“Twoom.”
I look up from the piano and across the stage to see Hayden Rash testing his bass. His index finger flicks the string ever so slightly to produce that low frequency heard only through headphones and professional speakers. Or on a wedge which he insists on using rather than in-ears and a sound pack. The perpetual smile on his face turns toward me as we nod to each other.
My gaze moves slightly left of Rash and lands on David Cooper, adjusting his in-ears as he looks out to the rest of the auditorium. People are beginning to file into the auditorium as the clock nears 10:00 on this Wednesday morning. I look over and see Callie Teague swaying back and forth in anticipation as she grabs her mic stand and adjusts it.
“10:00,” read the red, seven-segment numbers on the back wall of the chapel auditorium. My head turns quickly to Cooper as he taps a key on his computer behind the drum kit, and like clockwork the sound of a metronome blares through mine and the rest of our in-ears.
“Intro, two, three, four..”
Cooper raises his sticks, Teague grips her microphone and Rash moves his left hand to play the “A.”
Go time.
“To be able to do something that’s fun and use it directly to worship God and to lead others in doing that is just a blessing,” Cooper tells me two weeks later as I sit across from him in his dorm. He’s a junior computer science major, but he’s been playing the drums since sixth grade and leading worship since seventh grade. He emphasizes to me how fun it is to play the drums and that it is a big stress reliever for him. We all need those as college students.
Rash sits right next to me as I interview Cooper. He tells me the story of how he fell in love with music while playing the trombone in the middle school band. Rash’s cousin let him borrow his bass, and he “couldn’t get enough of it,” so he bought one of his own and got involved in leading worship for the student ministry at his church. Rash, now a junior cell and molecular biology major, plays the bass for chapel and West Jackson Baptist Church on a regular basis, along with Cooper. They tell me they’re a package deal when it comes to leading worship.
I catch Teague after class one day to ask her about leading worship. She’s a junior public relations major and has been singing her entire life. She moved from choir to the praise band class while in high school, where she led her school in worship during chapels. Eventually, she began leading with her student ministry and has since continued leading for her student ministry and for chapel at Union.
“I was compelled to use my gifts for ministry,” she tells me. “I wanted to use my gifts however they could be used.”
Some of my favorite moments from college have been playing music and leading worship with these three. The feeling of cohesiveness that comes from the combination of each instrument and voice and the different sounds that mesh together to create a singular harmonic expression are hard to top, in my opinion. Cooper, Rash and Teague are each incredibly talented at their crafts, and being able to join in with them, whether worshipping on stage or just listening and singing along, brings life.
But as I sit and talk with my friends about these experiences we share, I’m reminded that there’s something even greater beyond simply the musicality of leading worship.
“Every good thing that we have is a taste of who God is,” Cooper tells me, “and music is a really good thing that’s really joyful, and it has truth instilled in it.” According to John 1:14, our God is One that is equally full of both grace and truth. Yes, we can know the Lord through His Word, but we can also know Him through worshipping Him in song. Cooper knows that joy that comes from sharing the truth of the gospel with his fellow believers when playing the drums.
“I really enjoy being able to hear the voices of people praising the Lord, and when you’re on stage you hear that a lot more than when you’re in the audience,” says Teague. “It drives me to a place of worship even more, being able to hear His church worshipping together.”
She understands why she does what she does. Her voice is beautiful and powerful, but that’s not her focus when she’s on stage. She’s more compelled by the voices of her classmates, her fellow church members, her brothers and sisters in Christ.
I can’t help but grin as Rash describes worship to me. “Everyone is kinda out of their comfort zone for a little bit, and everyone is just so vulnerable with each other. You feel vulnerable, you feel free.”
Worship leads us to break down our pride, to come to our knees as we acknowledge who God is, what He’s faithfully done in our lives and how we fall short. It’s so much more than music for music’s sake.
“It’s something that puts our hearts in the right place,” says Callie. And it leads us to the impeccable grace and salvation that comes from Jesus Christ.
And because of this, worship leads to community.
“I feel like music encourages that fellowship with believers more than anything else,” Rash explains to me. Colossians 3:16 affirms Rash’s statement, as Paul encourages the believers to sing with each other in thankfulness to the Lord. What a joy it is to come alongside people from all walks of life to proclaim gratitude for the Lord and His works.
As we near the end of playing Hillsong’s “King of Kings,” the last song of our set on that Wednesday morning, I look and see Rash rest his hand on the top of his bass. Cooper lifts his sticks from the kit, and the two begin to sing the final chorus along with Teague. I lift my hands from the piano keys and close my eyes. I’m surrounded by the voices of people I know, people I don’t know, people I love, people I’m not quite fond of. But still, we all sing the same lines.
“Praise forever..”
One voice, one faith…
“..to the King of Kings.”
…one God.
Photo by Hannah Heckart
