[images style=”2″ image=”http%3A%2F%2Fwww.davidsantistevan.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F03%2FNEXT-LEVEL-WORSHIP-LEADING.jpg” width=”624″ align=”center” top_margin=”0″ full_width=”Y”]
Can you envision it?
A worship team fully engaged in the vision. Musicians who not only play good music but worship with intensity.
A worship team that is desperate to meet with God. A worship team in love with Jesus.
Doesn’t that sound great? Sadly, many worship teams simply fade into routine boredom.
There’s no magic formula to increasing passion on your team, but there are things you can do to help create the culture you want to see.
20 Tips To Increase Your Team’s Desperation For God
1. Be what you want to see in your team.
2. Speak your vision. All the time.
3. Quote Scripture like it’s your breath.
4. Recruit musicians who have a deep passion for Christ and the church.
5. Give your team members individual, specific responsibility.
6. Spend time with Jesus together. Just worship.
7. Speak about what God is doing.
8. Worship spontaneously.
9. Share stories of how your team is making a difference.
10. Ask your team’s input.
11. Teach your team how to press deeper into worship.
12. Pray together for the Holy Spirit to move.
13. Have your senior pastor speak vision to the team.
14. View your team as your community. And live like it is.
15. Communicate consistently.
16. Provide feedback and follow up.
17. Do something difficult together (raise money, go on a missions trip, bless a smaller church).
18. Revisit your vision weekly or daily or every minute. Go do that right now.
19. Encourage your team to engage by speaking up. Don’t just talk at them.
20. Talk about the meanings of the songs you sing more than just how cool it’s arranged.
The Truth Of the Matter
The truth is, most worship leaders I talk to are dissatisfied with their teams.
This is what I hear:
– They’re not the best musicians.
– They don’t worship.
– They don’t show up on time.
– They only attend church when they’re scheduled to play.
This isn’t necessarily a people problem. It’s a culture problem. For your team to rise to the next level, you need to take responsibility for the culture.
Consider Starbucks.
They have created a culture surrounding their product. Starbucks isn’t about coffee. It’s about atmosphere. You go to Starbucks for the experience more than for coffee.
What about your worship team? What culture are you creating?
Whether you like it or not, you are reproducing who you are. The people who work with you will become like you – value what you value, prioritize your priorities, and demonstrate your attitudes.
As worship leaders, we don’t just want to give marching orders and accomplish tasks. We want to grow people.
That’s what culture is all about.
3 Culture Creating Values
Your values may differ. Matter of fact, I hope you think long and hard about this and come up with your own. Take a minute and share your rough thoughts in the comments. Nothing like getting some real-time feedback from other worship leaders.
Here are 3 of my top values:
1. A Pursuit of His Presence – Are you known for such a relentless pursuit? Or are you just known for pulling off services? There is nothing more convicting than reading the Psalms. Consider David’s pursuit of the presence of God:
Or
2. A Priority of Excellence – Excellence in worship is about being invisible – it’s about directing as much attention to Christ as possible.
Before you pick your setlist, before you rehearse with your team, before you lead worship, ask yourself the question: ”How can I present the clearest picture of Christ? How can I magnify the cross and get out of the way?”
Your excellence and attention to detail makes a way for Christ to be seen.
3. A Passion to Serve the Church – A worship team is more like foot washing than it is performing. It’s more about the Kingdom than it is fulfilling your rockstar fantasies.
Think about your worship leading from the perspective of your church.
How can you come alongside 75 year old Sally and help her connect with Jesus? How can you help connect 15 year old, bored-out-of-my mind Billy to the God of the universe?
You can create a culture you are proud of – a culture that makes disciples, raises up leaders, and releases people to make a difference.
Action Step for the Week
First off, have a brainstorming session. Determine the type of culture you want and write down ways you can make it happen.
Then, determine the one step you can take this week to shift the culture of your team. If you’d like some accountability, shoot me an email and let me know what you’re going to do.
I’ll hold you to it 🙂
P.S.
Are you wondering how you landed on this page? This is a 20 part email course called “Next Level Worship Leading”. I think you should go ahead and sign up for the whole thing. It’s totally FREE. You can find all the details here.