Leading a congregation – Page 8

Too Many Toppings

Within one mile from my house there are two frozen yogurt places. Directly across the street from each other. My two oldest daughters (four and almost-three) would eat at one of these places every day if they could. They love them. The frozen yogurt is fun for them, but it’s really all about the toppings. Oh they love the toppings. That’s what gets them excited. And messy.

Catherine and I have to limit the number (and weight) of the toppings our girls choose. It’s like trying to tame wild beasts when we tell our daughters they can only pick three or four toppings from the 1,529 options. But somehow we make our way to the cashier, pay, and find a table where they stuff the frozen yogurt and (mostly) toppings into their mouths with varying levels of accuracy.

I’m more of an ice cream guy myself. Chocolate. One flavor. How can you improve upon perfection? So I tend to look down on the frozen yogurt fad and think my daughters like the toppings too much.

I think worship leaders can start to like the toppings too much too.

They start to add in so much that the primary substance of the gospel is covered over by whatever else they think needs to be included. Whether it’s in their eclectic song selection, varied repertoire sources, artistic stage elements, exploration of different themes, embrace of an array of emphases, use of cool effects, pursuit of variety, desire to be creative, penchant for liturgy, or an attempt to make everyone happy, they get carried away with the “toppings” and the whole thing becomes a bit too messy.

Worship leaders must limit the toppings so that the flavor of the gospel is what people taste above all else. Whether in a small church or a large church, as different as their worship might look, there should be a common core of the proclamation of the good news of Jesus Christ that never gets covered over by other add-ons.

May it never become about the toppings for us, our musicians, or our congregations. How can we improve upon perfection?

When a Congregation Resists a Worship Leader

The dream of every worship leader is to serve a congregation who makes their job easy. They sing every song with gusto. They never complain or gripe. They learn every song after singing it once. They’re always just begging for more. It’s like you’re in heaven every Sunday. Freedom abounds.

I suppose these kinds of congregations exist, but my hunch is that they exist, blissfully, mostly in the dreams of delusional worship leaders.

The reality of most worship leaders is that they serve congregations who don’t exactly make it easy. There are weeks, and seasons, and years of painful slogging. There are particular people who seem to relish the opportunity to criticize you. Songs fall flat. Excellent musicians don’t exactly fall out of the woodwork. And as you look out over your congregation you get the distinct impression that they’re just not that impressed and they’re just not that into you.

Congregations can tend to be, in a word, resistant. And this is the phenomenon referred to as “reality”. Real people, the people who are actually sitting in the pews on Sunday mornings, tend to like to feel safe, and tend to want to avoid having their personal sovereignty threatened. And few things threaten the personal sovereignty of people more than heartfelt worship. It gets at our pride in a unique way that’s both good for us and painful for us at the same time.

And when a worship leader faces resistance, he or she can handle it one of four ways.

First, give up. They’re resisting your leadership, so they’re all cold hearted atheists, and you should take your talents somewhere else.

Second, double down. They’re resisting your leadership, so they need to have a fire lit underneath them, and you need to rock their faces off until God sends revival.

Third, embrace the status quo. They’re resisting your leadership? You didn’t really notice. You pick some songs/hymns. You lead them. You get your paycheck. You go home. Why rock the comfortable boat?

All three of those options are tempting at different times. Most worship leaders (myself included) have chosen all of those responses at different stages.

But there’s a better option and a wiser response when you find yourself leading worship for a congregation who’s resistant: take it slow. They’re resisting your leadership, but you don’t need to give up, and you don’t want to shoot yourself in the foot by acting in a way that would make yourself the poster child of what they’re resisting. A bit of their personal sovereignty is at stake, after all, and if you try to take that space by force, there will be casualties.

So unless you’re one of those worship leaders who leads the congregation of your dreams, I suggest that you face resistance, you take it slow. Evaluate. Build trust. Serve them on their level. This isn’t you lowering yourself. It’s you incarnating yourself. And there’s a big difference.

Once you’ve done that, then you can begin to actually lead the people that are actually in your congregation. and you’ll slowly begin to see people’s personal sovereignty begin to soften in worship, creating a more conducive environment for heartfelt praise in response to the glory of God in Jesus Christ, the one who came to serve and not be served, and to set the captives free. Be encouraged that God’s longing for freedom in your congregation is unfathomably greater than yours.

Keep Trucking

Yesterday morning at our 11:00am service we were halfway through our opening block of songs when I heard a crazy noise coming out of the speakers that seemed to make the whole room jump. No, it wasn’t my drummer deciding to let loose. It was the sound board deciding to go nuts for a second. Before deciding to do it again. At which point the engineer made the decision to mute everything. And restart the board.

So for 45 seconds yesterday we were smack dab in the middle of a song and the sound system was pretty much completely off. The interesting thing was that the band had no idea that the system was totally off for 45 seconds because our in-ear monitors were working just fine. (Chalk this one up as one major reason why in-ears might detrimentally effect your worship leading: because you can’t hear what they hear).

But I knew something had happened. I had heard the crazy noise and I had seen the people jump, and then I noticed that they seemed more reserved for the rest of the set. It would have been nice to know that they weren’t really hearing anything, but since I was blissfully unaware, I kept on trucking.

And the congregation kept trucking too. They were dealing with an enormous distraction, so of course they pulled back a bit, but they kept on singing. The projector hadn’t shut down, so the lyrics were still up. And they knew the song. And the band was playing and singing. So, slowly the sound system came back on, and slowly the engineer started fading up the channels hoping that the board would cooperate. And when I sat down I found out what had happened.

What did I learn?

1. In-ear monitors are great, but they really do cut you off from the congregation.
2. Unless there’s some sort of emergency, or a total loss of power, it’s better to keep on trucking than screech everything to a halt.
3. This kind of thing is humbling. It reminds you that you can’t control everything.
4. When the sound system dies, it’s probably best to keep people singing. If I had tried to stop the song and say something, it would have been hard for them to hear what I was saying. Plus, what would I have said?
5. Congregations look for cues from the people on stage. If you keep your cool, then they will too.

The Appeal of Invitational Worship Leading

Don’t you like a good invitation?

Someone has free tickets to sit behind home base at a baseball game and they want you to join them. Someone has a beach house they can’t use and they want you to have the week for free. Someone has a voucher for a free meal at the finest steak house in the area and they want to treat you.

Being invited by someone you trust to join them somewhere you’d like to go is one of life’s greatest gifts. We all love a good invitation. It’s hard to turn a good invitation down.

Worship leading, at its core, is an invitational role. We stand before our congregations with an invitation behind every song, every arrangement, and every service. The invitation is to look, to consider, to behold, to cherish, to savor, to sing about, to celebrate, and to respond to a God who has revealed himself to us, rescued us through his Son, and sealed us with his Spirit.

Our tone, our countenance, and our approach should be inviting. Not demanding, not rote, not passive, not preachy, not cutesy, and not flippantly. We want our congregations to get the feeling from us that we’re inviting them to join us as we worship God. This gives them freedom to respond in their own way, with their own personality, at their own pace, and from their own heart. But it also gives them a gentle nudge. Yes, people need nudging. But they need to know they’re loved and safe before you even try. Within the context of an invitational style of leadership, you can provide this safety and nudging at the same time.

An invitational style also gives people the freedom to say “no, I won’t lift my hands” or “no, I don’t want to clap” or “no, I don’t think I want to sing, thank you very much”. It’s important for the stragglers, the depressed, the bereaved, and the atheists to stand under your worship leading and not feel guilty for not meeting your expectations.

Leading worship with an invitational tone communicates a love for Jesus, a love for people, a longing for them to join you, a gentle nudging to go further than they’ve gone before, and a freedom for them to be who they are. We all love good invitations. But none of us like having no choice but to say yes.

So consider your own heart when you stand before people, or when you sit down to a piano or organ, and you lead people in worship. Start with yourself. Draw near to Jesus and worship him from your heart. Then invite others to join you with a confidence, winsomeness, clarity, and freedom that will be hard for people to resist.

And Now Please Admire My Musicianship

We’ve all experienced that awkward moment when someone tries to say something nice about you but you take it as an insult. You’re not quite sure how to take it, how to respond, or how to process what they’ve said.

Several years ago I was having a conversation with someone I knew fairly well, and this person attempted to encourage me about my worship leading by saying: “Jamie, the thing about your worship leading is that no one walks away from one of your services thinking to themselves ‘wow, he’s a great musician‘”.

Um… thanks?

I know what the person was trying to say. I know the heart behind it. They were trying to say that I didn’t draw attention to myself. There is no higher compliment that can be paid to a worship leader than that. The problem wasn’t with what they said or even how they said it. The problem was with my heart: I wanted my musicianship to be admired.

I didn’t want my musicianship to be admired too much, of course. But I didn’t want my musicianship to be admired too little, either. And that was what I was afraid was happening. I was afraid that people didn’t appreciate me for the musician that I am. And I’m sure you can’t relate to what I’m saying at all.

Yeah right.

We can’t blame it on our artistic temperament. We can blame it on our sinful nature. We want to be the ones lifted high and exalted. And so we feed our desire for adoration with a sometimes-subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle attitude from the platform that basically says to the congregation “and now please admire my musicianship”. While I play this solo, while I do this postlude, while I play five instruments in one service, while I use six different tunings on one song, while I do a three-minute song introduction, while I do this song in a key that’s terrible for most voices but amazing for mine, while I sing this song that no one could ever sing along to and that’s kind of the point, or while I fill all the musical spaces instead of letting someone else.

And so on. We can get really good at doing little things to help people remember and appreciate that they’re really quite fortunate to hear us every Sunday. Lord, have mercy!

When my friend said those encouraging words to me and I took them as an insult, the Holy Spirit was putting his finger on an area of recurrent pride, that if not called out and killed, will grow into a ministry-destroying monster. It’s like those pesky weeds outside my house that never want to go away. I can either feed them or I can destroy them. There’s not really a third option.

Of course you’d never think of actually saying the words “and now please admire my musicianship” on a Sunday morning. That’s too blatantly egotistical! But those might be the very words you send without even realizing it.

Examine yourself. Simplify your leadership. You don’t need to do, in one service, all that you’re capable of doing. You don’t need to operate within the full parameters of your musical gifting every Sunday. No one needs to know how versatile you are. Is that glissando really necessary or do just want to sound awesome? Tie one hand behind your back if you need to. Whatever it takes.

May it be said of us very often: no one walks away from our services thinking “wow, what a great musician”. They walk away thinking “wow, what a great God”. We have got to decrease, my friends. For God’s sake, we must.