Method to Music: Utilizing the Psalms Method to Sing the Word of God with Intentionality

By J. Louis Cronin

For years, author and pastor J. Louis Cronin wrestled with how worship leaders and pastors could be doing a better job at shepherding God’s people when they lead music. He saw a growing need to sing the word. Cronin developed a method for congregations to experience a greater connection between singing and hearing the preached word. As a result, they would know Christ more and see that a worship service isn’t just music but the result of several aspects of church life being built together.

In Method to Music, Cronin presents his PSALMS method, telling how he developed it and why it’s important. He gives pastors a practical tool to deepen their ministries while broadening their reach through the utilization of saints who are gifted and not merely exploiting the gifts of the saints. It’s a means to empower leaders to better delegate the role of shepherd to those who share the platform every Sunday morning.

By detailing a practical approach to worship leadership, Method to Music provides unity between the word to be preached and the word to be sung. It explores the potential for partnership between senior pastors and worship leaders/pastors in shepherding the hearts of a congregation and equipping the saints for the work of the ministry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664237629

J. Louis Cronin

J. Louis Cronin, a graduate of Talbot School of Theology, is a pastor, author, and luthier. Worship ministry has been his focus for decades as he pursues what it means to equip the saints for the work of ministry in the most practical ways. He’s served in church plants, established congregations and para-church organizations alike. He’s a California native who, along with his beautiful wife and two kids, now calls Texas home.

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WestBow Press rev. date: 07/06/2021

To Amanda: Your unreserved care, patience and kindness

throughout this project has made all the difference. May you

reap abundantly from what you’ve sown here. Love you lots.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1     Why is This Method Necessary?

Chapter 2     PSALMS Method Part 1: Prayer

Chapter 3     PSALMS Method Part 2: Scripture

Chapter 4     PSALMS Method Part 3: Analyze

Chapter 5     PSALMS Method Part 5: List

Chapter 6     PSALMS Method Part 5: Music

Chapter 7     PSALMS Method Part 6: Script

Chapter 8     Common Questions & Concerns

Chapter 9     How do we practically walk a prospective worship leader from newbie to shepherd?

Chapter 10   Dear Senior Pastor

Appendix

Sample Worship Ministry Covenant

Introduction

A little over twenty years ago I was invited on a journey that would forever change my life. A journey that would take me, a kid wrapped in jeans that were a dozen sizes too big, brand new in Christ, with the musical sensibilities of a ferret, and transport me into a life of better fitting clothes, a great love for Jesus and His Church, and a realization that as a worship pastor or leader, music isn’t everything.

I’m becoming more and more convinced that music leadership in the church today isn’t really anything if the music is all we have. Music itself is a sword that is often displayed in the church, glistening for all to see, waved about as a beacon for our communities and once its presence is made known we relocate it back to the shelf for display. I get this sense when I experience churches that seem to use their music programs as a draw to get people in the door rather than using their musical worship as a platform to respond to God in all of His goodness. It is easy to avoid getting covered in the filth and blood from the spiritual warfare around us. We miss running headlong into obeying God’s myriad of commands to sing to Him. Our people consume. Many seem to take their weekly trek to church to check a box, filtering in after the music starts because it’s not as important to them as the sermon. All the while, they’re fading and shrinking in their faith because they aren’t connecting their songs as a means of responding to who God is and what He’s done. Many sing only when it’s a song they like, never considering that their singing isn’t primarily about them, and in turn hindering the work of God’s Spirit through them to others, including how God might use them to grow those of us who lead worship. I know it’s not a new concept to suggest that music in the evangelical church has become little more than a bad performance. While the Seeker Sensitive movement is all but dead on paper it, through our music, seems to soldier on like a high school football star still spouting about the glory days 20 years after the big game. For some of us who lead, we are seldom asking the crucial questions of why we sing and what is important in our songs. Maybe we’re afraid of the answers to why our role as worship pastor or leader matters, why what we do is necessary or important, what the point is in singing and playing our glistening 6-strings under dimmed lights in the middle of the morning.

I write this book with the hope that I’m not alone, and the hope that one person reading this would be able to put words to what he’s been feeling and processing all these years. I want this to be a work that gives pastors a practical tool to deepen their ministries while broadening their reach through the utilization of saints who are gifted and not merely exploiting the gifts of the saints. I’ll unpack that bit later. I write this with the hope of empowering you to do the very hard work of shepherding your people, in your context, as a valuable and equipped member of your church leadership.

What follows is a chapter on why I believe this method is not only important but also crucial to the health of the American church. Then I’ll get to the practical method I’ve developed. I urge you though, if nothing else, to pursue the next chapter on why this method is needed instead of the method itself. I like things that are practical and I hope you would find this work very practical, but I’ll ask that we start with the harder questions of why we sing what we sing first before jumping into the method itself. In doing so, we might avoid following another worship trend without fully considering what this trend might develop for our church cultures down the road.

A quick note to the lead pastors here. You are not alone in the shepherding of your people. It can be risky to place an expectation on your worship leader or pastor to function as a co-shepherd of a flock but I believe it is vital for our churches that worship leaders and pastors are equipped for the task of shepherding. In most cases, they deeply care for leading the church. They want to serve well. That said, please consider what follows as a means to empower you to better delegate the role of shepherd to those whom you share the platform with every Sunday morning if you aren’t already doing so. Your worship leader or pastor likely spends as much time, if not more, on stage as you do. Let’s equip them spiritually for the task. I’m going to encourage an expectation on worship leaders and pastors to not settle for singing sermon points, what’s popular on the radio, or what will cater to a consumer culture. Instead, use these tools to build up men and women who don’t merely polish their swords but wield them like warriors, and tend them like blacksmiths. These tools are designed to give you a better foundation and metric of expectation when you ask the question, How was worship this last Sunday?

1

Why is This Method Necessary?

There are several reasons why I’ve developed this method of preparation. I’ve wrestled for years considering how we, as worship leaders and pastors, could be doing a better job at shepherding God’s people when we lead music. I saw a growing need to sing the Word and wanted to be a part of the solution. You’ll see that a lot in this work, and I’ll try to flesh it out thoroughly.

The method I’m suggesting is called the PSALMS method. Singing the Word in the context of the PSALMS method does not necessarily mean singing scripture word for word. Though that is beneficial to the body of Christ, it isn’t enough. Most of the Christian praise songs and hymns that occupy our evangelical tradition will incorporate the Word of God and in that way sing the Word. What I’m suggesting is the need to be intentional about consistency; we should take the same Word that will be preached and focus our song selection on that passage of scripture. It might seem simple enough, but it will take work. I’ve been so encouraged that, in the last few years, ministry events like the Getty Sing Conferences have emphasized a much greater interest in attending to shepherding the church and equipping leaders with the necessary theological foundation for leading our churches. Having attended each of the Getty conferences, I’ve been so blessed by this growing national movement. That said, I think we can do even more in our pursuit to sing as a result of the Word of God dwelling in us richly. This method is a step-by-step approach to do just that. Singing the Word in the context of the PSALMS method allows our churches to actively engage a text with the songs we sing and then to sit with that same text as it is unpacked in a corresponding sermon.

I developed this method so that our congregations would experience the connection of the active singing with the passive hearing of the Word. As a result, they would know Christ more and see that a worship service isn’t just music but the result of several aspects of church life centering on the same scriptures. Singing the Word as Paul describes it in Ephesians 5, and in the corresponding passage in Colossians 3, emphasizes singing as a result of being filled with the Spirit and/or the Word of God, and doing so with a varied selection of song types that are spiritual in content. This method is driven by the goal of getting the whole church to worship as the same Word dwells in them from a Sunday morning service, a youth event, or whatever the context so that they are being built up for the work of ministry. According to Ephesians 4, this will in turn grow you, the leadership, as well! This is a better way.

This method assumes that we, as worship leaders and pastors, are in roles that influence others, even if we don’t explicitly count ourselves as shepherds of the congregation. I served at a church for several years where the term shepherd referred to those of us who were leading small house-group Bible studies. Here I’m referring to the function of a shepherd, whether or not we have that title. I’m speaking to those of us in the position to influence others by the way we live and lead. We choose the songs for our sets and will, in turn, lead our people to sing those songs. As a result, those people are gaining the lyrical and musical content that we’ve provided for them. Our churches are being formed theologically based on the things they are singing and hearing each week. Some assume that theological training or exposure comes from a pulpit or a classroom, but in large part, it can come from anyone who’s being positioned to lead. I’m not suggesting that theology doesn’t arise from the pulpit or classroom, but it most certainly will also land in the hearts of our people from the music we lead them to sing. Therefore, good content can lead to good theology.

I developed the PSALMS method as a response to so many worship leaders who are wrestling with the influence they hold over others, and for those who don’t have a consistent way of channeling their thoughts and understanding of the Word as they lead their people. Additionally, this book is not just for the seasoned leader but also for those who are new to leading worship. You might have come to faith decades ago, but this work will specifically call you to follow a trajectory that, I believe, will bless your people and help you to focus your energies more clearly as you shepherd your church through the ministry of music. This method is designed to save time each week through efficiency and manageable steps of execution. I know many worship leaders who have their own routines and actually might do many of these steps in their own personal development. I’m also aware that many of them seldom put these pieces together intentionally for the sake of leading others in worship. For instance, they study the Word, but it’s usually a personal devotional and rarely the Word that is to be preached on a given Sunday. They study the scriptures for personal growth, but it’s seldom for the sake of leading others. They are constant in prayer and pray for their worship teams but aren’t necessarily focusing those prayers in a way that will directly affect how they relate the gospel and their songs to their congregants. They most often put together songs for the church to sing, but they haven’t usually chosen those songs as a result of their time in the Word, for the sake of others. The PSALMS method connects these otherwise distinct disciplines of the faith.

I developed this method because I have a burden to see huge shifts in the way we do things from a ground-level that will rewrite the legacy we leave to the people we serve. I believe that having a better approach to being ministers and shepherds who have a theological foundation for why we choose our material or why we say what we say from the platform is greatly needed today.

Here’s a situation that might ring familiar: We’re leading the music set. Our hands are raised and our eyes are shut, and we take a moment to plead with the Lord before the congregation. So far there’s nothing wrong with this picture. But then we offer a prayer during a service that all of a sudden gets off track. What began as a solid attempt to seek the Lord on behalf of His people has rabbit-trailed into something else. We say things like, Lord, fill this place with Your presence, even though God was there well before we arrived. We say things like, God, show us your glory, without a care for the weight and reality of that statement. If God answered and showed us His glory, it would kill us. Sometimes those moments get away from us, but a different sort of preparation might have provided a much better service to our people. Sometimes we want to justify odd prayers and comments that we hear or pray. We might find ourselves saying, Well, that’s not what I meant when I prayed that. Really? Then why not pursue an approach that helps us say what we mean? There’s power in coming before the Lord and asking Him to make us aware of His will and work rather than asking Him to reveal His presence. There’s power in seeking God to know Him more as He has revealed Himself rather than pleading with Him to see His glory. These prayers represent a need to ask ourselves, What are we really saying? This method aims at structuring good heart intentions into better shepherding for His people with greater clarity in what