking me if I believe that it’s wrong for music and emotion to help them connect with the idea that God loves them or the idea that they’re worth something or the idea that they can be forgiven no matter what they’ve done, great. That’s wonderful. That’s a miracle.
I love that music can help people hear from God. Just like reading the scripture helps us hear from God or talking to somebody who’s saying, me too, can help us hear from God. It’s a tool. It can be used as a weapon. It shouldn’t be. It can. But I’m not going to throw the baby out with the bath water if I’m not worshipping in spirit and in truth, if my emotion is not engaged, I’m disappointed, but I’m not going to fabricate, you know what I’m saying? I’m not going to try to make that up. And there’s temptation sometimes to do that. But that’s from a leadership perspective.
Sometimes you feel like, well, I can’t just be standing out here deadpan in the face while we’re singing, whatever. But how do I approach the song authentically from where I am today? That’s the question I’m always asking God and myself. If I’m on stage and I’m singing something I really am not feeling, then that’s just the conversation I’m having with God the whole time. God, you know that I hate this song and I want to honor you right now, and I want to lead your people. So can you help me figure out where I’m landing? And that’s usually where I come in for me to a place of what I would consider authentic leadership, even with something that I don’t necessarily care for.
Aaron:
That’s really cool because I think there’s aspects in production too, that are like that too. You’re loading out after a show and it’s like, I don’t want to be here.
Abigail:
Right.
Aaron:
But it’s like, well, why am I doing it in the church world? I know I have to constantly remind myself, like, I don’t want to X, Y, and Z for the thousandth time.
Abigail:
But it’s like, yes, the reason I’m doing it. That’s right. Yeah, that’s right.
Aaron:
Or in whatever situation you’re in, it’s just like refocusing yourself on, this is why I’m doing what I’m doing. I don’t have to like it. I don’t think God tells us that we have to like it, but we are to do the work to honor God.
Abigail:
That’s right. And if you really feel that chronic. I think that if you’re in an experience, I think there’s a discipline to everything good in life. I don’t think that there’s anything good in life that does not require a little bit of a grind to it as a worship leader. I sometimes have sang the same stinking song so many times, and there are just times where I would there are seasons. There have been seasons in my worship leading, quote unquote career. I don’t know why I put the quotes there. I think it just sometimes feels a little weird to tell people I’m a worship leader as a career.
But yeah, there have been times in my worship leading career where every Sunday I wake up and the first thing I say is, thank you, God, for my job. You and I both know I don’t want to go do this, but thank you that I get to do this and that I’m getting paid to do it. It’s not because I don’t enjoy worship. It may just be that I’ve sang that song a million times or I was weary. I don’t know anybody that does anything in life that does not have a weariness to it. And that’s why I believe God asks us to renew our mind, to cultivate this sense of joy. It’s like tending a garden. You got to get out there and cultivate.
And there are seasons where you’re planting seeds, seasons where things are growing and it’s not quite there yet, and seasons where you’re thriving. And I’m not going to say I’m not supposed to be a worship leader or I’m disqualified because there’s a grind that I don’t like all the time. I don’t like exercising all the time. I don’t have to like, I tell I’m a personal trainer and I tell my clients all the time, I don’t care if you like this. You don’t have to like it to belong here. You know what I mean? You can try to cultivate a healthy mindset with it, but some of this sucks, and that’s okay. It’s not all glam, and that’s okay. God didn’t say to me, pretend you like all the discipline in this world. The scriptures say no discipline. Is enjoyed at its time, but it produces a healthy crop. That’s it. So there are disciplines to our job. It is what it is.
Renewing your mind as a worship leader
Aaron:
How have you been able to sort of renew your mind? 52 Sundays in a year for 13 years? I don’t think I’ve quite been 13 years in church production close, though.
Abigail:
Yeah. I was going to say I’m very close.
Aaron:
Yeah. How have you found the best way to do that?
Abigail:
For me and my personality and the way that I experience life and such, I will tend to repeat certain things to myself. For example, in those seasons of dry, I’ll wake up and say, thank you, God. This is a gift. I didn’t have this at one time in my life, and I desperately wanted it. I’m going to remember that.
Right now, part of that cultivation is calling to mind when I didn’t have what I now have and saying, Do I still want that? Was this still a worthy cause? And nine times out of ten, the answer for me is yes. And I think, wow, imagine if I was still sitting there waiting for this, and if I could see future Abigail being like, this sucks, whatever, I would slap her in the face. And I don’t shame myself. That’s not what I mean.
I just remind myself it’s a way of cultivating gratitude. And other times, the way that I renew my mind is by taking a little break from certain things. Maybe I say no to a couple of things that I have the margin to. That’s not always possible, but that’s just been my experience as a contract worker, that there might be certain seasons where I’m going to take a break from this or from that, but for the most part, it’s been going to God and just being honest about it. God, I’m not a big fan of this right now. I think you’ve called me to do this.
What’s the next step here? I’m stuck. I think it’s a proverb that says that with my God, I can scale a wall. So if I feel like I’m coming up to this big wall and there’s no path I’m looking up, and I’m like, well, where’s the rope? How are you going to help me scale this wall? Because I can’t turn around. I’m not going back. But also, I don’t know how to keep going forward. And God always makes a way. He always refreshes, he always renews. But sometimes it’s costly, and sometimes it just takes time. But to me, being honest with God about it, talking to other healthy people about it, especially people who are farther down the road in what I’m doing, or who are shoulder to shoulder with me and saying, do you feel this? What are you guys up to? I steal a lot of tactics from other people.
Aaron:
That’s the best way to do it.
Abigail:
Yeah, that’s right.
Aaron:
Well, and I think reminding yourself of God’s faithfulness. That’s something my wife and I have been talking about a lot lately. And for me, it’s very helpful. And just fun to think about that kind of stuff, because you’re like, that’s really cool.
Abigail:
This is real.
Aaron:
You’re X amount of years away from that thing and you can look back and be like, dang, yes, I didn’t do anything.
Abigail:
Literally, I could not have had made this happen. Those things happened, and it was not by anything that I did or didn’t do. It was God’s protection or provision or whatever.
Abigail:
Absolutely.
Aaron:
And it’s just like, wow. But you don’t get those moments unless you take the time to look back.
Abigail:
That’s right. It is a discipline. It’s not going to come naturally for most people to sit there and remember. And that is one of the reasons, I believe the scriptures tell us to remember. So often in the Old Testament and the New Testament in the Old Testament, you see a lot of people making physical monuments of things. This big thing happened, we’re going to build a monument. Why? To remember that God did this thing.
We don’t really do stuff like that in our culture. We might journal or whatever, but we kind of like journal, close the book, move on. And so I really believe that God had to instruct us all the time, remember? And I think that remembering and you said that you remember remembering is a part of the renewal, that if you don’t remember what God’s done and you don’t call to mind the ways or the times that he’s come through for you, it can be easy to take for granted. And you will. We all will. What he’s given to us. I am not going to sit here and say I don’t take for granted the gifts God has given me. I absolutely do. And the only thing that stops me from doing that is going to God and saying, can you help me see? It’s like, David, search me and know me. God, what’s offensive down here? Surely a lot. Walk me through it.
Aaron:
Yeah. Something else that’s super, it’s not always intuitive to people. Is that because you’ve remembered God’s faithfulness and provision? Why would you think that? He’s not going to continue. Right, but that’s the unknown.
Abigail:
But we all come up again, we’re.
Aaron:
Not any good at trusting in the unknown and what’s going to happen next. But you have to, right? I mean, you don’t have to. You have a choice.
Abigail:
Yeah, okay. You don’t have to. But it would be helpful in your walk with the Lord if you would do that.
Aaron:
Yeah, well, same thing with worship leading or in production, knowing that the Sunday is over and we’re going to keep moving on. God will continue to provide. I’m going to roll these cables for this period, and then all the cables can be rolled, we’re done, and then next week, and I’ll have to roll cables again, but that’s right. It’s fine. It’s whatever.
Abigail:
That’s fine. It’s whatever the task, we hate. It’s fine.
Aaron:
Actually, I kind of like rolling cables.
Abigail:
Oh, good. It’s a little simple task that keeps.
Aaron:
You grounded, I guess. Yeah. My cable really nothing bigger than that.
Abigail:
That makes sense.
Aaron:
This has been great, Abigail. Thank you so much for stopping by, and such a pleasure. And good luck with everything moving forward.
Abigail:
Thank you, Aaron. Thank you so much for having me. It was a gift and a joy. And thank you for doing this. I think that this conversation between all things church production and all the facets of it is very important, and it’s helpful. We all feel these tensions and stuff. We don’t all know what to do. And so to hear other people say, oh, raise my hand. Me too. Very valuable. So I appreciate you doing that. And thanks for having me on. I appreciate that so much.
