Tag: Heart attitudes

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.

Give Yourself a Break

For many years, too many years in fact, I led worship way too often.

Starting in the Fall of 2006 when my church started a Saturday service, I was the primary worship leader for the Saturday 5:00pm service and the Sunday 11:00am service. Two services a weekend. I would get a free Sunday the weekend after Easter when our student worship team would lead, and I would take two weekends off somewhere in the summer. Three weekends off per year.

So, I was picking songs, leading rehearsal, up front, and leading worship 49 weekends a year. And since we were doing two services each weekend, that means I was leading worship 108 times a year. This doesn’t count monthly healing services, Wednesday staff meetings, and other services and events. But you get the idea. It was way too much.

It was unhealthy for me. It burns you out after leading that many times in a row. You don’t feel fresh anymore. You don’t lead fresh anymore. Everything starts to blur. You get tired of choosing songs. You get tired of leading rehearsal. You lose energy. You fall into ruts. You get predictable. You get safe. Worst of all, you start thinking that your church would fall apart if you were to leave.

It was unhealthy for my worship team. It didn’t give other worship leaders in the church a chance to lead. There might have been an occasional spot for them for a men’s or women’s ministry event, but I wasn’t giving people an opportunity to get experience leading worship in the context of a service. I was hogging 108 opportunities all for myself.

It was unhealthy for my church. Whether they realized it or not, I was fostering an unhealthy dependence on me leading worship, so that when I did rarely get a service off, it was more disruptive than it should have been. If I really did mean what I prayed – that I would decrease and God would increase – then why wouldn’t I take a very practical step toward decreasing and get myself off of the platform more often?

I have resolved to push other worship leaders in my church into at least half of the 108 yearly opportunities. I lead worship very seldom on Saturday nights now. Other worship leaders take turns, sometimes by themselves, and sometimes with a band. I lead healing services very seldom now. Other worship leaders get experience by leading those. I still lead most of the time on Sunday mornings, but this year I’m planning on taking at least 6 off.

You can’t do this if you’re insecure. If you think your church really needs you, or if you’re concerned that if someone else leads worship then your congregation might forget about you, then you’ve fallen into unhealthy thinking. You have to be secure enough to step back and push others into the spotlight, so to speak. It’s more healthy for you, for your team, and for your congregation.

And you can’t do this if you’re needy. Without realizing it, you can begin to need to be needed, and if you’re not leading worship you feel like you have no purpose. This isn’t a good thing.

I remember meeting a worship leader at a church I visited while on vacation a few years ago (during one of my two weekends off). After a brief conversation with him, I said “I hope you get a couple of weekends off this summer”. Sadness fell over his face. He said “I wish”. It turns out that he was allowed – maybe – one weekend off per year.

For your sake and your church’s sake, make sure you’re getting regular breaks from worship leading. Even if you’re not going on vacation, schedule yourself to get a break. Your substitute might not be as polished, or they might even be better!, but just do it. It will keep you from getting burned out and it will keep your congregation from getting too dependent on you too.

Worship Leader Nightmares

Last night I had one of those dreams – one of those worship leaders nightmares – when the service is starting and the congregation is assembled but I am absolutely unprepared. In this particular dream it was one of our biggest services of the year, Lessons and Carols, and when it came time to sing a song, everything fell apart.

The congregation stared and waited. I was leading from the keyboard and it was too low for me to reach. I tried to play it but I couldn’t. The band was confused. The congregation was murmuring. I asked someone to help me raise the keyboard. They tried to help me and knocked all my music over. The congregation was now totally disengaged. I got set up again and started to try the song, but one of those webpage-like advertisements covered up the chord chart. Yes, that’s right. A digital pop-up ad was all of the sudden on my chord chart. So I stopped and waited. Then tried again. Then mercifully one of our baby girls crying woke me up.

Do you ever get these dreams? If you’re a worship leader I bet you do. They always a bit different but they share the basic horrifying premise: you’re on stage, the congregation is looking at you, and you are failing. You’re not ready, you’re not doing a good job, and every one knows it.

I try not to read too much into dreams. When I dream about a bunny rabbit talking to me in French while we both travel the Mexican coastline in a minivan, I don’t usually try to unpack the prophetic meaning or see what God is trying to tell me. Weird dreams just happen.

But dreams can tell us something about where we’re anxious and where we’re insecure. If you’re a student, you’ll probably have dreams about showing up for your final exam without ever having attended the class. If you’re a doctor, you’ll probably dream about misdiagnosing a patient or making a terrible mistake. Worship leaders don’t have lives at stake or the danger of failing a class, but we do have to “perform” to a certain degree each time we lead. We have to execute certain up-front responsibilities like talking, singing, leading a band, making transitions, etc. And the prospect of showing up without any clothes on or with all of our songs suddenly required to be sung in Chinese rightfully terrifies us.

Here is where I’m going with this: First, if you’re a worship leader, you’re not the only one who gets these kinds of dreams. So be comforted. And maybe leave a comment affirming that this is true for our mutual benefit. Second, every time you have one of these dreams (once a week anyone?), make a default assumption that it’s God’s way of revealing anxiety and stress in you that you need to deal with. Sure, it might be a random dream. But it also might just be God’s way of graciously exposing your fear of man.

God knows your dreams, believe it or not. Some are just your brain processing nonsense. Others might be a bit more telling. My dream last night tells me this: I’m afraid of making a fool of myself. I struggle with this fear on a semi-regular basis. I need God’s peace. I need to repent of my desire to be perfect. I need to trust even more in Jesus. And maybe, after all that, take a ride along the Mexican coast in a minivan. But not with the bunny rabbit. I don’t speak French.

Title Trivia

How concerned are you with what people call you?

Worship Leader. Worship Pastor. Worship Director. Music Coordinator. Worship and Music Director. Director of Worship and Music and Arts. Lead Worshipper. Assistant Worship Director. Associate Director of Worship and Music. Executive Director of Worship and Associate Director of Music and Assistant Director of Arts.

The list could go on.

I used to be really concerned with my title. It mattered to me – a lot – what it said on the bottom of my email signature. I felt more important when I was promoted from a part time worship leader to a “coordinator of contemporary music”. Then a couple years later I felt slighted when the title “associate” was given to someone else who I didn’t think deserved it.

What a stupid thing to be concerned about.

One day I was brushing my teeth and God spoke these words to me (by the way, God often speaks to me when I’m brushing my teeth. Don’t ask me why): “Would you be just as faithful in your ministry if your title was ‘custodian’?” I was convicted. I had to honestly answer him, no. But I wanted to be. I wanted to be just as passionate about my job regardless of whether or not my title is grandiose. Then God spoke these words of assurance to me: “Jamie, my name for you never changes”.

Wow. Here I was, a just-out-of-college part-time worship leader, and the sovereign God of all creation is calling me out on my petty and prideful obsession over what title goes on my business card.

If the Apostle Paul had an email signature, his title might read “Paul. Chief of Sinners.” (1 Timothy 1:15). Or maybe “Paul. Servant of Christ.” (Romans 1:1). His identity was completely wrapped up in his position in Christ. Sadly, too often our identity as worship leaders is more wrapped up in our position on a staff chart.

To help keep me from getting too carried away about my title, I’ve purposely started referring to myself as “one of the music guys”. Sometimes I’ll say “I lead some of the music at my church”. I don’t have my title on my email signature. I don’t have business cards. I try to do everything I can not to get wrapped up in whatever title is given to me by the church.

Sure, titles matter. They signify what role your church has designated and authorized you to fill. They back you up. They help on a resume’. They tell people what you do and what you don’t do.

But they just don’t matter that much. First, they certainly don’t matter to God. Secondly, they don’t matter to your congregation. I bet 99% of the people in your congregation don’t know and don’t care what your title is. Third, they don’t matter to you. God calls and equips you, then he sovereignty places you in the exact place he wants to you serve for his glory. That’s what matters.

Don’t concern yourself with what people call you. Concern yourself with who has called you. The High King of Heaven has called you. Serve him, work for his glory, and let your titles come and go as they may.