JASON A. FERRIS

In church we ask for the Holy Spirit to have his way in us and move in the service. Sometimes I think it’ll take the Holy Spirit’s movement to get some of us to move on the platform at all! We’re all creatures of habit. We’re almost programmed for it from an early age. Routines can be good, and are very needed in a lot of ways, but bad habits can be formed in those routines and they are very hard to break. I remember one Sunday my Pastor said from the pulpit that he can see who’s not there on a given Sunday because we all sit in the same seats. So the following Sunday, after taking that message to heart, my dad got the whole congregation to stand up after worship and switch sides of the sanctuary just as Pastor got up to begin his sermon. It was pretty comical and our Pastor appreciated that we had obviously been listening the previous week, but the following Sunday we were all back in our normal seats. Lately, my wife and I have been talking about putting down some roots. It’s come up in various conversations and with some varying meanings, but it led me to thinking about it in another way. I’ve been blessed to work with a lot of artists and some churches over the years and I’m still gaining new client partnerships, but the work I do with them takes time. I can inspire people and make great progress and changes in a few hours of rehearsal, but it needs to be carried out. That part is no longer up to me. We arrange the songs, edit and mix the backing tracks, create lyric videos and other content, hash-out talking points and work on purposeful movement and communication in rehearsal, but it takes a great deal of effort to carry that onto the stage. We get onstage and all of the hard work in rehearsal goes right out the window. It’s not that we don’t take it to heart, but if it’s not a conscious continual effort to break our bad habits and to create new ones, adrenalin will take over and we become forgetful and go back to doing what we know. I’ve found that with many of us musicians, what we know is actually habits that we’ve created and those habits can often be counterproductive. I see that it can be even more noticeable for us church musicians. Serving on the platform every week can be such a great thing! It can also be a place to form some really bad habits. We’re on the same platform and stand in same spot where we remain in the same bubble of space for the duration of worship. Some of us have roots so deep of comfortable bad habits, that I think it’ll take the Holy Spirit’s movement to get some of us to even move on the platform! Having roots is good, but instead of blooming where we are planted - continuing to grow, be pruned and repeat - we can be stuck in the mud and start to rot. We need to nourish ourselves in our performance. However, it’s not a “diet.” It’s a lifestyle. Putting down roots in a good foundation takes time. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Just take it one step at a time. Being conscious of any potential bad habits and getting in the race is a great place to start. When you have an open mind to experiment and try new things, and have the willingness to be challenged and pulled out of your comfort zone, the possibilities are endless! This is where we can begin our journey together. Are you interested in partnering with me on your live performance? I’d love to chat to get to know you and learn about your journey in music! Let’s schedule a call today! SCHEDULE CALL     For more great resources, visit my FREE RESOURCES page!

I wonder how many of us professional musicians mislead our audience. We are either intentionally leading them or maybe unintentionally misleading them. I remember one night – back before I was old enough to join our church youth group – my church hosted a concert by a local band that was friends of our family.  My dad was down on the main floor running lights and had designated one of the older youth members to run the spotlight from up in the balcony. At one point during the show, the lead guitarist broke into a solo, and the inexperienced spotlight operator kept the light focused on the lead singer. The singer tried to downplay it as he rocked out the rhythm guitar part. He then tried to cue the spotlight with a head nod in the direction of the lead guitarist. Finally, the singer outright pointed to the lead guitarist. Near the end of the solo, the guy manning the spotlight ultimately zoomed out and panned to the lead guitarist. Better late than never, I guess.  You can’t really blame someone who doesn’t have experience in that field of work for misleading the audience as he did, but I wonder how many of us professional musicians do that very thing. We are onstage trying to convey a certain message to our audience, but visually we are misleading our audience. Great magicians or illusionists are masters of the sleight of hand. They can cause the audience to focus their attention on something over here, while they are doing something completely different over there. It’s the perfect misdirect. We can definitely use that to our advantage in our show, but it must be planned out and done on purpose. We must know when it’s our time to step into the spotlight onstage and when it’s not. I love this video of drummer Steve Moore “The Mad Drummer.” This video was taken by a fan at one of  Steve’s shows. The fan later posted it on YouTube with the video title, “This Drummer is at the Wrong Gig.” Steve is a great drummer! He is solid in his playing and knows how to own the performance! However, his theatrics can be over the top at times, while the vocalist is singing a verse or during the guitarist’s solo, but that’s what made his brand! It’s his special niche, but it certainly is not something everyone can pull off, nor should they.   I remember when I sent my video audition to Bread of Stone; the guys later shared with me how they were impressed with my showmanship, as they’ve never had a drummer who played like that. However, following my video submission, our lead singer, Ben, asked me in my phone interview if I am always that flashy or if I am willing to be a team player and not over perform when the time doesn’t call for it. Don’t mislead your audience by overplaying or over performing when the song doesn’t call for it. And lastly, don’t mislead your audience by failing to visually and emotionally match the message and energy of the song. Your body language, expressions, vocal tone and emotions should all align with the song and the message you’re sharing with your audience.  Instead of misleading them, lead your audience by helping them focus on the right areas of the stage and to the right person at the right time. For more great resources, visit my FREE RESOURCES page! Are you interested in partnering with me on your live performance? I’d love to chat to get to know you and learn about your journey in music! Let’s schedule a call today! SCHEDULE CALL

Are we authentic in worship? If you didn’t read part 1 of this post, I encourage you to do so and watch this video before continuing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGXulwS1J_M   The purpose of performing is to embody the moment—to connect with the audience, communicate effectively, and create a memorable experience for both yourself and the people in attendance. The purpose of worship is to give praise to God by surrendering what He has given to us. We have a voice or an instrument. We are to give them back to Him. As worship leaders, we should be completely present in the moment—connecting with the congregation, communicating effectively to lead them in worship and to create a welcoming and freedom-filled environment to share a worship experience as one church body.   Elias Dummer skillfully depicted the coexistence of worship and performance in the video I shared. Here are some highlights:   Worship Is… 1. The feeling or expression of reverence and adoration for a deity. 2. To show reverence and adoration for a deity and honor with religious rites Worship is the active practice of assigning “ultimate value” to an object or entity, placing that at the center of your love, desire, attention and actions. It means we should intentionally correct our focus with our whole selves and have an intentional presentness to Jesus.   To Perform Is… 1. To carry out, accomplish or fulfill what is required (an action, task, or function) 2. Performo - Church Latin for “to form thoroughly” 3. To present or represent something onstage like a play or piece of music (a form of entertainment) to an audience. “Over time, the meaning of performance came to suggest pretending and maybe even in an exaggerated way, which might be fake or even lying. Worship and performance ultimately come down to a single word, authenticity.” Dummer continued with citing statistics on how bad we are at reading body language. “We should be really careful about moralizing our authenticity hunches of others. Chances are we’re wrong about what’s going on behind the scenes.” “The secret to performing a song well or a scene with excellence isn’t to pretend better. It’s to not pretend at all. Great actors and singers learn to recall an emotional moment in time quickly and live it out. They aren’t pretending; they’re embodying. Performance isn’t inauthentic pretending; it’s an authentic becoming.” “Willful performance isn’t insincere; it’s that you value something more than your own wants in service to the role that’s been given to you. Worship leaders should look to serve others before themselves, represent the role they’ve been given and become like Christ.” C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity “The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did.”   “The question isn’t about whether or not we’re performing, but whether self is at the center of our performance or God and neighbor. We just need to ask ourselves, who is this for?”   We must remember that we are part of something that is much bigger than all of us and we should be authentic in whatever we do. To be honest, being authentic in our performance is something that many artists could improve on as well. Be present. Be authentic. Love God and love the congregation.   For more great resources, visit my FREE RESOURCES page! Are you interested in partnering with me on your live performance? I’d love to chat to get to know you and learn about your journey in music! Let’s schedule a call today! SCHEDULE CALL

“Worship is completely different than performing,” he said. But is it really? A few years ago, my band was part of a traveling youth event. We would play a worship session and a mini concert, as would other artists. One time on this tour, I was backstage talking with a member of the event’s main worship group. We discussed my work in partnering with artists on their live show, and the man said, “Worship is completely different than performing.” I understood his point. There was a time when I would agree with this statement, but at the core of it, I now don’t. I grew up more reserved as an 11-year-old kid playing drums in church. When I eventually learned to twirl my drumsticks (during practice only), the Pastor’s wife occasionally said I should stick twirl in service. But I never did. Church wasn’t a place to draw attention to myself. It wasn’t a concert. We didn’t have stage lighting or fog machines, and the main house lights were up all throughout the service. We played our worship set and often repeated various song sections as the worship leader felt led. We’d then return to the platform to play for altar calls and close the service with a final song. Back then, I wouldn’t think that worship and performing were similar, but today I believe they are. Let’s get to the heart of the matter. At the core, everything comes from within as it all begins at heart level. (Mark 7:15 and Matthew 15:11) There’s obviously a spiritual element of worship, and there are physical and practical elements of worship. The spiritual part is our response to God—worshipping Him for who He is, for what He’s done and for what He’s continuing to do in our lives. The physical part is about giving God our praise by “offering our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God for this is our reasonable act of service [or worship]” (Romans 12:1) As worship leaders, we must be devoted to loving and leading the people. The practical portion, then, is us doing our part with excellence. Playing skillfully to the Lord, communicating well to the congregation, and using the various tools and proper techniques on the platform to effectively lead the congregation. Some time ago, I came across this video of Elias Dummer formerly of The City Harmonic. In it, he shares perfectly what the true meaning of performance is and how it is used in worship. Check out the video below, and we’ll dive into that, and more, in my next post. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGXulwS1J_M     For more great resources, visit my FREE RESOURCES page! Are you interested in partnering with me on your live performance?  I’d love to chat to get to know you and learn about your journey in music! Let’s schedule a call today! SCHEDULE CALL

Regardless of the church size, there is one glaring similarity between a lot of churches I see. In my travels with music, I have visited numerous churches. A long lasting result of these visits is that I stay connected with different ministries by watching their live stream services. Christmas Eve night, 2021, my wife and I stayed up late to watch multiple worship portions of various live stream services. In those we saw the devotion to excellence—the added stage production, decorations, skits, and song selections. However, there was one glaring similarity between all of these services, regardless of the church size: No invitation in worship. The worship teams played their sets well. And the singers were great. But there was little-to-no connecting with the congregation. Everyone stayed in their fixed position on the platform, and either kept their eyes closed or—reading lyrics from the screen on the back wall—they had that “deer in the headlights” expression.  The only interaction singers had with the congregation was in clichés: “Sing this out. Come on church! Lift your voices.” Nothing is wrong with these commands, but there first needs to be an invitation or a call to worship. Worship leaders must set the tone of the service by inviting the people into worship and by providing an atmosphere of freedom for the Lord to work. Setting the tone is done by verbally addressing the congregation—welcoming them, inviting them into worship, and giving them freedom to express their worship in their own way. After verbally communicating to the people, we should then focus on visually and emotionally communicating with them by demonstrating our expression of worship.  As scripture tells us that there is a time and season for everything, there is also a time and a place for our worship. There are times to get caught up in our own worship with God, and there are times to LEAD the congregation in worship. As worship leaders, we are to lead with love and devotion, not only in our personal worship but through demonstrating our worship by leading the people.  I love the old quote, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” We are to use our gifts well and should play skillfully unto the Lord, while taking great joy in doing so. We just can’t forget about the people God has entrusted us with. We’ve been chosen by God for such a time as this. Let’s make the most of it.   For more great resources, visit my FREE RESOURCES page!   Are you interested in partnering with me on your live performance? I’d love to chat to get to know you and learn about your journey in music! Let’s schedule a call today! SCHEDULE CALL  

Whether you realize it or not, the audience is a reflection of us onstage. When you’re performing or leading worship and you look out at the people, what do you see? Are they fully present with you? Are they singing their hearts out? Or does there seem to be a disconnect somewhere? In one of my very first posts, I talked about taking a look in a mirror and examining our onstage performance. I shared how our production company, BNY, took on more live streaming and pre-recorded audio/video projects at the beginning of the COIVD-19 Pandemic. At that time, many churches would record their Sunday services during the week and send us their A/V files to be edited and mixed. During this time, I heard many worship team members mention that they didn’t like how they looked on camera.  Today, I want to talk about another kind of mirror effect. Instead of looking in a mirror and seeing our own reflection, whether you realize it or not, the audience is a reflection of us onstage.  Not too long ago, my wife Skylar (Kaylyn) and I teamed up with a church worship team for their Sunday morning worship service. It was my third time playing drums with this particular church and her first time being invited to sing and play guitar along side me. It was special as it was the first time in a few years since we’ve played music together.  After rehearsal, we got into a conversation with the worship leader about leading the congregation by example. Skylar shared how she always noticed that the audience would mirror what she did when she was performing. Whenever she would smile while singing, the room would light up right back at her. It’s a simple, yet powerful way to connect with people.  Following that service, many different ones in the congregation came up and thanked us for blessing them with our gifts and complimented our playing. I share this not to boast in any way, but I would receive comments like, “I loved watching you play. I could see the joy in you.” Several elderly church members came up and made comments on how “loud I played.” I would respond saying that I hope it wasn’t too loud and they all said, “no it was perfect. We loved it.” The thing is, I wasn’t playing very loud at all, but I knew exactly what they meant by those comments. It took me YEARS to figure it out, but I can now say I have mastered the art of visually playing the drums ‘loudly’ by playing with the same passion, energy and expressions while playing the very softest I can audibly for any size room. But like anything, it was a journey for me to get there. A lot of humbling and some embarrassing moments to learn from, but I put in the work to be a good performer and communicator from the stage. I encourage any artist and worship team I work with to record their rehearsals as it’s a great way to learn. Doing so helped me to develop my personal onstage presence. Many clients I partner with will send me their videos to watch and critique and we’ll schedule a video call to breakdown their performance and review it together, step-by-step.  I hope this can serve as a reminder for us all to examine ourselves first so we can effectively communicate and lead others. If you’ve ever traveled on a commercial airline, you probably have heard the flight attendant’s instructions that in the event of the cabin losing air pressure and oxygen is needed, to put your mask on first before assisting others. Let’s do our part to examine ourselves so we can strive to be a good reflection to others from our places of leadership onstage.   To learn more about my services, visit my website. For more great resources, visit my FREE RESOURCES page! Are you interested in partnering with me on your live show? I’d love to chat to get to know you and learn about your journey in music! Let’s schedule a call today! SCHEDULE CALL    

A person’s life can be changed through worship To this day, I’m not sure why I receive these emails, but I oftentimes find myself very thankful that I do.  For a few years now, I have been subscribed to a daily devotional email. I never signed up to receive such emails, but I have enjoyed reading them when I can. It was Christmas 2021 and as I sat at the kitchen table of my in-laws house, I began reading one of these devotions. The title read, “Christmas Proves Your Value” and it was centered around John 3:16. For church goers and perhaps some who aren’t, I’m sure it is a familiar passage in scripture to many. The writer penned the difference of being lost or misplaced and applied it to someone being spiritually lost. “If you misplace something, it wasn’t important to you. But if you lose it, it’s valuable enough for you to try to find it. You misplace a bobby pin. You lose your glasses.” The author went on to say, “People are only lost because they’re worth finding. The value of a masterpiece doesn’t go down when it’s lost; it goes up.” I immediately stopped reading and began thinking about worship. If you’re reading this right now, I want you to know that your worship is worth it! Instead of listing all the reasons why we should worship and what our focus and response should be in worship, I would like to just touch on one thing.   Your worship is worth it because people are worth it.    You never know who might show up to your church on a given Sunday and what they might be dealing with. We see numerous stories in the Bible how God used a donkey, a rooster and so many ordinary, unqualified people to accomplish His will and change a person’s life. If He used them, then he can certainly qualify you to use your voice or instrument to advance His Kingdom from the platform. You are not just a background singer or a drummer stuck behind a drumshield. No matter your role, you matter to God. And it just may so happen that God uses your abilities on the platform to help lead someone to having a personal relationship with Him! In my next blog post, I’ll share more about a recent experience I had where my drumming was used to bless many different ones in a church congregation. One older gentleman was moved to tears while he was thanking me for playing with the church praise team that Sunday morning. We just never know how God can use our talents to be a blessing to someone. God gave His very best for us. Now it’s our turn to give our best back to Him. Our worship is worth it.   To learn more about my services, visit my website. For more great resources, visit my FREE RESOURCES page! Are you interested in partnering with me on your live show? I’d love to chat to get to know you and learn about your journey in music! Let’s schedule a call today! SCHEDULE CALL  

Are you making good use of the gifts God has given you? Psalm 33:1-3 says we are to “Sing joyfully to the Lord” and to “play skillfully” to Him.  These verses serve as a great reminder for everyone to make good use of the gifts God has given them. For us musicians, it reminds us to seek to serve the Lord through our singing or playing by doing so with excellence. But in striving towards skillful playing, we must not lose our joy in the process.  As musicians, we tend to focus primarily on musicianship. We learn our instruments through what can be years of practice. We then begin to develop our own style and sound. But what if “playing skillfully” was more than simply playing our instrument or using our voice well? The Hebrew definition of the word “skillfully” is to be good, to be well placed or do thoroughly. As a worship team, your worship, your playing, your words spoken, your actions and your visual expressions should be well thought-out for them to be “well placed” and “done thoroughly”. It takes love and devotion to commit to the process in order to “play skillfully” and to provide worship experience to share with your congregation. With the leading of the Holy Spirit and some effort on our part, I believe our talents and gifts can be used by God to change people’s lives! It could be your drumming, your singing, your guitar playing, your piano playing or your words shared that may be used to reach somebody.      Here are some ways you can start putting in the effort to “playing skillfully” in all aspects of your worship on the platform: Practice. You should be playing your instrument and using your voice throughout the week as much as you’re able to. For vocalists, doing vocal warm-ups everyday should be a priority. Rehearse as a group as if you’re leading worship during service. Work on purposefully communicating with your congregation. Be intentional on the platform by being Faithful in the Little Things that you do. Stop just singing songs to the people and start Providing an Experience to share with them. Make the most out of every given opportunity to connect with your church body.    We should play skillfully…   For Others Playing skillfully provides an enhanced worship service for your congregation that is free of any preventable distractions of us looking unprepared or nervous, playing wrong notes, struggling vocally or forgetting song lyrics.   For Ourselves Playing skillfully helps us to be prepared and leave us feeling comfortable and confident on the platform. It also allows us the freedom to worship.   For Our Father Playing skillfully should ultimately come out of our response to God for who He is, for what He’s done and for what He’s continuing to do every day. We should give our best to Him because He gave His best for us. Put in the effort today and see what the Lord does next Sunday.   To learn more about my services, visit my website. For more great resources, visit my FREE RESOURCES page! Are you interested in partnering with me on your live show? I’d love to chat to get to know you and learn about your journey in music! Let’s schedule a call today! SCHEDULE CALL