Beyond the details: Lessons learnt
- Wale Adenuga
 
These last two months have been eventful for me. We hosted Lenny Leblanc, had a benefit concert and had to be with Bob Fitts in Kaduna, Abuja and London doing some workshops and concerts. In the midst of all these activities, I learnt a number of things that are causing me to reset my processes the way I do my laptop when it starts acting up.
 
Lenny has over 30 years experience both as a secular musician and worship artist. He has had outstanding success as a secular artist with one of his songs being played on the radio over a million times. Men, if my song has been played 100,000 times I don’t think you’d be able to talk with me. But then it was after such success that he got saved and started doing strictly Christian music. Isn’t this an uncommon switch? People who are doing “gospel” want to switch to secular. More often than not, the switch is made not with the motive to win the world, but to make a name for themselves.
 
One other thing I learnt from Lenny which he didn’t verbalize was the fact that he didn’t throw his weight around. Hey, I knew some songs he wrote like There is none like you and Above all. But between the time I first met him and now, I got to discover he wrote some other great songs. For instance, we were at Lighthouse, Kaduna and Victor Richman [an extremely talented saxophonist] did the song, Down at your feet O Lord, is the most high place, in your presence Lord… As we went for dinner we went over the evening’s service and that was when I knew he actually wrote that song. Three weeks later, Bob and I were talking about Lenny, and that’s when I got to know that Lenny wrote the song, You are so faithful. Here’s a guy who has written these songs and more and yet was just so simple.
 
I will also like to add that the best artists are not the most popular. Time and chance happens to people. While in Kaduna and Abuja this past one month, I got to meet some amazing musicians and worship leaders who will silence a lot of us who have CDs selling by the thousands in the market. These guys don’t just sing well, they’ve also got a measure of the anointing on them that I rarely see on those of us in Lagos! I believe one of the things I will be working on the future is engaging these special people.
 
Another lesson I learnt springs from a question someone asked at the seminar hosted by Lighthouse, Abuja at which Bob Fitts and I were facilitators. A brother wanted to know if it isn’t important to make music in church so excellent in order to attract secular musicians. While it’s good to dispense music skillfully, a secular musician who needs to get saved needs Jesus not excellent music. He’s already had a lot of that from where he is coming. That same weekend, I met a dear sister who had been a staunch muslim from a wealthy northern family. She lamented how muslims are peeved with churches whose overriding message is prosperity. They just don’t get it. That’s what they left behind in order to pursue the real thing – Jesus! The lesson here is this: the means to an end should remain just that – the means. It should not be exalted to the position where it’s highlighted as the main thing.
 
Before Lenny and his team made their way to Nigeria, Tim Wright, his sound engineer had sent me a technical ryder. A ryder is simply list of equipment required and how they should be arranged on stage. The equipment required were not out of this world but then the average church in Nigeria didn’t possess these grade of tools. Anyway, in most of the churches they went to, they got the kind of equipment they wanted. And God’s presence was manifested in each meeting.
 
However, the meeting in Kaduna stood out. Here’s why. In all the other churches, Lenny was provided with a full octave keyboard. Lighthouse could only provide a 61 key Roland keyboard. The drums if I remember were Thunder brand instead of premium brands like Premier. Brad and Will didn’t get the great sound they were used to from their personal monitors. But guess what? At the end of the meeting, you didn’t need to walk in faith to know that God was there! The guys on Lenny’s team had this to say: this is the best worship experience we have had in all of our lives! Here’s the lesson: good equipment is certainly a necessity but they don’t determine how intense our encounter with God will be.
 
When I meet Matt Redman, I will ask him to consider upgrading his song to include truths like:
 
I will bring you more than a song,
I will bring you more than a Mackie mixer
I will bring you more than the latest Yamaha motif full octave keyboard
We will bring you more than choirs with tight vocal arrangements
 
Because all these things in themselves
Are not what you require
You search much deeper within
Through the way things appear
You’re looking into my heart.

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