Category: Heart attitudes

Ten Worship Leading Myths

There isn’t a worship leader in the world who doesn’t struggle with regular, persistent, frustratingly silly (but still dangerous) moments of doubt/fear/anxiety/self-consciousness/jealousy. We start to believe myths that tell us we should be different, or we aren’t talented enough, or we shouldn’t uphold certain principles. These myths weaken our ministry as worship leaders.

Here are ten common worship leading myths that come to mind:

1: Every week you have to be more creative than the last. Wrong. Every week you get to point people to Jesus again.

2: Don’t waste too much time thinking/praying about songs for Sunday. Wrong. This is your most important job.

3: You need a great voice. Wrong. If God calls you then you’re the man for the job. Sing with abandon.

4: You have to stay up-to-date with all the new stuff. Wrong. None of the stuff changes lives. Jesus does.

5: You’ve really arrived when you get famous. Wrong. The Church needs servants not celebrities.

6: if people aren’t into it then something’s wrong with your leading. Wrong. That’s the Holy Spirit’s job. Be patient.

7: Anyone with a willing heart should serve on the worship team. Wrong. Look for heart AND giftedness.

8: The Holy Spirit only shows up on the 4th song. Wrong. Don’t create formulas. Magnify Jesus in whatever time you have.

9: You’d be happier at another church. Wrong. You’d just have different challenges and different reasons to be unhappy.

10: You should speak before every song. Wrong. The more you talk, the less they hear what you’re actually saying.

I know I missed several hundred more myths that worship leaders believe. If you’ve got any to share, I’d love to hear them.

Childlike Worship

A few weeks ago I was leading worship at my church’s 11:00am service when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. It was my almost-three-year-old daughter, Megan, dancing to the music, with her arms in the air, her eyes closed, and a huge smile on her face. I don’t get choked up that often during worship, but this did it to me. It was a beautifully sweet thing to see.

She’s still too young to have gotten all self-conscious. Yet. Some day she will, sadly, and won’t feel comfortable doing this. One of my prayers for her is that she grows up to be a worshipper, and I hope she’ll still dance, but at some point she’ll get self-conscious and will learn how to dial back her expression of praise. What a shame.

And she’s also still too young to get judging glances from the congregation. Since she’s still a little girl people think it’s cute and smile at her. If she was a teenager, or a grown woman dancing in the aisles with her hands in the air, she’d get dirty looks. Even I would be tempted to talk to the ushers about how we might “handle” her. And again, what a shame.

It’s no wonder Jesus was drawn to little children. And it’s no wonder he wants us to be like them. They’re not all self-conscious and self-righteous. They’re uninhibited. They get it. They haven’t “learned” how to dial their worship back yet. Children run to Jesus. The mature, grown-up disciples are the ones who do the hindering. Go figure.

Lord, give me a soft heart towards you. Help me not be so self-conscious. Make me more like Megan, with my eyes closed, hands raised, and a smile on my face. Help me unlearn how to dial it back. Help me to worship you and you alone. May my worship be more and more childlike the older I get.

Oh, and please don’t let Megan (and Emma) ever grow up. Thanks.

Leading Worship with a Heart of Love for the Congregation

Did you know that the microphone you sing into each week amplifies more than just your voice? It also amplifies your heart. You can lead the most well-rehearsed, polished, carefully-selected set of songs in the world, but if you’re leading from a place of frustration or irritation or pushiness, then that’s going to come across loud and strong. This should give all of us worship leaders cause for concern!

But this shouldn’t be a surprise to us. In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul said that even if he could “speak in the tongues of men and angels” but didn’t “have love”, then all he would be is a “noisy gong or a clanging cymbal”. He went on to say that even if he was full of all sorts of prophetic powers, but didn’t have love, he would be “nothing”.

That’s some serious stuff. Think about that. Able to speak in tongues of men and angels? That’s pretty impressive. Full of prophetic powers and able to understand all mysteries? I would say that’s awfully impressive too. But Paul warns that all of this impressive stuff is canceled out if love isn’t present.

If a worship leader isn’t leading with a heart of love for the congregation, he runs the risk of coming across like a noisy gong or clanging cymbal. Do you enjoy listening to noisy gongs or clanging cymbals for an extended amount of time? No. And that’s the point.

How can we lead worship with a heart of love for the congregation?

Not by faking it, that’s for sure. Not by trying harder to smile more and be nicer to the cranky person who always finds time to complain to you five minutes before the service starts. And it’s certainly not by trying to muster up more love from within yourself.

The answer is, of course, that we need Jesus if we want to have a heart of love for the congregation. We know he loved the church so much that he “gave himself up for us” (Ephesians 5:2). His heart is a heart of love. And one of the amazing gifts of the Holy Spirit is that he “pours God’s love into our hearts” (Romans 5:5). We don’t have to muster anything up. We have to run to Jesus each Sunday and ask him to fill us with his Spirit.

Only then will our worship leadership be able to be characterized this way:

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

Those are the characteristics that will bless your congregation and make you a more effective worship leader. Jesus will put those qualities in you, and those qualities will be amplified by your microphone, not by your own trying harder, but by the power of his Spirit.

Where is Your Confidence?

Do you feel panicky when you’re not as rehearsed as you’d like to be? Do you feel anxious when you see a really full room looking back at you (or empty chairs)? Does your heart start racing before the service is about to start? If you make a mistake (say something dumb, forgot to take your capo off, mess up a song) do your agonize over it for days and replay it in your head?

If you’ve never experienced these sensations while serving as a worship leader, you’re not normal. But if scenarios above describe a regular experience for you as a worship leader, you’re missing the point. God very kindly allows us to feel all of these things – panicky, anxious, nervous, obsessive and embarrassed – so that we cease to seek our confidence in ourselves.

God is all about revealing the idols of our hearts and mercifully taking them away from us. For worship leaders, a common idol is self-sufficiency and self-centeredness. Feelings of anxiety are good for us because they serve a purpose: they remind us of our utter need for God.

The temptation is to think that if you’re panicky, you should have rehearsed more. Or if you’re anxious, then you’re not a good enough worship leader. Or if your heart is racing, you’re not ready for the big leagues. Or if you made a mistake (by the way, every worship leader in the world makes mistakes every single Sunday) that you ruined the service. None of these are true.

Maybe you should have rehearsed less, not more. Maybe you’re a great worship leader and you just need to relax. Maybe God has prepared you for this exact moment and you need to trust in him. Maybe your mistakes are helpful reminders to you (and your team and your congregation) that you’re a real person.

In all cases, and for all worship leaders, God is consistently reminding us that our confidence can’t be in rehearsals, polish, skill, or experience. All of those things are good things and you should pursue them. But none of them should be where we find our confidence. Our confidence is in God.

This might sound trite to you. It’s not. It’s the first building block of worship leading and if this one gets shaky, then everything else does too.

Allow God to humble you. Allow God to remind you that you need Him. Relax on Sunday morning and don’t stress over all the details and transitions and notes and chords and people and pressures. Fix your eyes on Jesus and you won’t sink. Look away from him and you will. He is our confidence!

What God Signs You Up For

God reminded me of something very important yesterday.

The privilege of serving as a worship leader can’t be felt in the degree of fame you achieve. This is vanity and this is celebrity and this is fleeting.

Rather, the privilege of serving as a worship leader can be felt in the moment when you witness a grieving young widow accept the folded flag which had draped the coffin where her husband rests in peace. He had been a secret service agent and had succumbed to a two year battle with cancer. He loved his wife, he loved his 4-year-old son, and he loved Jesus.

No one else in the room could see her tear-stained face except for the man handing her the flag on behalf of a grateful nation. This was a heart-breaking moment. This was when God reminded me of what a privilege it is to be called to do what I do.

We had sung songs about the faithfulness and goodness of God. We had sung about his amazing grace. And we had declared the truth of the gospel that assures us of “no guilt in life and no fear in death…”

Hardly anyone in that room had any idea who in the world I was. And they didn’t care. I didn’t care that they didn’t care. They would all much rather Keith was still alive and they weren’t having to sing these songs under these circumstances.

But God whispered something to me yesterday during that solemn moment. He said to me “this is what I signed you up for”. Not the lights, not the attention, not the fleeting celebrity. But the heavy duty of reminding a broken world, full of grief and cancer and too-young widows of the comfort and hope found only in Jesus.

Literally, we get a front row seat to pain and heartache. And God calls his ministers to be able to see it, experience it, and then within that, help people see the triumphs of God’s grace.

Worship leader: God doesn’t get any glory when you get glory. So don’t be in it for the glory. That’s not a privilege, it’s a travesty. It’s no comfort to a grieving widow.

God gets glory when you serve in humble ministry to the people in your congregation. Sometimes it’s a joy. Sometimes it’s a burden. Other times it’s heart breaking. But that’s ministry. And that’s a privilege.