Leading a congregation – Page 10

Ten Worship Leading Non-Negotiables

There is so much good and helpful advice for worship leaders out there that I thought I’d try my hand at condensing it all down into 10 non-negotiables.

You are not the center.
You make Jesus the center.
Your priority is helping the congregation sing with faith.
You support your pastor.
You choose songs that are full of truth.
You use musicians who are gifted and have soft hearts toward Jesus.
You tailor the keys and arrangements of songs to serve the people in the room.
Your family comes first.
You’re never alone with someone of the opposite sex who isn’t your spouse.
You won’t ever compromise numbers 1-9.

May we be worship leaders who, at our core, love Jesus, love our congregations, and love our families.

Ten Things Worship Leaders Should Never Do

Leading worship provides so many opportunities to make mistakes and be humbled and grow in maturity. I’ve made so many mistakes I’ve lost count. The benefit of those mistakes is that I now have an idea of some things I should never do. Will I do these things again? Yes. But should I? No. Here are ten things worship leaders should never do, courtesy of mistakes I’ve made (and will keep making) in all of these areas.

Don’t Willfully Disobey Your Pastor
Willfully disobeying your pastor is one sure way to grieve the Holy Spirit and put yourself on thin ice.

Don’t Publically Correct a Worship Team Member
Praise publically. Correct privately.

Don’t Allow Yourself to Be Made Famous
Take practical steps, in small ways that add up to big ways, to resist meaningless fame in your congregation.

Don’t Make Minor Things into Major Things
Think long and hard about whether or not you want to make a big deal out of what you’re making a big deal about. Is it really a big deal? Probably not.

Don’t Make the Major Thing a Minor Thing
The major thing is that people are able to see and savor Jesus Christ. You can do that in a lot of ways. But if you can’t do that, then that’s a major thing.

Don’t Neglect Praying with Your Team
Before you rehearse. Before you lead a service. Huddle up and pray together. If you regularly neglect to do this, you send the message that you don’t need any help.

Don’t Fish for Compliments After the Service
Pity the poor soul who sits across from you at lunch after church while you not-so-subtly fish for a compliment. Just be quiet and eat your lunch!

Don’t Leave the Room During the Sermon
Think about what you’re saying if you slide off stage and eat a donut and surf Facebook during the preaching of the word. Stay in the room and listen to the sermon.

Don’t Be a Diva
Set up your own guitar stand. Coil your own cables. Get yourself a water bottle. Be a pleasant/humble personality for your other volunteers/staff to interact with.

Don’t Forget Your Family
There is such intense pressure to prove your worth by how many hours you work and how busy you are. Nonsense. Give yourself first and foremost to your family, and fit your ministry responsibilities in when you can – not at your family’s expense.

Jesus Can Melt Hearts of Stone

Much of my childhood was spent sitting in a minivan. A Dodge Caravan to be exact. In 1994 we upgraded to a stylish Toyota Previa (and by “stylish” I mean “hideous”) which we took all around the country on summer vacations. I even learned to drive that wonderful automobile.

I spent so much time in minivans that I promised myself I would never purchase one for myself. I was too cool, and they were too dorky. I was too manly, and they were too girly. I was too sophisticated, and they were just too, well, practical.

So before I got engaged I bought a Ford Escape. Not as manly as an Explorer, but not as girly as a Jetta (no offense). Then, after several years, including marriage to Catherine, the birth of our first daughter, and the impending birth of our second, I traded in the Escape for one a massive, gas guzzling, four-wheel-drive, dark blue, rugged, menacing Chevy Tahoe.

My ego was thrilled. My pocketbook, however, was not. Turns out that Chevy Tahoes use a lot of gas. And if you need to put 4 new tires on it, those tires cost a lot of money. And they’re not cheap to insure. And the county likes to charge you a lot of taxes every year to register the behemoths. Not to mention the pesky debt I had plunged us into.

It was extremely impractical for my growing family. Yes, you could fit a killer whale in the back (or so I’ve heard), but it wasn’t terribly easy for Mom to reach back and fetch a dropped pacifier in the middle of a grueling five-minute drive to the grocery store. But, darn it, it was NOT a minivan.

I was the most anti-minivan guy you’ve ever met. I openly laughed at my friends who purchased them. I knew that I would never succumb to the allure of the automatic sliding doors. And the in-floor storage. And the DVD player. And the easy access to the 2^nd and 3^rd row. And the easy-fold seats. And the window shades. And the massive amount of cargo space. And the easy access to car seat LATCH systems. And the little mirror that lets you look back and see your kids. Oh and the windows roll down all by themselves when you hold down the unlock button. It’s amazing!

Last week we traded in the Tahoe for a Honda Odyssey and I couldn’t have been more excited.

How could a die-hard anti-minivan SUV driver have such a change of heart? I think Jesus did it. I began to see how a different car would serve my wife and kids better in the small spaces of a grocery store parking lot. I began to see how owning a massive Tahoe wasn’t good stewardship of our finances, nor a wise investment. Jesus melted my heart of stone and replaced it with the heart of a practical Dad.

Jesus is in the business of melting hearts of stone. He does it at his pace and in his time. Just two months ago I wouldn’t have been ready. But a week ago it was perfect timing. Jesus knows what he’s doing, he knows how to work on stubborn resistance, and he can turn ardent opponents into tender recipients.

You can picture the faces of ardent opponents, or stern-faced resisters, in your congregation as you read this. They stare at you during worship with a look that says “I am not impressed”. They look down on you and you wish you could do something about it.

Pray for them. It’s as simple as that. Pray that Jesus melts their heart of stone. And smile at them too. Maybe even offer them a ride in your manly minivan.

Small Annoyances Can Equal Big Resistance

Many worship leaders unconsciously do little things when they lead worship that annoy the congregation. On their own, these little things might not be such big deals. But added up, and experienced Sunday after Sunday, small annoyances can equal big resistance, as the worship leader can begin to grate on the congregation and cause them to take a more defensive posture so as to not be further annoyed.

Before I list some of the top annoyances I’ve observed, let me say one very important thing: be yourself when you lead worship. There’s nothing more crippling as a worship leader than the fear of what people think about what you’re wearing, how you sound, whether you prayed articulately enough, whether you tied your shoes tightly enough, if you played a G instead of a G2, if they think you look stupid, if you don’t have a good enough voice, etc. Be yourself.

But having said that very important thing, let me continue to make my point. If you do things – consistently – that are annoying to your congregation, they will begin to resist you. Here are few examples:

Unpredictably changing the rhythm and syncopation of the melody
Sing it like the recording. Sing it like people will have heard it if they’ve heard it elsewhere. Don’t add in your own syncopation (or removal of syncopation in some cases) because you want to give the song personality. It throws people off. It makes them want to stop singing.

Adding “and” pre-buttals
“And here I am to worship / and here I am to bow down…” “And how great is our God / and sing with me…” “And our God is greater / and our God is stronger…” Seriously, stop with the “ands”.

Singing with a weird affect
I posted a video on this last year to demonstrate what I mean. Don’t put on a grungy voice when you sing if you don’t naturally use a grungy voice when you talk. Sing like a normal human being and people will feel more at ease trying to sing along.

Using cheerleader phrases
Except for rare (and I mean rare) circumstances, phrases like “come on!”, “let me hear you!”, “you’re sounding good!”, “that’s some good singing!”, and “get on up!” should be banished from your lips.

Breathiness
When you pray, don’t use the kind of voice you’d hear on an R-rated perfume commercial. It makes me blush.

Always repeating
I shared some thoughts on this in previous posts here and here. If you repeat songs too much, two bad things happen: first, people find themselves wanting you to shut up. Secondly, you become the boy who cried wolf, and when you really do (and should) want to repeat something, it doesn’t have the effect it should because the congregation is so tired of repeating everything.

Keeping the intensity level up all the time
Whether it’s your singing or playing, you can’t keep it all intense all the time. Calm down from time to time.

The best ways to discover your little annoyances are: (1) ask your spouse, (2) if you don’t have a spouse, or even if you do, ask a close friend, (3) listen back to yourself without skipping or muting, and (4) watch videos of yourself. Keep in mind my first point about being yourself, but do watch out for little things you might be doing that could equal big resistance.

For more on this, I posted several years ago here on different “ticks” worship leaders should remove. I’m preaching to myself too!

A New Year To Do Old Things

So it’s 2013. A new year, a fresh start, and a new number you have to get used to writing on your checks. That’s the hardest part for me.

We hear a lot in these first few weeks of a new year about doing new things, or making new resolutions. There’s a pressure on us, in our personal lives and in our professional lives, to do things a little bit differently.

Worship leaders aren’t immune to this pressure. We can begin feel the need to be more innovative, creative, and different than we were last year. Just this morning as I was watching the archived first session of the Passion 2013 conference I noticed feeling the pressure: teach these new songs, incorporate these new sounds, and do it this coming Sunday.

Growing and changing are not only good things, but they’re necessary things. Living things grow and change. Psalm 1 describes the man who delights in God as being like “a tree planted by streams of water…” Since when have you seen a living tree not change from year to year?

But the focus on the new can come at the expense of the focus on the old. Yes, it’s good to let God grow us up and change us as worship leaders as we draw from him. But don’t forget the old things that you’re called to. Year after year after year.

Love Jesus. Study his word and worship Him when no one’s looking.

Love your family. Don’t fall victim to the worldly pressure to overwork and miss out on your commitments in the home.

Love the Church. With all of its issues and problems and politics, it’s the body of Christ and you’re a part.

Love your worship team. Don’t treat your worship team like they’re just a bunch of names on a monthly schedule. Build community and foster friendship among your team.

Love your congregation. Don’t become a celebrity who only appears on a stage every Sunday. You might be a great singer, but if you don’t have love, you’re just a resounding gong (1 Corinthians 13:1).

Love to see your worship team leading your congregation in singing to Jesus. All of the above combine in a worship leader’s heart that finds no greater joy on Sunday morning than being caught up in praise to Jesus with a worship team and a congregation all singing the same song.

So, this new year with new pressures to do things in a new way, may we not forsake the old, foundational things that really matter: loving Jesus, loving our families, loving our churches, and loving to sing the unchanging song of heaven for all eternity: worthy is the Lamb.