Learn Secular Songs to Improve Your Musicianship
As church musicians, it's easy to get caught up in only playing and learning songs that we would lead at our church.
The truth is that there is so much more to learn from secular songs. These are songs that are written as performance pieces and not with people singing in mind. This allows the artist to have more musical freedom. So when we learn songs not written for the church (even within the Christian genre), it allows us to expand our musical vocabulary.
This helps us become better musicians and ultimately better worship leaders.
The trick is to mentally sift through what you've learned from the song (a technique, a guitar tone, a rhythm, etc.) and ask yourself the question: how can I apply this in a church setting?
The key to answering that question is by answering: will it be distracting or will it help focus people on God?
Take the time to learn a "non-worship" song this week and see how you can incorporate what you've learned into your worship leading!