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One of the greatest privileges I have as a minister of the gospel is to lead people in worship. It happens to be one of the vows that I took when I was ordained, and also when I was inducted to the leadership of our church – “To lead Gods people in worship” goes alongside teaching them the whole counsel of scripture.
In our church the task of leading worship is often delegated to other people and that immediately puts a different perspective on our conduct of Sunday services, whatever type or style they have. I’m often asked for guidance over how to craft a service, particularly how to lead the sung worship so here are some key pointers for leaders of sung worship.
The most frequent source of disappointment I hear is that our worship, especially our sung worship, lacks depth. This rarely comes from the usual church critics (every pastor has his fair share of them!) but from earnest people who genuinely want to engage with the Lord in our worship but come away disappointed.
The fundamental question is how can we create that sense of God’s presence and add depth to our worship? There is no magic all-encompassing answer as leading worship takes time, practice and high levels of skill. And sadly some worship leaders are not willing to commit themselves to the discipline the task requires.
As I prepare to lead God’s people in worship these are some of the factors that go through my mind and cause me to turn to prayer to seek the Holy Spirit’s inspiration behind the scenes before I ever appear on a platform.
range
I seek to use as wide range of music as possible within every musical genre (classical, jazz, rock or light band) there is a range of tunes for the leader to call upon. So when we lead worship we need to make sure there is a range of expression to give people the greatest possible opportunity to connect with God.
So to extend the range think about tempi and volume. Some songs are loud and strident with a driving beat that carries people along in their wake. If someone was feeling sluggish when the song started they would be wide awake by the end! These are good songs to begin the service as they encourage God’s people to connect with him and use the voices and bodies to praise him. They are assertive of great truths and bold in their declaration of God’s character.
Conversely there are songs which are quiet and meditative. These give people a little more space to reflect on the Lord and interact with him more personally. These songs usually have a slower tempo and the notes of the melody are longer, with flowing phrases that create a yearning quality.
You will lead well if you have a broad range.
connections
I work hard on connections, those few sentences that you use between songs or that make one element of the worship flow into the next. For maximum effectiveness I work on vocal links that enhance the message I’m conveying in the worship. Verses about God’s faithfulness, his love, his fatherhood or whatever theme you’re working to will help people to focus their heart’s gaze and mind’s attention on God and not on you.
Always point worship away from yourself and you will lead worship well.
the Bible
I use the Bible extensively. It may be pertinent to you that the cat did something funny this week, but rarely does that carry much weight in the spiritual growth of God’s people. And you’ve been given the huge privilege of leading them into his presence today! So choose verses which encourage and reassure.
And incidentally, avoid any comments on the quality or intensity of people’s singing. Comments like “let’s raise the roof with this” or “ that wasn’t much good, let’s do that song again” make me think that I’m in this church to have my performance assessed rather than to connect with my maker.
Use the Bible as your inspirational tool and you will find yourself leading worship well.
theology
Use great theology and profound words in your songs and links. If you look at the classic hymns that have been around for centuries you will find this over and over again. Indeed, one of the reasons these songs have lasted the test of time is the obvious fact that they have been speaking to people’s deepest spiritual needs since the era in which they were written.
When I was in my a teens I used to think ‘Great is thy faithfulness’ was just a good tune that old people liked to sing for sentimental reasons. I would much have preferred something more contemporary but I went along with it. Soon I noticed some (mainly middle-aged) folk who were singing with a look of deep feeling on their faces. They were genuinely moved by it. Beyond them in the church there were elderly people who even showed signs of weeping. Something deeper than I could comprehend was going on as they repeated these time-honoured words.
That was four decades ago. Today I look back in my own life with all its successes and failures, all of its joy and periods of intense sorrow and see those words in a totally new light. I find a lump appearing in my own throat when I sing them, not because they’re sentimental slush that bring back my youth, but because I’ve lived them out. Today in the the here and now they are true, and true for me. I’ve had great joy and endured great sorrow in my life so any chance I can get to acknowledge God’s faithfulness is going to be a precious moment to me. (Although I have never found an effective re-wording to get rid of all the archaisms! But that’s another story)
So here’s the point. It’s nothing to do with how trendy or otherwise the song is, it’s to do with what it means to the people I’m leading. I want to sing words and use images that are valuable and weighty to the congregation. Producing moments like that is your task as a worship leader.
Does this mean we should return to all the classic hymns of centuries past – certainly not! There are poets and composers who are creating great and profound songs today and we starve our congregations if we don’t use them. Being contemporary in the way we sing, lead and present music is vital if we are to engage today’s families, young people (and old folk with a young outlook). The point I’m making is this – we need to use words and music that carry weight. Words that mean deep things, songs that have profound theology and high relevance.
repetition
This brings me to something that, as worship leaders, we need to be very careful about: repetition. To sing ‘Jesus I love you’ seventeen times over may provide you with a way of manipulating your congregation into a heightened emotional state but it’s not good theology!
It is true that some songs benefit form a certain amount or repetition to make the headline news of the song stand out. Personally I like to regard the congregation as intelligent enough to identify and receive the main message without extensive repeats. Rarely, very rarely, does extensive repetition gain you anything!
So use great words and profound lyrics and you will discover yourself leading worship well.
performance
There’s a phrase I often hear in prayer meetings that take place before a band goes out to lead worship. “But Lord, this is not a performance …” and that is usually is the precursor to some apology to the Lord for the disorganisation or lack of quality that is about to follow in the service.
Let me say something very clearly here – as a worship leader you are performing. What you are doing in front of those several dozen or several hundred of God’s people is a performance. Therefore the quality of your stage-craft matters.
There is a difference, we hope, with our motives. As worship leaders our motive is to point people to God, and not to us. That is the difference between the worship leader and the concert performer. In years past I used to perform classical piano recitals and one of my motives (rather unashamedly, really) was ‘I want you to realise that Ian White is really a pretty good pianist”. In the context of a recital that motive is acceptable. In the context of worship it isn’t. And keeping our self-importance at bay is something we should constantly be aware of.
At the same time we do appear before real people who have invested their valuable time and heart-space to our worship service. When on the platform we do use musical instruments and our congregations do have high expectations of us (and rightly so). Therefore it matters that our stage-craft is of the highest quality. We are performing and we are performing to the glory of God.
So its always wise to avoid distractions and anything else that raises a barrier to people engaging with God as you lead them. Some niggles I’m aware of are things like
Music scores. Avoid throwing them arond when you finish a song! YThis has an amaturish appearance that demnstrates untidiness! If at all possible memorise your music or at least have descreet copies of scores within your sightline.
Perform as if you were appearing before royalty and you will find yourself leading well.
preparation
When leading worship with people who all know your corpus of songs, with musicians who are sufficiently skilled to follow your wandering through their repertoire at the drop a hat, then unplanned worship can sometimes work.
The tipping point comes when you have more than one musician or musicians who are not professionally experienced. That’s almost every service I lead! A band needs clear direction and constant encouragement and you can give that in your rehearsal.
The best spontaneity is the planned kind! You know where you’re going and you take people there in as unhurried a way as possible. Many of the greatest worship leaders are actually people who pay attention to detail and plan meticulously.
I believe that the Holy Spirit can speak just as powerfully (often more so) in the quiet of your office or home than he can when the pressures of performing are on you. Therefore Spirit-filled, prayer soaked preparation is vital. We like to give the impression that everything is spontaneous, when actually good leadership is always prepared leadership – not to the exclusion of God doing something unexpected – but so that both we and He knows where we’re going.
Fail to prepare and you prepare to fail.
courtesies
This means that the common courtesies of a performance need to be at the top of our agenda. These courtesies things like
- sticking to time without rushing (Don’t steal the preacher or prayer’s time by running over)
- sticking to subject. (If the preacher is talking about God’s love, avoid the temptation to have a rant about predestination)
- be prepared with your links (an actor always rehearses and rehearses so he can convey the emotion of the script. He then delivers his lines without any papers – it’s good practice!)
new songs
The average congregation know about 30 songs if they’ve been coming to church for a whole year or more. I’ve noticed a trend recently that seems to dictate that we need to have a new song every time we worship. So you don’t have to do this and it’s always worth checking with the pastor that any new material is going to enhance the worship and not just going to be yet another musical challenge for the congregation!
Use new material carefully and sparingly and you will find people following you in your worship because they will be reasonably familiar with what you’re doing – and you’ll be leading well.
This applies particularly at the beginning of a service. Your congregation do not want to arrive and find some unknown piece of music being foisted on them! It’s confusing and leaves them singing in a lack-lustre way right at the start. The church has a wide variety of anthems that people will just launch into when they hear them being played.
If you want to create confidence in your congregants – start with something familiar and you’ll find yourself leading worship well.
watch your congregation
Always keep an eye on your congregation while you’re leading them and if you notice they’re not engaging with you (especially the people at the back of the church) just stop, move on, and spare them from their agony!
… and finally
If we leave people only wanting to repeat the event they’ve just been to then we have missed the mark. But lead people into the presence of God with depth, honesty, dignity and integrity and people will engage with Him. And you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you were the one who facilitated it.
It’s a huge discipline, an honourable calling so let’s glorify God in our worship leading.
