037: Why Aren’t They Singing? Zarc Porter Shares Tips For More Engaged Worship | Worship & Tech Series Part 3

Episode 037: Why Aren’t They Singing? Zarc Porter Shares Tips For More Engaged Worship | Part 3 Worship & Tech Series For Small Churches

Intro 0:01
Hey, this is Laurie Graham. Welcome to The Small Church Ministry Podcast.

Laurie Graham 0:15
Hey everyone, welcome back to Part 3 of our Worship and Tech Series for Small Churches! We are so excited to be sharing solutions and strategies that work for smaller numbers and smaller budgets because small church ministry isn’t less, but it is different, and this completely applies to worship and tech ministries! One of the biggest challenges in small church ministry is really having the wrong picture of what it should be or what it could be, and a lot of times we overcomplicate things. And you all, if you haven’t heard of Zarc Porter, he is an award winning music producer, a songwriter, and musician, and entrepreneur, and evangelist. He runs a nonprofit, maybe more than one! He worship leads, but the reason he’s here is because he is helping small churches. 

Laurie Graham  00:56
So someone, a few weeks back, posted in our Facebook group, our Facebook community that we have for small churches, about where do you all get songs and video projection and lyrics, we’re having such a hard time, we have half a band, we don’t always have someone there, and somebody in the post started saying we use iSing, we love iSing, and I had never heard of it, and other people are chiming in, what is that? and somebody else that I use, iSing too, but what I was really struck by was in this community of 6,000 people in small churches worldwide, most people hadn’t heard of iSing and other people were like, it’s the best thing since sliced bread. And so I started Googling and reached out to Zarc, and he’s one of the masterminds behind it, but the reason Zarc is here isn’t because of his amazing, amazing resume, but it’s really because, Zarc, I saw that you were helping small churches. And so, I was so excited when you jumped on a call with me and the fact that you’re even here today, but before we jump into our topic for today, because we’re going to be talking about why people aren’t singing in small churches and what to do about it and how to help them. I would love for them to get to know you a little bit. So can you just describe what your typical day looks like? Like now?

Zarc Porter  02:05
Okay, yes, I can. So basically, this is my recording studio here where I am right now, and I spend most of my days here, just kind of producing music, as Laurie said, either for, you know, for resources for small churches. So we make backing tracks, you know, we make music for an app, we make multi-tracks, lyric videos, but also we have a schools ministry that we also run. And so we make music for that as well. So yeah, just producing lots of music basically.

Laurie Graham  02:32
Now, you, how did all this get started? Like, how are you sitting in a recording studio today? You know, I grew up in the 80’s and knew some of your work way back then, but how did all this get started for you?

Zarc Porter  02:44
Yes, so we, so I went off to university to study music when I was young, and when I was there, I met a bunch of Christians, a one guy called Mark Pernels, and we became friends and we basically shared a passion for music and for evangelism. So, we decided to form and or band together and that was back in the 80’s. So it was kind of very, kind of when synth-pop was coming through in a big way, so we had lots of synths and use lots of, you know, use lots of early technology. And we went did a lot of schools work, actually. So we were going around high schools, and just playing songs, and then just talking about our faith with the kids. And a few years later, that kind of morphed into another band, which was the worldwide message tribe, and that, we did a lot of schools around Greater Manchester, which is in the north of the UK here, and it was great! We, you know, over about eight years, we saw thousands of people come to faith and saw some amazing things happen. We also got the opportunity to tour the States a couple of times, which was amazing. And there was a record company out there called Warner Alliance who signed us and they released some of our albums, and you know, we had some radio plays out there. And that was great, because we didn’t really, I don’t, I don’t think we really understood what it meant at the time because we were obviously in the UK. So, we didn’t really, we weren’t that aware of what was happening, but it was great because it just helped us to do the ministry and just to make things a little bit more excellent and meant we could spend a bit more time making albums. And so it was just brilliant. 

Zarc Porter  04:05
It was a brilliant time, really. And then more recently, we, once we got a bit old for being in a band, we decided to set up other bands. So we audition people and put other bands together to do evangelism in high schools. And then more back than that, 10 years ago, we started another project for primary schools, or elementary schools as you call them in the States, and that was for doing, going into schools and teaching the kids songs. So kind of getting the whole school to kind of become a choir. We, we have project leaders all over the UK that go into schools, and they teach them about the Christian faith. And then we do like a CD recording as well and put on a performance for all the moms and dads. So again, it’s similar but different because we have the kids involved in that now. So yeah, we’ve been doing lots of schools work for many many years now.

Laurie Graham  04:50
Oh, I love it so much, and it was so fun when I realized that you were part of the the tribe, the worldwide missions message tribe and I got to go way back in the old days the other day on Spotify, and I was playing songs for my kids, and, you know, my adult kids now. And I’m like, this is one that I used to sing when I was a youth director in the 90’s, and it was the real thing! It was so fun!

Zarc Porter  05:15
Wow. Yeah. That’s amazing. Yeah, that’s a long time ago, now.

Laurie Graham  05:22
But you know what, they recognized it. So that is one of those that’s kind of still hanging out. And so, I just love that you’ve just made such a difference in, in honestly, in different eras too which is so fun because when you talk about, like, the synth movement and all that, and I think, I think it was even called, like, worship evangelism at the time, right? Because you or maybe others during that time period, were really going into using worship music as evangelism. It wasn’t just in the churches, right?

Zarc Porter  05:48
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And in fact, we had, we actually did start doing worship resources for small churches, even back then even back in the early 90’s, because what we found, is that kids were coming to faith in the schools. They were making commitment and these were just kids who had no experience of church at all, you know, no idea what it was like to be in the church. And then they would go to the church on a Sunday, and it was like going to Mars, because they were just, it was so unusual for them. The whole culture was so different for them. So we started doing these kinds of, kind of like dance EDM, kind of backup pop dance backing tracks of worship songs, so the churches can use that to kind of get the kids engaged, and give them, you know, some of the kids would lead the worship using these tracks and kind of, kind of do DJ lead worship, that kind of thing. And it was just a way of engaging kids in church, you know. So we did some of that back in the 90’s, when it was very fashionable. That kind of dance music was very fashionable, certainly in the UK back then. So yeah, that’s where we started doing resources for churches really.

Laurie Graham  06:45
Oh, my goodness, I love it so much! So you have been on some really big stages, and you’ve worked with some major, you know, worship artists that we know of, and we’ve heard of. What has your experience been in small churches, because the people listening right now our listeners, we’re all in small churches just doing our best to shine a light to Jesus. So what’s your experience been in small churches?

Zarc Porter  07:08
Whilst yeah, really interesting question. I mean, we’ve, myself and my wife and my family, we’ve been involved in both large churches and small churches. And at the moment, we’re involved in small churches locally here, but I think the great thing is smaller churches is we’ve found consistently that it’s easier to kind of, it’s easy to kind of get involved and to feel like you belong. You know, some of the bigger churches, the problem is, it’s very difficult to kind of penetrate if that makes sense and get involved and get to know people because it’s so big, and it becomes a little bit corporate in style sometimes. So, I think it’s the small churches do have the advantage in the sense that you can, you can just kind of spend more time investing in people, building community, it’s more easy, you can be a bit more nimble, you can do things more quickly. Whereas big churches, it tends to be a big machine that kind of moves very slowly. So I think there are advantages, but I also feel that, you know, here, actually, we’re in the town where we live here, we’ve got a great network of the churches working together, and I think that’s great. You know, whenever there’s unity amongst the churches, I think that’s so good, and it’s just brilliant! Because obviously, you know, Jesus died for all of us, and, you know, we can have these denominational discussions, and that’s fine, but we shouldn’t let that, kind of, dominate us, you know, we really need to focus on the lost and reaching the lost and reaching the people in our communities. So I love it when there’s unity with big and small churches, actually. And it’s all valid, isn’t it? It’s all good. Isn’t there’s no right or wrong way of doing church? So yeah.

Laurie Graham  08:35
Absolutely! Yeah. One of the things we talked about, I think I said at the beginning of the episode, is that small church ministry isn’t less, but it is different. And the reason we talk about that is because here in the States, and I don’t know if it’s the same in the UK or not, so maybe you can shed some light on this. Here in the States, alot of people in small churches feel like their failures, failing, or they’ve even been told they’re failing. I just got an email from somebody, honestly, yesterday, and she and her husband church planted and she said, we have never broken, you know, this number 50, 50 people, and our friends literally have said, we have a lack of faith, and we’re failing and we shouldn’t be doing what we’re doing, because they don’t have the number. Like, do you find that in the UK also, like this comparison of, if we’re doing it right, we will grow?

Zarc Porter  09:21
There’s a, yeah, there is a bit of that, I think, but I think it’s, it’s something to be really wary of actually, because it can really paralyze a church, if they’re sort of obsessed with numbers, you know, and I understand it, you know, I understand that the temptation to want to grow and that is obviously there. And it’s great. It’s very encouraging when new people come into the church, but I think it’s more important actually, to just be honorable in the way you’re doing stuff. Not worrying too much about numbers, but just, just do things right. Look after your people. You know, I think it’s great to be an outward looking church. I think, even if you’ve got only three people, you know, so you know, just a prayer church and you’re meeting in house group, it’s great to be outward looking. Rather than focusing on yourselves, focus on the lost, focus on the people in the community, that’s always going to be a healthy thing to do, I think. 

Zarc Porter  10:10
And I think, actually, I think that brings unity as well, you know, when we have these, you know, little arguments about, you know, theology or that kind of worship, or somebody wants traditional worship, somebody wants contemporary worship, and you get these little, these little kind of tensions in the church. I think actually, when we focus on other people, we focus on our community, it brings unity! Suddenly those things don’t seem that important, and I think that’s a really important principle, is to be an outward looking church, no matter whether you’re big or small, or even just a small group in a house, you know, it’s so important to be concerned with the lost. Because, you know, at the end of the day, if we, if we all believe what we say we believe, then when we get to heaven, it’s too late to do evangelism. It’s too late to share your faith, that opportunity is gone. This is the time to do that. So if we genuinely believe that we need to focus on the lost while we’re here, and then when we get to heaven, we can have all those theological discussions, or we can talk about worship, and that’s okay, we can spend as long as we want doing it then. So I think that the outward looking thing is really important. Yeah.

Laurie Graham  11:13
And I feel like as soon as we get to heaven, we won’t even care about all those things. Even to have the discussion.

Zarc Porter  11:18
Well, is that the funny thing? The funny thing is, that’s so true! We won’t even care. So actually, why do we care now, ya know?

Laurie Graham  11:26
Yeah, I love it so much. So let me ask you this, and I’m not sure how you’re going to answer this, but have you ever personally had an experience when you were leading worship and nobody really was singing? Because that’s the topic of our of our podcast today is why aren’t they singing, and pretty much, how can we do better? How can we engage them? Like, let’s talk about that question. So has that actually ever happened to you?

Zarc Porter  11:47
Yes, it has and I think, I think when I was younger, one of the mistakes, I mean, to be honest with you, Laurie, I think I’ve made every mistake in the book. You know, throughout the years I’ve done, I’ve done everything wrong, I’ve done everything wrong, and because it’s great, you learn from it, don’t you and you know, people, people, hopefully are gracious enough to bear with you. But I remember when I was younger one, one thing that happened to me a lot was people would come up to me and say, you’re playing the songs too fast. You know, I for some reason, I had this thing to just rattle through worship songs really fast, and I didn’t realize I was doing it. Maybe I was a bit nervous, or I don’t know. But people used to say, you’re playing too fast, and I just couldn’t seem to slow down, but obviously, as I got older, you realize that, you know, it’s it, the number one thing is to, is to not distract the congregation, is to let them engage in worshiping God and provide a platform that lets them do that. And that means just holding it back, keeping it simple, letting them go on a journey in worship, you know, and you learn as you get older how to do that. I think it just comes with just lots of practice and lots of experience.

Laurie Graham  12:48
Yeah, yeah.  I do think we learn as we go, but I also am so excited that you’re here to teach us a few things that maybe we don’t have to learn it the hard way. Like, maybe you could shed a little light on it. If a worship leader, like if a worship leader came up to you today, like they’re in a small church, and they’re struggling, and they’re saying my congregation isn’t singing? Like, how, how would you start? Like, what are some of your best tips to really engage a congregation more in worship and singing, and just, I don’t know, just being engaged more in the community and being present?

Zarc Porter  13:19
Yeah, that’s a really good question, and there’s several things, I think, and the first thing I think I would say is that it’s, it’s really important, if you’re in a worship team, or you’re leading from the front, when you’re doing music is to understand that I even, even the phrase worship leader, I think is a little bit, kind of, it’s not quite the right phrase. I think the right phrase is a worship facilitator, or a worship guide, because I think the congregation are actually the lead singer. They are the people who are at the front. They’re the people who, we are there to provide a backing, to give them the platform to engage in worshipping God. So we’re all worshiping together, you know, there’s no sense that we’re leading them. In a sense, they’re the leaders in a sense, and we’re backing them and supporting them, and enabling them and releasing them. And I think that’s a really important principle because, from that, comes lots of other things that happen. So if you feel like, oh, I’m the lead singer, then you feel like, okay, I’m gonna be the one who’s strong at the front, you know, driving all the decisions, and they’re kind of having to follow you. And if they’re not, if they’re not with you, they can quickly disconnect. So I think the first principle is to, is to, is to create a platform that’s not distracting. So, you know, so if we do something that’s too fast or too slow, or too loud or too soft, or too high or too low, those are all bad things, because they, those are all things that will distract a congregation. But if we can provide a solid, stable platform, then what happens is, the congregation relax, and they feel, they go on a journey in worship and they’re not looking at you or thinking about the musicians, they’re thinking about God and they’re engaged in worshiping God and that’s our job. Our job is to get out the way, so they can worship God. So I think the principle of building a stable platform to release the congregation is, is a really important principle.

Laurie Graham  15:12
I love it, and so when you talk about no distractions, I know you’ve talked about song choices and keys and things like that, because I read a post that you wrote about that. And so, how does that get in the way sometimes of people worshiping is when we’re choosing wrong or different songs? Can you talk about that a little bit?

Zarc Porter  15:30
Yeah, absolutely. Song, song choice is crucial as well. I mean, you know, I think obviously, it’s good to talk to whoever’s preaching, or if you have a service leader, talk to the people in charge of the service and talk about what they’re gonna be talking about, what’s the preach about what’s the service about? Try and choose songs that fit in and lead into that, that kind of the kind of naturally accentuate what they’re saying. So that’s a good thing, you know, rather than just being completely random songs. The other thing I think is, is, like I say, it’s important to create a journey with the music. So, it depends on, on, on, how your church does it, what traditions you have in your church, but if you’re a church where you can do two or three songs together in one block, that’s brilliant, because that means you can take people on this journey, and I think actually, one of the things I’ve learned is that some of the best times that, you know, you might do a, like a call to worship song, you might do a hymn, something like that, something with a bit of meaty theology in it, but the, some of the best songs, those ones where people can sing them without looking at the lyrics on a screen. So they know them. So it’s like a little refrain, something very simple. Like, just, just like, if you think about Blessed Assurance, or something like that, “This is my story. This is my song. Praising the Savior all day long,” something like that, when people sing, that they can shut their eyes, they can really meet with God, and just sing. And those are some of the best moments, I find, and it can just be a little phrase. Just repeating a little phrase over and over again, can be so effective. 

Zarc Porter  16:54
So, song choices and how you, how you carry people through the songs and how it flows is, is really crucial! And I actually talked about hymns, you know, I always have this kind of unwritten rule, where whenever I’m leading always, I always try and choose at least one hymn. So our church is quite a modern church, and they like contemporary worship, but I always choose at least one hymn. And I think hymns are just fantastic, and there’s a reason why people have been singing them for 100 or 150 years, is because they are great and they have great words and great theology, and they have some depth. And those hymns have stood the test of time. So I always think it’s, you know, that’s a gift to us, actually, as the church and I think, you know, putting one hymn in, and you can do contemporary arrangement, you can maybe modernize it a little bit, but bringing those hymns in, I think is always, I think is always a great idea, and I think it really embellishes the song choices. Yeah, I mean, there’s lots of we could say about it.

Laurie Graham  17:50
I love it so much. Yeah. Can you talk to us about keys, like the key that it should be in? There’s so much discussion and even argument out there in the worship leading world about what key your song should be in? Like, do you have any opinions on that one?

Zarc Porter  18:06
Yeah, I do and this is a big question, and this is, this is probably, I think this is probably the number one thing that people fall into, the trap that people can fall into is getting the wrong key and there are two schools of thought with this. And I’ll explain both and tell you which one, I think is the right one. But basically, we did a lot of studying on this when we started doing our resources, because all our tracks that we make are all in the most congregation friendly keys that it’s possible to get them in. So, we did a lot of research on this. So obviously, we all know that singers, all of us have different ranges, different vocal ranges, and we all have a particular sweet spot. So, you know, we tend to divide these up into soprano, alto, and then male tenor or bass, and you can have baritone and metsa soprano and these other ranges as well, but generally speaking, 99% of female singers, whether they’re a soprano or an alto, can reach every note between middle C and the C, the octave above middle C. They can sing that comfortably. Obviously, a soprano will reach a lot higher, and an alto might go a bit lower, but everybody can sing within that range comfortably. And then a male singer, whether you’re a bass or a tenor, every male voice can sing between a middle C and the octave below middle C comfortably. So bass or a baritone will go a lot lower, and other people can go higher, but everyone can sing in that range. 

Zarc Porter  19:26
So, what that means is that when we sing together, male and female together in a congregation, that means that the females are singing, ideally C middle C to a C above, and the males are singing C below middle C to C. So we’re singing together, but one octave apart from each other. So, females are an octave higher than male. Now, that would be brilliant if every single worship song was written within those ranges, so the melody didn’t didn’t go below a C or higher than C. The truth is, as you well know, and as we all know, a lot of them go way beyond that range and this is a problem. So, when they do that they means that the key that we choose has to be a compromise. So you have to be, the women’s are singing a bit higher and the men are singing and a bit lower. Now, it is less offensive for men to sing too low than it is for women to sing too high. It’s easier, in other words, for men to sing too low. When women have to sing too high, it becomes very painful for them. It’s hard, it’s a real stretch, and it’s not a pleasant sound. So that is very distracting in a congregational setting. So when there’s a compromise to be had, we tend to nudge the keys down a bit to make sure that the women are still comfortable. Female singers are still comfortable, and male singers might be a bit low, but as I say, that’s more comfortable than women having to think too high. So that’s always a compromise. 

Zarc Porter  20:42
Now, as I said, at the beginning, there’s two schools of thought with this. One school of thought is that the lead singer whose, I say the lead singer, you know, I mean, the worship leader, again, that we know we don’t like that term, I don’t like that term, but that’s what everyone says. So the worship leader will pitch the song key in a key that he or she feels really comfortable with. So they know their sweet spot is right in the middle of that range. So they’ll pitch the key for them to sing. Now the problem with that is if they’re a male singer, you’ll find that they’ll pitch at about a fifth higher than they should do for a congregation, which means that the females are going to be singing way, way too high, and it becomes a real struggle, and then it becomes distracting again. If they’re a female singer, usually they’ll drop it too low, and then the men will be really struggling to get any volume, because it’s so low, or they have to jump up the octave. And then what, you know, I’ve, we’ve all sat next to people in a church where they’re jumping the octave all the time, because they don’t know where to go low or high, and because it’s in the wrong key. And that again, becomes very distracting. So that’s the first school of thought. 

Zarc Porter  21:42
The second school of thought is that the worship leader will say no, I’m going to pitch this in the key that is best for the average mixed congregation. Which means if they’re a woman, they might be singing a little bit high, if they’re a man they might be singing a bit low, but the congregation, that they will be comfortable, and what happens is the volume from the congregation is doubled because it’s a good key for them. So they sound really good. So I, that’s where I would go. I would always put the congregation first. As I say, when we do our training here in the UK, I say, congregation is king! They get the they get to call the shots, you know, and you actually have to take a bit of a backseat. And you can do harmonies, you know, you can, if you’ve got a male and a female leader at the front, then you can harmonize together to make it feel more comfortable for you, but at the end of the day, it’s about getting the congregation to not be distracted, as I said, and to get them in the right key. So that’s the way I would go with it. But it is difficult, and some people really struggle with that because they feel fragile. And some, the argument goes, which I’ve heard people say to me, well, I need to sing it in a key where I feel really confident because then the congregation feel really good because they, they feel good by association. Because even though they can’t sing, they can’t sing the notes, they think, oh, the lead singer sounds really good at the front. So they imagined in their heads that they sound really good by association. But as I say, what happens then is you get all kinds of weird things with octave, people jumping octaves, and people just can’t follow it, and the musical people struggle. So always better to get it in the right key in the first place, is my belief.

Laurie Graham  23:13
Yeah, well, I’m, I’m totally with you in so many different ways, but I think one part of what you said, which I think is amazing, and we should highlight again, is, I guess, I say it maybe a little differently, or with a different phrase, but totally say the same thing is, I always talk about worship leading isn’t about worshiping in front of people, it’s about leading them in their worship. And I think that is the shift that you’re saying is, is if the worship leader, if their goal is to lead, is to worship just in front of people so they can see you worshiping, it is a little different perspective than to think of the congregation as the lead singer. I read another thing you had written, Zarc, about mixing, like sound mixing, which we’re totally not going to get into today, but I loved what you said is, you know, a lot of people say what should the lead singer be the highest, be the biggest volume, right? And you said, no, the congregation should be. The congregation is the lead singer. And I do think this is a huge perspective shift, but I also think it’s really, it may be more important, in my mind, in a small church than a big church. Because in a big church, you’ve got this volume of this team on stage, and in a small church when you said people sing louder when it’s in the right key, that is so incredibly true! Like, I noticed that all the time. It’s not, the song matters a lot, but that key seems to matter more because if people aren’t singing in a range they’re comfortable they don’t sing out and in a small church, there’s nothing, like, to me more powerful than when you hear the voices of all these people around you and they are worshipping! As a worship leader that would make me stop. I literally would stop singing. I often would get teary because I’m like, oh, they’re worshiping! Like they’re worshiping and when that volume increases, but so for people who are not musicians, Zarc, how do we simplify this for them? because they’re thinking, middle C, what’s the middle C? I don’t even know what they’re talking about. How would you simplify this? Like, how do they, how do they get the song in the right key?

Zarc Porter  25:08
Yes, that’s right. That’s a good question. So we, the quick answer is, on our website, on the Worship Center website, we have a list of song keys that are recommended keys for congregations. So those are all the keys that we make all the songs in ourselves. So, we’ve got the entire CCLI top 100 on there, plus about another sort of 300 I think now or something like that on top. So we’ve got lots of the most popular hymns, lots of the most popular songs are on there. If there’s a song that’s not on there, all I can say is that our kind of formula is never, try never to go above, never let the melody go above a C above middle C. Now, obviously, occasionally, if it’s just touching it for one note in the whole song or one note in the verse or something, of course, that’s fine. So it’s a little bit of a balancing act. But if you don’t, obviously, if you, if you’re not a musician, then the best thing is to ask somebody who can play piano or play some instrument. Say what, you know, how do we pitch this and just try and get some advice off them. But like I say, most of them are on our website now in the in the recommended keys. And you’ll find actually, when you go to Song Select or to CCLI, or you listen to backing tracks on commercial CDs, those are usually in the wrong key. So I wouldn’t use that as a reference for the recommended key the rec, when they say recommended key, usually it’s the wrong key. So I wouldn’t say, you know, I wouldn’t,

Laurie Graham  26:26
I totally agree with you.

Zarc Porter  26:28
Yeah, cause they just, they just take the key that it’s recorded in, which you know, so if Matt Redman’s making a CD, you know, it’s fair enough, you know, if I was Matt Redman, I’d be doing the same thing you want. He wants to sound good when he’s making his album. So he pitches in a key where he, he’s in his sweet spot, but that is not a recommended key for a congregation, you know? So it’s different.

Laurie Graham  26:45
Yeah, and so what do you do when somebody like Matt Redman, or, you know, any of the major artists today are doing these songs that are not between C and C, because they’re not even in one octave? Like, they have these incredible ranges and they’re singing from the basement to the attic and it sounds amazing! What do we do with those songs? What do we do with those songs? Like, because for me as a worship leader, a lot of times I would not, I just wouldn’t choose those for my congregation. I would think that’s, that’s a performance song, and maybe not great for my small church.

Zarc Porter  27:16
Yeah, absolutely, and that, there are songs where, you know, these songs where they drop the octave in the middle, and it goes up, and it’s really, you know, some of those, some of those songs, actually, you can squash the ranges down, and make everything happen in the same octave. So, for example, Cornerstone is one of them, where there’s a version, the original version jumps the octave, but you can do it in the same octave, and it sounds great, actually, it works really well, and it becomes very singable, if you do that. So, that’s one thing you can do is slightly, slightly kind of, you know, squash the octave ranges a bit, but I think it’s just a compromise. You know, you can’t obviously, you can’t rewrite the song because everybody knows the melody. They’ve heard it, they know this, how the song goes. So you have to be true to the original, but what you have to do is just, just, just treat it as a compromise. When it goes too high, you just lower the whole key a little bit so that it’s not strained, causing everyone to strain. And as I say, the men may be a bit low, but that is, that is a lot better. So it’s always a bit of a balancing act when you have these 17 semitone ranges, you know. You just have to juggle it a bit, and look at how long the melody spends at the top range, and how long you spend at the bottom. So if it’s, if the concentrated bit of it is at the bottom, you can afford to nudge it up a semitone or tone. If it’s at the top, just bring it down just to keep everybody comfortable. So yeah, it’s just a bit of a juggling act. There’s no quick answer to that, but it is a bit of a, a bit of a juggling act.

Laurie Graham  28:35
Yeah, and we have a lot of people in small churches, we find, become accidental leaders, and they are leading worship when they’ve never sung before, or they’re learning to play guitar for their small church, or they’re picking up a keyboard and they’ve never done it before. So I love that you have resources really to help them and we haven’t even talked about your resources Zarc, and we’re gonna get to that and hopefully you’ll agree to come back again sometime too, but you said on your website, so theworshipzone.com, and by the way you all, if you look him up, we’re gonna put the link in the, in the show notes for sure, but it’s ‘the’ don’t forget ‘the’, theworshipzone.com. So you said there’s a resource on there that has the keys listed, even if somebody is not using your backing tracks or your video? 

Zarc Porter  29:13
Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, it’s, those are the keys that we’ve made the songs and so on our, on our resources, we have a list of keys so people can see what key we’ve made them in. But obviously, even if you don’t use our resources, you can still see the keys that we’ve researched and chosen for each of these songs. And as I say, they are pretty much of the most congregation friendly, they can be. I mean, occasionally you’ll find a song in E flat or F sharp. If you’re, you know, if you’re playing guitar, then you want to put that into an E or a G and if that’s only one semitone, so that’s fine. That’s not going to cause any problems or anyway, it’s one semitone. So that, that can be a, you know, that can be and obviously on our resources, we have cappo. We have the ability to add capo on our resources, so that makes it easier, but we actually do produce chord charts as well. So, you know, you can get them in the keys that we have and get chord charts and play with those as well, if you can read chords.

Laurie Graham  30:00
You know, I love it. I love it so much! So we’re talking about how to engage your congregation more in singing and worship when your congregation might not be singing out. You mentioned, have a great platform and, you know, get rid of the distractions, talked about song choice and putting it in the right key. Is there anything else you would want to add to that? How do we get the congregation to sing more?

Zarc Porter  30:20
Yeah, I think one thing is, well, there’s a couple of things, actually, one thing is being sensible with instrumentation. So, you know, we’ve all been in situations where, you know, a small church may have a drummer, a bass player, and a bassoon or something, you know, something really random. And the trouble, you know, obviously, that’s very, very difficult to make that sound consistently, you know, usable in a worship setting. It’s very difficult, because it’s just an odd, you know, it’s an odd set of instruments put together. So, you know, that’s the thing to be really wary of, and again, actually using the resources, they can really help with this because we can provide resources that help provide backing, then you can fill in the gaps as it were. So we’ve got things that can help with that. So that’s something to be really aware of, and I think just keeping it simple, you know, so often simple is better. I’m in the church, I’m serving at the moment, one of the churches I’m involved in at the moment here locally, you know, sometimes we’ll just have a keyboard and acoustic guitar, and it’s just singing in unison or singing harmony, and very, very unplugged. We keep it deliberately very unplugged, and sometimes we’ll go or sit in with the congregation at the front. So we’re not, it’s not them and us. We know, we’re sort of in a circle, and we sit together and it just works really well. It’s very, very kind of, it just feels like we’re all worshiping together as one. It’s a very natural feeling. So keeping it simple is a big thing. 

Zarc Porter  31:41
I think, oh, yeah, the other thing, I was going to mention actually is team unity. I think, in our previous church, you know, I was in charge of a team and we made, we really made an effort to sort of go out for food together, you know, occasionally we’d go out for a carry or takeaway or something. And then we’d have the sound guy and the projection guy all together with our team, and we’d all go together. And it was great, because it just built that feeling of trust between everybody. So then what happens is, on a Sunday, if somebody says, oh, no, don’t play that, as, you know, we need to play this, people trust you. They, they relax, because they know your heart, and they don’t get offended so easily. So, it’s important to build relationships, get to know each other, get to trust each other, and then, you know, make, it just makes it, it kind of glues people together more, and makes it a lot easier to kind of get, be more, strive for excellence without offending people. So, I think that’s a big thing as well. It’s just building kind of team unity and keeping everybody feeling encouraged. And working with people, you know, if somebody’s just a beginner, work with them, encourage them, nurture them, help them, don’t kind of snap at them when they get it wrong, go well, that’s, that’s ridiculous, you know, kind of encourage them say, oh mate, that’s fine, but let’s, let’s try this, you know, just kind of being kind of build each other, building each other’s confidence, I think is a good thing to do, as well as a good principle.

Laurie Graham  32:56
Oh, I love it so much. So, I hope you come back. Will you come back on our podcast again?

Zarc Porter  33:02
Of course, I’d love to Laurie. Thank you very much for having me, I’d love to come back.

Laurie Graham  33:05
I would, I would love to have you come back and really unpack the resources that you’ve created over the years, because a lot of the churches, a lot of the people listening here, they don’t have a full band, and some are traditional, and they have an Oregon and they have a piano. And, you know, there’s so much different styles happening here, but there’s also team sizes. And one of the things that a lot of small churches struggle with is how do we, like, they’re playing songs on YouTube over, you know, video projection, because they don’t have a musician or they have a couple of musicians. And I am just so intrigued, can you just give a little bit of a snippet about how you help people in small churches with no teams or half teams?

Zarc Porter  33:45
Yeah, so, well you mentioned YouTube there. So there’s lots of problems actually with using YouTube videos in worship. One problem is that, they’re so often as we said before, they’re soft in the wrong key, and so what we provide is, we provide lyric videos just like the ones you find in YouTube, but they’re in the right key. So, and you can download them, and you can run them offline, because obviously, using the Internet can be tricky in church, you don’t always get a reliable connection. So we can, you know, you can go offline, you can put them into PowerPoint, or to Keynote or to Pro Presenter, and you can run them, make a playlist and run them or one after the other. So that’s something we provide, but we also have an app which as you mentioned, called iSing Worship, and that gives you the same thing, but it’s, it’s kind of very intelligent. It’s much more intelligent than videos because it gives you flexibility. So whilst the song is playing, you could choose to repeat a chorus or you could choose to break down to an instrumental so that you can read some scripture or pray and then you can go back into a final chorus again at the end. So it’s very flexible. It’s like having a, a kind of, very experienced worship team. And you’re saying repeat the chorus like that and they can just repeat it and then you can go just break down they can break down it does all that kind of stuff for you. 

Zarc Porter  33:46
So even if you have no musicians at all, you can use these resources. It has vocals on it as well. If you haven’t got a singer you can put the vocals on. If you have got thing as you can turn the vocals off. If you can play guitar, you can turn the guitars off and you play live, and you can use it as a backing band. So it’s very, very flexible. And it projects the lyrics as well for your congregation automatically. So you don’t need to run PowerPoint, it does it all for you. So it’s a very simple kind of all in one solution, and we also have multitracks, as well. So, if somebody’s got a drummer and a bass player and a keyboard player, but no guitar, then we can provide the guitar track, and they can use that as a stem and mix that in with the band. So we’ve got all kinds of resources, right, from people who have no musicians at all, to people who have a whole band and they just maybe want to add some elements, some percussion, or some pads on top. So we’ve got everything, all those things and everything in between.

Laurie Graham  35:43
Oh, I just know, I don’t know, I wish I had known about this, or you, you know, this part of what you do, you know, 10 years ago, because there’s so many resources in here! And it really is like a whole conversation in itself to talk about what to do when you don’t have all the musicians you, you want or you prefer and things like that. But Zarc, you had told me you tried to keep the prices super, super low so small churches can afford them, but I think, are you also a nonprofit?

Zarc Porter  36:10
That’s right. Yeah. So we have the, so the other worship zone is actually a nonprofit company. I also run my, my production company as a, so I run my own production company as well, which is a normal company, but we run the worship zone as a nonprofit. So, so what we do is we tend to, any money that is left at the end of the year, if there is money left at the end of the year, it goes back into our schools ministry, or in fact, it goes to various different charities, but mainly, the bulk of it, goes to our schools ministry. So yeah, so it’s a nonprofit. So it runs really well and so nobody’s taking, you know, dividends or anything like that. So.

Laurie Graham  36:42
Well, I know cost is always a factor in small churches, because budgets are smaller, and there isn’t a whole lot to go around, and the resources you have are so amazing! I’m just grateful that you have that in mind, too. So thanks for making it easy for us in so many ways. So, we just have a few minutes left. Are you up for some rapid fire questions?

Zarc Porter  36:59
Yeah, of course. Yeah!

Laurie Graham  37:02
Okay, so, just for fun. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Zarc Porter  37:07
I think I would have to, very boring answer, but I’d have to stay right where I am now because I feel that’s where God has called us to be.

Laurie Graham  37:17
Wow, good answer! Okay. When you find yourself stressed out or struggling or just kind of out of focus, you know, in a day or in your life, what at, what brings you back to Jesus?

Zarc Porter  37:29
I think spending time reading the Word, reading the Bible, praying, worshiping together with other Christians, going to church. I mean, I love, I just love church. I love listening to a talk that’s encouraging or challenging, and that always kind of refocuses me, I find.

Laurie Graham  37:47
Love it. Love it, and what’s your favorite current worship song or one of your favorites, and why?

Zarc Porter  37:52
Yeah, so there’s a song that came out about a year ago called I Speak Jesus, I don’t know if you know that one. And it’s, it’s a great song because it talks about declaring the name of Jesus over your situation, over your peaks and your valleys in your life, over your family, and it’s just a very powerful song. I love the words, I love the song, and actually, it’s one of those songs that’s just really simple to sing. So people find it easier to sing in congregations. So I like, it’s called I Speak Jesus. Great song, in my opinion.

Zarc Porter  37:54
Awesome! And how about this one, after you leave this planet, what is the one thing that you really hope somebody says about you?

Zarc Porter  38:34
Yeah, that’s a tough one. I hope. People think that I spent my time wisely, and I didn’t waste it and I spent time doing the important things. And I hope, you know, just sharing my faith and things like that. I just hope people, people feel that that was what I was doing, rather than just sort of flapping in the breeze. If that makes sense.

Laurie Graham  38:57
Oh wow! So, we’ve talked a lot about transformation in our small church ministry ministry that we have, and when you picture yourself, like five years from now, what’s different about you?

Zarc Porter  39:11
I would, obviously, I would love to be more Christlike in my behavior and the way I live. I would love to be just bolder in, in what I feel God’s calling us to do. Just, just, just go for it, you know, have have more kind of faith, have, kind of, I guess, be bolder about sharing my faith as well, I think is a good thing. Just talking to people and being bold. You know when, you know when you feel that you’re talking to somebody and you feel that little nudge you think I really need to sort of say something now, and then you bottle it and you lose that confidence? I want to have the confidence and be sure that I can just go for those moments.

Laurie Graham  39:48
Wow, I am so surprised by your response because you, like, have been so bold, in my opinion, in so many ways, just going into high schools and you know, I, just worshipping everywhere that you go out front in front of people who don’t always love Jesus. And so, I love that that’s in your heart to be even more bold, because, honestly, I think you’re already an inspiration. So it’s so exciting to see that, I think it’s so exciting just to know that God isn’t done with us yet!

Zarc Porter  40:17
That’s true. Yeah, that’s great. It’s great encouraging, isn’t it? It’s great. Yeah.

Laurie Graham  40:22
Yeah. Yeah, I love it so much. So where can people connect with you? Is it theworshipzone.com? Is that the best place? 

Zarc Porter  40:28
Yeah, if you go to theworshipzone.com. and then on, there’s a, there’s a link, I think there’s a menu, I think called resources and on those, on that link, you get your list of all the different resources that we’re involved in, and people, if they want to get ahold of me, they can email me on those any of those pages basically, there’s a contact form. And those come to me, so I can hear from people that way, if they want to contact us. So yeah.

Laurie Graham  40:48
Awesome! Well, I am so glad you’re coming back again, and also for everyone listening, Zarc is also going to be speaking at our October conference on Worship and Tech in Small Churches. And he’s going to be talking about going beyond YouTube, and what to do when you have half a band or when you have no band or no singer shows up. And so, that is the topic at the conference. So you can totally get on the waitlist for the conference at smallchurchsummits.com. We will put that link in there, and until next time Zarc, I always end the show with be a light. So let’s do it. Let’s be light!

Zarc Porter  41:24
Fabulous! Thank you so much for having me, Laurie, I really appreciate it.

Laurie Graham  41:27
Yeah, thank you Zarc! We’ll talk again soon.