Worship Leader, there’s more to worship than songs, band dynamics, & flow.
If we’re not careful, we can spend all of our time entertaining people on Sundays. Think about it. The music is excellent, moving, emotional. The worship leader is good looking, uber talented, and runs a tight ship.
But slow down.
This is more important than you may realize.
We don’t want to foster an audience of spectators or an fan club of consumers. We don’t want to merely entertain people every weekend.
This isn’t the ministry God has called us to and it doesn’t do the gathering together of His bride justice.
The church needs to learn how to worship. New converts need to step into the discipline of praise and lifting up their voice, declaring the promises of God. Worship is warfare and our churches need training.
We all have a voice but many don’t know how to use it.
That’s our role, isn’t it Worship Leaders? It’s our role to raise up worshipers – to create environments where our voice isn’t central, but the unified, raised voice of God’s people is. We want to lead in such a way that we’re not the focus.
The enemy isn’t afraid of a worship leader who draws attention to himself. But he’s shaking in fear when a leader gives voice to everyone in the room. There’s tremendous power in that. Nothing can stop a worshiping church. No trial, no hardship, no diagnosis, no pain. The sound of worship will rise throughout eternity.
Singing isn’t enough. A tight band isn’t enough. Having your moment of worship isn’t enough. Worship Leader, it’s time to think of yourself as a coach. Let’s draw some parallels.
The Worship Leader as Coach
How is a coach’s performance judged? He’s not judged by the eloquence of his words. He’s not known for his morning routine. He’s not paid for how good of a football player he was. His performance is judged by only one thing – is the team winning?
If the team is winning, the coach will have a job.
Worship Leader, for too long you’ve judged yourself by the standards of a worship industry – boots, skinny jeans, & trendy haircuts. Cutting edge music, new songs, and epic stage lighting. For too long you’ve thought only about yourself and your performance.
But it’s time to think about your team. And not just your musicians. The team is your congregation.
Ask yourself these questions about your congregation:
- Are they thriving?
- Are they singing?
- Do they love Jesus?
- Do they worship beyond the song?
- Are they pressing in?
Of course, every church will always have new people who don’t know what they’re doing. They may not raise their hands. They may not sing. But your goal is to help them move from spectator to worshiper. Why? Because you’ve tasted the life-changing power of worship. Something happens when you declare the yes-and-amen promises of God. Something happens when you sing in the midst of the storm. Something happens when you learn how to press in deeper.
And that’s what you want your congregation to experience. So don’t be satisfied with just pulling off a service. There’s more. Don’t be satisfied with creating great music.
How to Lead Like a Coach
Coach them. Here’s a few ways to do that:
- Don’t sing all the time. Pull back and encourage everyone to lift their voice.
- Give exhortations. Don’t just pull off flawless worship song performances.
- Simplify. Don’t make every song this epic arrangement. Arrange around the voice of your church.
- Teach. Seize opportunities to teach during worship. Have your pastor preach on it.
- Create space. Songs are great, but their just a tool. Plan intentional moments in your set where people can respond in their own words.
- Identify what a ‘win’ looks like. Is it a win if you and your team do well? Or if your congregation engages well.
I’d love to hear your take on this. How is Worship Leading similar to being a coach?
How are you training your people to be worshipers?
Let’s talk about it in the comments. You can leave a comment by clicking here.
[ois skin=”Beyond Sunday 2″]
Hey David – great article as usual! One can go really deep in this topic, but a quick idea – use echo or call & response phrases – could be scripture, could just be a heart expression, could be sung or just spoken. Example: “Repeat after me: ‘Lord we love you’, ‘Lord we praise You’; ‘You are worthy’ You are holy, ‘Alleluia’. ” Stuff like that. Bless ya bro!
Great article. Would love to have you expand on this. Maybe top few things you can do w/ ideas on how you’ve seen them carried out. Etc. Love the piece, so agree w/ the heart behind it.
I love this article so much. Thank you so much for this much needed perspective and focus. I want to be a coach and get out of the way!
Absolutely agree with evey word! I’ve been saying the same stuff to worship leaders for years. Model to congregation what it looks like to lift your hands and voice to the God we love. Encourage the gathering to sing as one big choir. So powerful to hear everyone singing as one giant choir….I love it!! God loves it. 💚❤💚💚💚💚
#allthepraisehands YES!! I, too, would love to see you expound upon this, specifically ideas on how to teach during worship. I’m all over this! Love!!
As a coach one must know the rules of engagement; how do you lead people to a being you’ve never related to. We must be so hidden in Jesus and point people to Him alone. Thanks for sharing, great insight.
This is lovely. I am blessed by this article.
A music director just broke through the limit of singing only know songs to the congregation. But he boldy came forward to teach a new song during worship service and the whole congregation connected to the new song easily.
Hi I began reading your article in the hope that it would help me as a worship leader. Unfortunately the content didn’t really bring any light to my expectations. You see I belong to a small church of approx 30 people. We do not have any musicians with the exception of two voices myself and one other. We and by that I mean those mentioned and the congregation sing to pre recorded tracks from cd’s. We use songs which have voices to swell our own. It would be nice to be able to have music playing in the background in between songs etc whilst I exhort the congregation to worship but technically this is difficult as everything seems to come to a halt and worship ceases to flow. I would love to stop singing and hear the congregation but once again technically it doesn’t work. We actually play the songs from a laptop with full mics and sound system. Acappella doesn’t work, I am therefore wondering what you would reccomend to a church in our situation.
Jan, do you have access to a keyboard or piano that you or another member could use during service? If you don’t already know how to play, you could learn to play with chords rather quickly. (I have a friend who taught himself in 6 months to play on stage with the praise team, so I know it can be done, and later led worship for our Friday night events.) I think having a live instrument that you can control the volume, starts, stops, etc. would benefit you greatly!
Hi Kimberley thank you so much for replying to my comment. This is a difficult one. Over the years we have tried what you have suggested in various churches but a) someone with a musical talent is needed if only for a few chords and b) here in England we have found that non Christians expect the church to be amateurish and are subsequently often not interested in what we have to offer. They see professionalism in the world and expect nothing less in something worth attending. We are losing the young adults from the church in England in droves, although professionalism is not the only reason it does have an impact. You and I realize that we can worship God in many ways but sadly that doesn’t translate to the many with the exception of those that go after other religions which are more ‘spiritual’ in nature, a sort of ‘mix and match’ religion. Once again thank you for taking the time to reply it is very much appreciated.
Yours in Christ
Jan
I am so blessed by this! My very first time pastoring a church! And my prayer and passion is that we will be a church of worshippers in this refugee camp. Father in the name of Jesus, I pray you grant us the grace, wisdom and patience to lead your flock to this place where we all worship you in spirit and truth!
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