Place your focus on edifying the church, helping the congregation connect with God, and pointing toward Jesus in all you do and sing. As we do this, we will be focused on leading the church in worship. And you know what? Great performance will follow.
A desire to lead well always brings about joy, excellence and authentic engagement.
The flip side is not always true. The desire to perform doesn’t automatically bring about great leadership in worship. In fact, it can be a barrier. It can be a hindrance when our primary concern is the sound, the stage, style look, or skill.
It’s a balance, for sure. The best heart for God and ministry in the world will have trouble leading music worship without some level of ability in vocal, instrumental or stage presence. But let’s put leading first and just see what happens.
To lead is to be a servant. Here are some of the ways we serve from an angle of leading worship:
Invite and Involve Others To Develop Their Gifts
An overarching view of your role at the church should be along the lines of Ephesians 4 — to equip the saints and build up the body. It’s true that with the worship ministry department, there’s a greater chance that the congregation is counting on the hired gun to make things hum. But, if you are the paid person (or key leader in general), one attribute you need to keep on the front burner is the idea of inviting others in. Let them sing, give them opportunities, hand off responsibility, and in general, know that your job is to help the church members grow in their gifts to serve and lead.
Care For Your Volunteer Team
Another foundational aspect to growing in the area of leading worship is to start by caring for your team. As you care for them, the whole ministry grows in a compassion from the stage. We are helping to lead people we love. In fact, if you are always talking bad about your church, your leadership, or your situation, there’s a good chance you’re not really able to lead effectively at all. Caring for your team will in turn mean caring for your church, which will bring about the best motives for leading music in worship – to help them connect with Jesus!
Do The Hard Work Of Organizing
If you organize the work, people will respond and take their share. Be diligent with the right times, right songs, right keys and right charts.
Humbly Assist And Partner With Your Pastor
Pastors and worship leaders carry different kinds of burdens, each important, but different. Pastor, your worship leader needs some input. You’re both sharing an important role each and every week, tag-teaming in a sense to help create great opportunities for connection and spiritual growth in your church. Give feedback, give suggestions, and give freedom. Worship Leaders: work with your pastor. Be a “Timothy.” Don’t blame the lack of effective or dynamic ministry on someone else, but work together to make great things happen. Work within the confines of your pastor’s style and preference. Some pastors plan ahead, while others are more week to week. As you grow in your relationship with your pastor, you’ll be able to sharpen each other to grow to become better. But for now, the worship leader should be the one to work out a time to meet, to go through the flow, work on song suggestions and do your best to support.
Pray For Your Church
I hate to say that you will be surprised by the things that happen when we pray for the church, but you will. Too often, as part of the program staff of ministry, we often forget the power of ongoing, desperate, diligent, and intentional prayer. This act of turning to and trusting God is the single key factor in your joy, contentment, growth, recruiting, training, syncing great songs in worship, discernment and effective ministry.
Sing The Songs That Connect With and Help The Congregation Engage
I understand how this happens, but we have to combat it. About the time you’re getting tired of a new song, the church is just grasping it. We have to rely on the enthusiasm and hunger of the church to make songs meaningful. Don’t begin to choose songs based on the preference of the worship team, but for the sake of the congregation. Sing the song in the heart of the church. Don’t let them get stale and uninspiring, but don’t change too quickly either. One danger I have found is the idea that old songs can’t be spiritual or meaningful. If your entire worship set for the day was all written in the last three years, you may want to spice it up with the tried and true now and then. New can be powerful, but that doesn’t mean old isn’t.
Stretch And Challenge Your People To Grow
Encourage spiritual growth, serving heartfelt attitudes, and proper time invested in prep and rehearsal. Help your team grow the culture of “We’re here to engage the church, our job is to serve in the name of Jesus.”