The way my life was situated seemed to me like the most logical career path would be leading worship at a church or some variation of that. With that being said the most logical major to choose at Lee (the school I now attend) would be church music. I wanted to be very sure about the major that I chose, so naturally I asked around about the church music and other music majors. What I came to find out is that the major did not satisfy the needs I thought it would.

Through discussion with several people I discovered that the church music program at Lee offers mostly “music” based classes and “theology” based classes with a minimal amount of classes that actually integrate both of these two subjects together. The integration of both together I feel is the most important part about learning how to worship and more importantly be a worship leader. Similar to other programs offered at Lee and most colleges, there are little to no classes that offer instruction about integration and practicality. If there are any, there is a very small amount of classes that answer the question, “okay so what do I do with all of this information?”.

Another reason the church music program's agenda turned me off to the idea of making it my major is that the "music" portion is mostly centered around classical style music. For the most part, this is irrelevant to modern church circles. What I wanted to see in this program was a way to learn about practical worship leading skills. Not how to sing in an opera. I understand that learning classical style can be important for forming proper technique but it can't be a means to an end when learning how to lead worship. In this program you also have to pick an emphasis in an instrument that can be played classically. There is not much room to choose instruments used on the modern church platform let alone in the style that they are typically played. Having an emphasis in classical trumpet (in my opinion) would not prepare you for real world worship leading as much as knowing how to play modern guitar, drums, bass, keyboard, or even multiple instruments so that you would be better suited to be able to run a rehearsal.

I believe that worship leading goes beyond music and theology. That would mean learning how to work with other people, learning how to lead people, and most importantly do both of those things in a way that is worshipful and further emphasizes the purpose of worship. I want learn how to worship through being a worship leader, not just on stage, not just leading a song, not just in my theology.

So all of these things turned me away from a church music major at Lee and what drove me to the choice of becoming a theology major was this simple thought:

I would rather know more about the God I'm singing about and to than to simply know how to sing in excellence.

Only because I had to make a choice. If Lee offered a more wholistic, relevant church music program I would probably be in it... But don't be mistaken, majoring in theology has been one of the best decisions of my life. My faith and relationship with my Creator both are being constantly refined as I learn more about Him and He is undoubtedly using my situation to bring glory to His name. And also don't be mistaken, I think you can learn a lot form the church music program, its just not what it should be. It seems a lot more like a music minor and a theology minor with a couple worship classes taken as electives.

To the people in the church music program, I don't think you made the wrong or worse decision than I did, I just think you're being cheated of learning what it means to be a worship leader.