Author: Jamie Brown

The Importance of Your Example in Worship

Whether you realize it or not, you are being studied by your congregation during the course of the entire worship service. Not just during the music – but during the sermon, the prayers, and the announcements.

And you’re not only being studied during the entire worship service – but before and after.

No pressure.

You might not think you’re all that interesting. You look at yourself in the mirror every day and are quite aware that you’re not a perfect person. Certainly there must be other, more interesting, more important people that are worth studying.

Maybe so. But the worship leader, however average he or she may be in real life, is one of the most-studied people in leadership at a church. Yes, I’m talking about you.

You are leading worship long before and long after the four or five songs during a service. Fair or not, and whether they realize it or not, people in the congregation have their eyes on you to see if you’re genuine, if you’re consistent, if you’re someone they can trust, and if you practice what you preach. If you’re expressive and engaged during the songs – but then doing a crossword puzzle during the sermon – people will notice the disconnect.

The solution isn’t to put on an act, to perfect the art of putting on a church face, or pretend to be someone you’re not. Rather, it’s to be aware that when you’re a worship leader, you don’t have the luxury of taking on and off that hat as you wish. Being aware of this will (or should) change how you view your role.

This isn’t something to be anxious about. Saying that people are “studying you” is different than saying people are coming to church solely to watch you. (If that is the case, you have another set of concerns…) People are coming, by and large, to worship God. When you stand to lead them, they’re understandably curious about whether or not that’s why you’re there too.

Do Not Be Anxious About… Anything

There are a lot of things worship leaders can be anxious about before and/or during a service.

Your guitar string might break at just the wrong moment. The new song you’re teaching might totally bomb. You might make some mistakes. People might be zoned out and disengaged. The worship team might not sound any better than they did at rehearsal on Thursday night. Your sound guy might forget to turn on the amps again.

We all have different things we get anxious about before we lead worship. Either on Saturday night or Sunday morning when we wake up we begin looking to the worship service with dread and fear.

And we can get anxious during the service too. Maybe things just feel “off”. Maybe it’s your first time leading worship and you can tell you’re not as smooth as the other guys. Maybe someone said something critical to you. Maybe your sister is visiting from out of town and you’re wondering what she thinks.

My guess is that every Saturday night – across the world – there are thousands of worship leaders who are really really anxious about how the next morning will go. They don’t sleep very well and when they get to church the following day they’re a ball of nerves.

You might think: anxiety is normal. It’s impossible to not feel anxious before standing up in front of people, leading a band, and leading a congregation. What about on big days like Christmas Eve or Easter?

Here’s the problem: Philippians 4:4-7:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Jesus himself said:

Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ (Matthew 6:31)

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. (6:34)

Is it really possible to not be anxious? Yes. Is it easy? No.

There’s a difference between feeling the weight of the responsibility with which we’ve been trusted (a good thing) and looking at Sunday mornings forgetting that Jesus is a factor (a bad thing).

If we’ve “by prayer and supplication” made our requests, our anxiety, and our needs “known to God”, then we should expect his peace and be content to not worry about the next morning until it comes. This shouldn’t sound cliché. It should sound reassuringly easy.

But if we’ve forgotten that Jesus is a factor – THE factor – and that he not only hears our prayers and intercedes on our behalf – but commanded us to not be anxious – and is Lord over all – then we shouldn’t be surprised when we experience crippling anxiety.

Pings of anxiety will always be present – some times more than others – but shouldn’t linger or fester. They’re an opportunity for humility, not hand-wringing. They’re a reminder of our need for God, an opportunity to bring our requests to him with thanksgiving that because of Jesus Christ there’s no condemnation, no reason to fear, no reason to worry about little things or big things, and every reason to relax.

This really does pass “all understanding”, and it’s something worship leaders should continually seek after: the ability to be filled with Jesus-centered and Spirit-empowered peace.

Watch Your Tone

Whether you realize it or not, when you address an instrumentalist or vocalist on your worship team, they’re listening much more to your tone than what you’re actually saying.

You have every right to point out when your drummer is playing too loudly, or your vocalist is singing the wrong melody, or your violinist is playing too much. But you have to do it carefully and lovingly. Your tone has a lot to do with this.

When I’m upset, my tone gets harsher. I might not even realize it, but it’s there. I speak more quickly and firmly. Example: “stop playing for a minute!”

When I’m impatient, my tone takes on a more bewildered quality. I speak to whomever I’m impatient with like they’re beneath me. Example: “are you ready to start yet?”

And when I’m frustrated, my tone becomes mean. Example: “I need more of myself in my monitor!”

The problem is that when you speak to members of the worship team with a less-than-gracious tone, you treat them like they work for you, not like they’re serving with you. Most people don’t take kindly to being bossed around. They’re more interested in knowing how to serve more effectively. You contribute to a boss-employee mindset or a servant-servant relationship depending on your tone.

Fundamentally, what’s important is that you display a Gospel-fueled and Spirit-enabled love for your worship team. You can try to mask frustration and impatience all you want, but it won’t work. First things first.

But even if you do love your team – from time to time you’ll need to address different members for different reasons. And in those moments, be aware that you need to watch your tone.

If you’re in a hurry and the sound engineer is struggling to get the board to cooperate, don’t add to his stress by being impatient. If your high school-aged drummer keeps speeding up, don’t add to his anxiety by declaring in front of everyone: “you’re speeding up!” Maybe take a five-minute break and talk to him one-on-one instead.

And while it’s true that they’re listening much more to your tone than what you’re actually saying – it doesn’t mean that it’s not important how you say it.

I’ve found that phrasing things more like a question can oftentimes take the hard edge off. Instead of “you’re not singing that line right”, try “could we make sure we’re singing the same thing on the chorus?” Or instead of “I don’t like how that sounds” try “can we work on that section for a minute? Here’s what I’m thinking…”

By watching your tone and addressing your team in a humble way, you will help cultivate an atmosphere of openness and creativity and joy. 

Anticipating How Your Congregation Might Respond

You can never really know for sure – until the service is actually underway – how your congregation will respond during a time of corporate worship. Try as we may to predict what songs will really “work”, or when we might need to say something, or how the Holy Spirit might be prompting us in unplanned directions, we can’t be 100% certain until we’re in the middle of it. And even then it’s not always so clear!

But while it’s unrealistic (and unwise) to assume we know how people will respond to certain songs or at certain points, worship leaders can (and should) anticipate how the congregation might respond. Let me give you a couple examples.

The beginning of a service
When I start off a service with an upbeat, celebratory, loud song, it’s a relatively safe prediction that the congregation – having just come in from a stressful morning, family dynamics, parking the car, dropping the kids off at Sunday school, finding a seat, and devoting little (if any) time to preparing for worship – might need some encouragement.

If this prediction is wrong, and from the very first beat most people seemed engaged and enthusiastic, then I’ll just be grateful to God for a miracle! But since there seems to be a pattern of the congregation displaying a bit of that deer-in-the-headlights look at this point in the service most Sundays, I should plan ahead and think through how we can arrange the song, what I could say, or what Psalm we could read to help people respond with more understanding. I’m anticipating how the congregation might respond, so that I’m ready in case I’m right.

Singing a hymn (or an older song)
It’s always a temptation for us to tune-out at certain point when we’re singing on Sunday mornings – especially on songs we’ve sung for years and years. Whether it’s a hymn or just a song we’ve sung for a long time, it’s a safe bet that when you launch into “Amazing Grace”, a good number of people will be singing on auto-pilot. Maybe not, but probably so. When I’m planning a service and preparing to lead an old song or a hymn, I’m going to anticipate that this might happen, and think through what the best way to help keep people engaged would be.

The longer you serve a particular congregation, the more accurately you’ll be able to anticipate how they might respond. But with experience and, most importantly, the help of the Holy Spirit, as you plan services and choose songs, you’ll be able to prepare for teachable moments, transitions, words of encouragement, instruction, and specific arrangements that will serve the congregation more effectively. 

Every Sunday presents different dynamics (late-Summer or mid-snowstorm), every church is different (formal/liturgical or charismatic), and every group responds in different ways (a small group in a living room or a thousand people in an auditorium). No worship leader, regardless of how long he or she has been leading, can ever know in advance exactly how all these different dynamics will come together.

But the same Holy Spirit who is at work in the midst of corporate worship is also at work in your planning and preparation. He will often give you a hunch about what’s coming up – and it’s usually a good idea to prepare for those hunches just in case.