Welcome to Worship Guitar Academy

Updated 2024
Estimated time to read: 5 minutes

I want to share how you can use the Worship Guitar Academy (WGA) website to successfully join and serve your community as well as some important thoughts about worship, guitar, serving, and leading. Let’s dive in.

Sections:

• Worship and Guitar

• Worship Guitar Skills

• How to Navigate the Worship Guitar Academy Website

• Remain Optimistic

• Learn and Serve as a Worship Guitarist

• Wrapping it up

Worship and Guitar

As a long time worship guitarist, I've met a lot of people who have different views on how a guitar can and should be used in a worship environment. While some churches may have strict rules or beliefs about guitars in worship, others may just not have had the exposure to know what the guitar is capable of in the right hands to create a truly worshipful environment.

That's the goal of worship, isn't it, to create a worshipful environment? As a worship team, you strive to create an environment where the audience and even the musicians feel comfortable to express their worship to God through song. On a personal level, Oswald Chambers said it best, "Worship is giving God the best that He has given you."

So what are you going to do with your skills as a musician and a guitarist? Are you going to keep them to yourself? I hope not! Are you going to learn, grow and cultivate your techniques as a guitarist so you can share the best of what God has given you? I hope you do. Worship Guitar Academy is built with this in mind, to keep pursuing the best that God has for us in the realm of worship guitar.

Worship Guitar Skills

As our mission statement says, “Worship Guitar Academy trains and equips rhythm worship guitarists to master their craft, serve skillfully, and inspire others.” While right now we focus on rhythm guitarists, lead guitarists can also benefit from having a solid understanding of the techniques used by rhythm guitarists as explained in this post.

First things first, if you want to serve on a worship team as a guitarist, you need to be working toward mastering your guitar. This looks different for everyone as there are different roles for rhythm acoustic, rhythm electric, lead electric players, and maybe even lead acoustic players. You can read more about these roles here.

How to Navigate the Worship Guitar Academy Website

This site is set up with a few options, all of them being 100% for worship guitarists only. Here’s a quick overview of the site menu to help you navigate:

1. Home - Start here if it’s your first time to the site!

2. About - Here’s where you can learn more about my story and what WGA is all about.

3. Courses - You can find the Play Any Song courses that will teach you to adapt songs to your current skill level.

4. Blog - The blog contains blog posts (of course!) about various worship guitar related topics, always ad free.

5. Shop - So far, I’ve put together a few cheat sheet bundles for learning open position chords, capo chords, and bar chords. If you’re looking for a good reference to use when learning these new chords, these are great.

6. Contact - Have a question or want to suggest a new guitar concept to be covered? Send me a message here.

7. Login - If you’ve signed up for a Play Any Song course, you can login using this link. If you would like to be notified when a course is available, sign up for our email newsletter at the bottom of any page.

Remain Optimistic

Sometimes practicing guitar can be boring, but it doesn't have to be. Remember that all great skills need consistent practice in order to grow into what you are expecting in your mind. This may take a little longer than you thought, but with good instruction you can achieve your goals one at a time.

Embrace the boring parts and enjoy the performances, wherever they may be, and keep learning and studying guitar. As you develop your skills as a guitarist, opportunities will open up before you, take them! Play on the worship team, play a house show with a vocalist or fellow guitarist, perform your own songs at an open mic night, or start a band of your own, the possibilities are endless. Part of being a musician is trying new music ideas even if they don’t turn out that great. I’ve been in many bands that didn’t last more than a few months, and each one helped me grow as a guitarist and musician.

Learn and Serve as a Worship Guitarist

I've come to believe that learning guitar is not just about learning a few chords and playing some songs. Learning is a process and a personal drive that each person can have, develop, and apply to all areas of their life. I hope you will let a desire for learning kindle and grow into a love and passion for guitar. Furthermore, I hope you will continue to serve the Church with your skills and talents, and as you become more comfortable playing guitar, that you would utilize your music skills in a worship setting.

I believe the Church needs more guitarists. The Church needs humble, skilled guitarists. We don't need more people who think they are better than everyone else because of the gear they have or the songs they can play. We need devoted servants who are willing to give of their time and energy, who continue to put in the work and develop the skills God has given them as guitarists, and share those skills with the Church. Whether you serve at a Pentecostal church or a Non-denominational church, God still moves. He needs selfless, motivated worship guitarists to serve and share Christ through their worship, both on and off the stage.

Wrapping it up

Serving on a worship team can be a big commitment and you should take it seriously. I’m here to help you as best I can in all things worship guitar. If you have a minute, consider sending me a message in the contact form with what your guitar goals are and how I can help you achieve them.