Your Faith
Sheri Gould
So many of us have that one special teacher who influenced us at just the right time in our young lives with encouragement, wisdom, and, in my case, passion for Jesus. For me, it was my drama teacher, Sheri Gould. I met Sheri in my “tween” years through my involvement in Good News Productions, an evangelistic outreach involving the production of original children’s musicals. I was one of hundreds of kids positively impacted by this ministry that Sheri founded and directed for 13 years. And her talents span a broader spectrum than just drama. With a Music Education degree from the University of Illinois, Sheri has been a vocal instructor, worship leader, and music director for over 25 years.
Arriving a few minutes early for our interview, I wondered how the decade since our last meeting had changed her. As she strolled into the restaurant, my question was immediately answered. Not a bit. Even in her smile, she conveyed the same contagious joy and warmth I remembered. As we settled into our interview I quickly realized that although her heart for people and her passion for Jesus remained the same, God had directed her vocationally into entirely new territory. She and her husband, Doug, currently travel throughout the country teaching and equipping the Body of Christ for music ministry. She leads vocal training sessions at such conferences as Christian Musician Summit, Seminars4Worship, International Worship Institute, East Coast Worship Summit, Worship Institute Northeast, and many more. Along the way, she has met and ministered with the industry’s most well-known worship leaders including Lincoln Brewster, Chris Tomlin, and Paul Baloche. She is also a regular columnist for Worship Musician! Magazine, and is currently working on a book with DVD titled, The Worshipping Vocalist.
Sheri’s extensive background in Christian musical arts parallels the progression of music within the mainstream church. She began her career as a church music director, leading hymns played on an organ and sung by the robed church choir. Several years later, she inadvertently incited controversy by introducing a drum set to the church worship team. Fast forward a few more years, and today she participates in technical training events that teach full-band worship teams how to incorporate state-of-the-art soundboards and computer software into their worship services. Church music certainly has evolved rapidly and dramatically, and Sheri has had a front-row seat in watching and being involved in that progression over the years.
Looking for some vocal-training pointers, I asked her about the difference between performance singing and singing on a worship team. Her reaction was quite pointed, saying, “As a worship leader, you are not a performer. It’s very hard to not step into a performance mentality, which is really entirely inappropriate. People are coming to see you, because they want to experience something. What they experience is really in your hands as a worship leader. They should be following you into God’s throne room. Hopefully, if you go, they’ll see a piece of what you’re doing, and be drawn by it.”
Offering insight into how to avoid this “performance mentality,” she says, “You won’t find out [who you are as a worshipper] on stage. On stage, you’ll find out who you are in front of people. So, make sure you spend time worshipping at home, alone, finding out who you are when it’s just you and God. That’s authentic, and that’s what will be powerful on a platform.”
She went on to point out a major distraction involved in leading worship. Talented worship musicians can easily be put on a pedestal being elevated to places they simply should not be. Sheri offered a strong precaution against this, admonishing vocalists to “not use the platform of God to fulfill your own desire to sing. When we stand up in front of people to sing we become so vulnerable. We can start getting confused as to why we’re up there. You have to do a heart-check consistently when you’re on a platform all the time. It’s so easy for it to become a job, for it to become a means to the wrong end if we’re not careful. In the final analysis, talent and skill are ‘wood, hay, and stubble’ if it’s not been refined by the fire of God.”
It had been over a decade since our last meeting. God had written new chapters in virtually all of our life circumstances, and yet I took away the same lesson the night of our interview that had so powerfully impacted me as a teenager. Pausing to collect her thoughts, she summed up all of her technical tips and vocal-training expertise into one piece of advice, “Just really be in love with Jesus.”
Sheri’s Top 5 Tips for Worship Teams
#1) Let Philippians 2:3 be your mantra: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.” Remember that the platform is His – it’s not about you. Be a team player at all times and that means being willing to be humble and flexible.
#2) Spend time worshipping alone. Get to know who you are as a worshipper when it’s just you and God. Also take time to worship as a team; don’t just practice the mechanics of the music. After all the work is done, spend some time just engaging in worship as a team.
#3) Make sure to warm up vocally. Even if you can’t take time as a team to do it, make sure that you as an individual come prepared and vocally warmed up.
#4) Take some time during rehearsal to practice the vocals separately from the band. Use no sound reinforcement and just sing a cappella. This will ensure that you can hear your mistakes, correct them, and get a decent blend.
#5) Know your stuff. Come musically and spiritually prepared. Make sure you understand the correct use of your microphone and sound equipment. 