If there was ever a challenge in the life of a worship leader, it’s balancing these three responsibilities at once.
Not only do we prepare and lead our band, we lead a congregation in worship. But we also personally connect with Jesus.
Is it possible to do this well? Or do some of these need to suffer?
It is said that multitasking is unproductive – that to really get something done, you need to focus on it without distraction. But as worship leaders, we don’t have that luxury.
Historically, I’ve been good at all three of these…but at different times. Sure, I can worship God. But when you fill a room with blank stares, I forget what I’m doing. Sure, I can lead my band to be tight and together. But to worship God while I do that? Nah, I’m too distracted.
While multitasking is inescapable for a worship leader, there are some steps you can take to trick yourself and guarantee you juggle all three at the same time.
5 Tips For Worshiping, Connecting, and Leading
Here we go…
1. Invite People Into Your Personal Worship – Don’t just close your eyes the whole time. Think of leading a congregation as an invitation to join in your personal worship time. You are the host. The platform is an extension of your private passion for Jesus.
2. Prepare and Forget – Preparation matters. But you already knew that. What you may not be doing is forgetting about it in the moment of leading. There’s only two things you want to focus on during worship – loving Jesus and leading people. You only have so much mental capacity.
If you’re worrying about your band, you’ll appear stressed, which will make everyone in the congregation stressed for you. This is where solid practice comes into play. When your band is playing together and being smart, it frees you to focus on hosting the church and pouring out your heart (Click to tweet that, if you’d like).
3. Put Yourself in Their Shoes – I’m sorry to say it, but nobody really cares about the sweet arrangement of your songs. Most of your congregation probably aren’t musicians. They are there to worship. In order to lead effectively, you need to put yourself in their shoes. If you were attending church to worship God, what would serve you best?
4. Impress With God, not Your Creativity – At the end of your worship set, are people amazed by God or your creativity? Work and plan and practice to make your worship set relentlessly God-centered. The goal for your congregation is that they experience Psalm 34:8:
“Taste and see that the Lord is good;
blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.”
5. Be Real – For some reason, when we step on stage for worship, we tend to get preachy. Our sentences are filled with Christian cliches. Rather, be your genuine self. Express why we gather, Who this is for, and what we’re all supposed to do. But just be you. People will connect with you more.
When all is said and done, being more amazed by God than you are the setlist, band arrangements, and your own skill is what will sustain you in your ministry. Don’t stop staying amazed.
Question: How do you effectively juggle connecting with God, your band, and leading your congregation? You can leave a comment by clicking here. Go ahead, it’s always better when you share.
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Great post! I always remind the band that practice is not just practice. It is a personal worship time. Yes, you might have to stop the song a few times, but it is the time to prepare your heart before the set a few days later. Sound check is the same thing.
When you can forget about technicalities up on stage, your worship leading will be a lot more effective.
Easier said than done, right?
Good words David. Here are some things I’ve found beneficial in leading congregational and small group worship over the past 25 years.
*Keep it simple. Make your songs as accessible as possible for the person in the pew. As you already said, they’re not going to be amazed at your technical brilliance. They will, however, be amazed at God.
*Be open to change, especially during your set. Leading worship can be compated to navigating a river. You have to be aware of where the current is leading you and change course accordingly.
*Don’t get in a rut. Don’t have the same style set every time you lead, i.e., 2 fast songs, medium tempo or intimate song next, close with a huge crescendo song. This ties in with being open to change and leads to my last point.
*Listen, listen, LISTEN! Hear what God may be speaking to you during the set, then follow where He leads. A good friend of mine once told me, people won’t go where you yourself aren’t going, i.e., YOU worship and follow the Lord, no matter what others may or may not be doing.
Angelo, these are fantastic tips! Thanks so much for sharing. I especially like your point about not getting into a rut. It’s important to keep your sets fresh, not just for you but for the church.
So True David! I appreciate your post (as always).
One of our main goals in our Thursday night worship rehearsal is to find the place where we as a team enter into the ‘open worship’, ‘worship jam’, or ‘vamp’ as we call it. Sure… we practice the songs, chord progressions, vocal lines, map the songs out with the proverbial v1,c,v2,c,c,b,cx2…. but it is usually in the “vamp” where we as a team can worship with a new song (Psalm 40:3). And it is here were we connect as a team and individually. Effort and distraction in “keeping the band together” slips away here. We can then lead the congregation out THAT. It’s what we, as a team, have called the ‘overflow’. We don’t always play the “vamp” for the services, but if Holy Spirit leads we are able to move into that. If we don’t play that new song, then we are still able to connect with the congregation and lead them in worship and point them to Jesus, because we have been there as a team.
So that is all well and good, but as you can imagine – all that can become a expectation / distraction as well…. this is why we as a team have made efforts to be rooted in the same scripture each week. We read a chapter together before rehearsals and sound checks, and a lot of time the concepts, ideas, and the heart of God comes out as the “new song” from that particular passage that we’ve been reading, re-reading, and talking about for that week. That’s how we do it… hope that wasn’t too confusing or complicated…. 🙂
Bro, sounds awesome. Keep running a tight ship, Captain! 🙂
Practice, practice, practice for sure. The more prepared I am for rehearsal, the more comfortable I am with the songs and the more confident I am in leading them. I’ll also know better where I want them to go musically.
That makes practices better and more productive, thus my band is more comfortable and it allows me to focus more on what’s happening in the “now” during service.
Right now we are growing in our ability to not stick to an arrangement, but it takes being tight as a band to pull that off well. Knowing where you’d like to go but being ready (as a whole team) to follow where the Spirit is leading is key.
Wise words, Wayne!
Honestly, right now I am struggling about so many things that I can’t focus on my leading than I did before. Maybe I’m so much pre-occupied with things 🙁 I hate it when I am being this way, like the flame inside me’s not heating up like before. please pray for me T_T
I really appreciate your post and Im sure it’ll help me a lot with my leading. :”> Thank you.