If worship was all about singing songs, we wouldn’t need to attend church.
We could stay home, pop on our favorite worship CD, and sing until Joel Osteen came on TV.
It’s more than just the rote reciting of truth.
When we gather to worship, Almighty God is in the room. And that requires a special skill set for any worship team.
You can’t merely sing songs…God is present.
You can’t merely play great music…God has an agenda.
You can’t merely pick a great set list…God is speaking to His people.
The question is, “Are you listening, worship leader?”
The Missing Ingredient
It’s one thing for a worship team to skillfully transition from one song to another in a worship set. But you can’t stay there.
You need to be able to read the moment – to flow wherever the Holy Spirit is moving.
I believe that’s the missing ingredient in so many worship teams – they are embracing the call to musical excellence while ignoring the call to flow in the Holy Spirit. I know this because I’m guilty.
These two worlds don’t need to be at odds. Matter of fact, they need to come together as a part of your regular worship team rehearsal.
5 Tips For Flowing As a Worship Team
How can you do that? Here are a few tips:
1. Practice Team Spontaneity – A large part of flowing as a worship team is learning how to play music together. And not just a rehearsed song. Pick a few chord progressions and learn how to read each other – to rise and swell based on what is happening in the moment.
2. Practice Personal Spontaneity – Nothing will prepare you to flow in the Holy Spirit more than practicing it by yourself. Try this on your instrument and without it.
Begin to sing spontaneous songs to the Lord. Experiment with melodies. Sing the Psalms. Really pursue God in private and you’ll see your public leadership rise to the next level.
Flow will rise and fall on your leadership. As long as you’re casting vision and personally ready, your team will be more inclined to follow.
3. Stay Engaged – Your worship team should be exhausted after every worship set. Why? Because worship doesn’t just happen during the song – it happens in between songs. Oftentimes, it’s those in between moments that are the most special. Train your team to stay on the edge of their seats after each song.
4. Practice Preaching – You don’t have to preach in order to lead worship but there are skills you can take from preaching that will assist your worship leading. Preachers communicate. They think long and hard. They deconstruct difficult passages to make sense to people. They reason.
If you learn these skills you’ll be more prepared to jump off the song list and share a truth, change direction, and communicate what God is doing. How do you practice this? Pick a passage of Scripture, stand in front of your mirror, and declare what it means.
Want to take this even further? Have different members of your worship team preach or share a devotional at your next worship team gathering. Train your team to listen to the Holy Spirit.
5. Embrace Quiet – Oftentimes we can be so intent upon building energy that we lose the power of stillness and quiet. Flowing in the Holy Spirit isn’t about whipping everyone into an emotional frenzy. It’s about really letting God have his way.
So don’t be afraid to linger, to wait, to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit. Embrace the quiet moments. You may just hear the voice of God loud and clear.
God wants to move in a unique way every time you lead worship. Don’t just select your worship song template and go on auto-pilot. Keep your heart open to hear His voice and go where he leads.
Question: How can we lead our worship teams to be more prepared to flow? How do you rehearse this? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
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On point….
Embrace quiet ! Yes, Yes. Silence and space are the punctuation to words and music. Many times a properly placed silence is more dramatic and powerful than anything we could play, sing or say.
“Be still and know that I am GOD”. Psalm 46:10 After reading several commentaries, I think it applies here. Stop your busy work, stop what you are doing in your own strength. If you just stop, you will notice that “I AM GOD”. How can God speak if we are doing all the talking, singing, or whatever and not listening.
I think we fear this in our modern worship culture.
Could you expand on what it is we fear?
Wow bro, incredibly useful post and I could not have though of a better way to share this topic, I will be sure to share this with others on our teams. Thank you, thank you.
M_
Thanks marc!
Kicked my square in the teeth. Great post and great reminder for where I’m at right now.
I didn’t mean to kick you in the teeth. Honest 🙂
The one about practicing spontaneity as a team was an eye opener for me. I had never thought of doing that before.
I’m a little late on the bandwagon for this post and don’t know if you’ll see this comment, but I was wondering, David, if you have any tips on practicing like this without a constant team? I work with YWAM, a missions organization, and one of the hallmarks of our work is people are constantly moving around. We run schools on our base that range from 3-9 months so we often have students who fill in on our worship team. What kind of input would you offer in a situation like this?
Good question, Cameron. I think you can work these tips into your team no matter how transient your players are. Make it a part of your culture – how you run rehearsals. It may take a while for a new musician to get the hang of it, but they’ll catch on.
Hi David..can you explain further the point #3 stay engaged?
thanks!