- Dear worship leader,
you are a pastor.
It's unfortunate that a lot of churches
today, in modern 21st century, at least in America,
can really only speak for my context, where I'm at.
I know a lot of you live in different places in the world,
but it's unfortunate that a lot of churches
are looking to recruit, and hire, and find rock stars
more than they are looking to recruit, find, and hire
spiritual shepherds who know what they're doing
when it comes to leading a band,
and leading a congregation in worship.
I'm not exactly sure how it happened, or when it happened,
but when modern worship music came to be what it is today
with a person, a guy or a gal, leading a band of musicians
and implementing a lot of modern technology,
which I'm a huge fan of, I love it,
'cause I love compelling worship gatherings,
but somewhere along the way,
the pastoral role that we have as worship leaders
has kind of disappeared.
And I'll be the first to admit,
when I first got into worship ministry,
I was more passionate about music and technology.
I was a teenager, you know, I thought it was cool
to be able to play guitar, I had long hair,
I wore v-necks, it was great.
This is mid-2000s, I don't even know.
What do you call the last decade?
Like 2005, 2006, that's when I was 15, 16, and 17.
Anyways, I was coming of age,
I wanted to serve God with my gifts
as well as just look cool for all of my girlfriends
back in the time.
Anyways, when I became a worship leader
it was back in like 2007, I was a junior in high school,
and I became passionate about music,
I became passionate about God,
and I thought it'd just be cool
to have a life, and a career,
and vocation in worship ministry.
And of course, I geeked out more about the music
and tech side of worship ministry,
and less about some of the really important things,
probably what I think is the most important thing
of worship ministry, is the pastoral aspect of it.
It doesn't matter if you don't have a title, pastor.
It doesn't matter if you're a guy or a gal.
It doesn't matter what age you are.
If you are responsible for planning and leading worship
on a weekly basis at your church,
you have a pastoral responsibility.
And like I said, maybe your title doesn't have that.
Maybe you're just a volunteer, not even paid to lead worship
but if you are doing it, for a congregation of five people,
or 50 people, or 5,000 people,
you have a huge, huge pastoral role and responsibility
because the songs that we sing,
and the prayers that we pray in worship as worship leaders,
and the things that we do,
those have a significant impact on the faith lives
of our congregation.
And if you've been following me for any time now,
you know one of my favorite books
is called The Worship Pastor, by Zac Hicks,
and he unpacks this concept a whole lot more,
and helps you figure out, practically,
what it looks like to pastor your congregation.
But I wanted to pause for a few minutes this week,
instead of releasing my usual videos
that are more practically-oriented.
I actually think being pastoral
is also a very practical thing for us to do
as worship leaders, but you know what I mean.
I wanted to make sure that we're not losing sight
of the priority of worship ministry
which is really to help our congregations
on a weekly basis, retell the story of the Gospels,
and also to really embed the truth of the Gospel
in their hearts so that it transforms their lives
in the way that they live.
And I know that for a long time as a worship leader,
one area that I struggled with a whole lot
was speaking, or praying in worship.
And I mention that struggle here
because I think that's what's holding
a lot of worship leaders back, and perhaps you,
from really being able to pastorally engage,
and connect with your congregation during worship.
I know how intimidating it can feel
knowing what you should say or pray during a service,
and sometimes you even feel like you should say something,
but you don't know what, you didn't prepare anything,
so you don't, and I think every time that happens,
we're missing out on an opportunity
to really help inspire our congregation,
to really help lead their focus
and their attention on Christ,
and why they showed up to church that day.
It's not just to sing a bunch of songs,
and to hear a message.
Obviously those things are important,
but we want to make sure that our congregation
is actively participating in the worship gathering,
and as their leaders, it's our responsibility,
and they need our help to guide them into that.
So think about it for a second too,
and some people actually give me pushback
whenever I talk about worship leaders
actually having a pastoral role,
because they just view worship leaders as song leaders,
right, we're just getting up there,
singing the songs, and that's it.
And there's a lot of important stuff
that does happen through leading songs,
and singing songs together in the church,
but I just think it's way too common, and it's a mistake
for other leadership in the church
to downplay the pastoral role of the worship leader.
And think about this for a second:
what's your congregation gonna remember,
one, or two, or three, or four days,
or a week after the worship gathering?
Are they gonna really recall and remember
the sermon that's being preached?
Are they gonna recall the main point of that sermon,
or what passages were covered,
or what the points of the sermon were?
Probably not, it's hard for us to remember
that type of thing.
But your congregation will recall, and will remember
that new song that you taught them.
Maybe they'll remember the tune,
that'll help them also remember the words,
but that's the power of music in our worship gatherings,
it's the ability to deeply just bury in our hearts
the truths of the Gospel
in a way that we can just remember them
as we go about our daily lives,
and when we face certain situations,
certain songs come to mind.
I know that's true for me.
If I'm really in a great season,
I'm praising God, giving him thanks,
and if I'm a hard season, I'm singing songs of lament,
maybe a song like It Is Well, or King Of My Heart.
There's a lot of great different songs
that focus on the different truths
that we need to be reminded of in our Christian journey.
So that's why I just hate it when the pastoral role
of worship leading is downplayed,
or people just miss it altogether.
And what it took for me to grow and develop myself
in this area was a mentor to point it out to me.
I was in this time as a worship leader,
this was a couple of years ago,
I was a full time worship leader in my first full time gig,
I felt like a big boy at that point,
and I was frustrated 'cause I feel like the music was great
the technical stuff was coming together,
it was really, on a surface level,
when it comes to music and tech,
everything was just spot-on, and strong.
Not to downplay those things,
I think it's really important for us to give our best,
and as worship leaders, we should always be pushing our team
to do better, but I was frustrated that the congregation
wasn't engaging in worship.
I felt like I was just leading worship
for a bunch of zombies.
They were just staring at the screen,
there wasn't any heart being put into it.
And that's when one of my mentors,
who got a chance to watch me lead worship
on a regular basis, said,
hey, you need to engage and connect with your congregation.
And I thought about it for a sec, and was like,
yeah, you're right.
So what I did is I tried to just intentionally figure out
ways I could help unpack some spirituals truths
for the congregation throughout worship.
And I'm not talking about preaching mini sermons
throughout worship, but just being able
to take those in-between moments, between songs,
and really just help shed some light,
and function as the guide for my congregation
in worship gatherings.
And you know what?
I became a better worship leader because of that,
and even from the congregants themselves,
and from other leaders at my church,
I received a bunch of positive feedback.
They were like, hey, you're doing a great job, really,
shedding light on certain things,
and it's helping us engage more in worship.
Did that church has this crazy revival,
and charismatic revival overnight because of that?
No, of course not, but there was a little progress,
and a little progress, over and over again,
over a long period of time ends up being a lot of progress.
So I just wanna challenge you:
how can you better pastor your congregation,
through the things you pray, the thoughts you share,
even just being more intentional
about the way you pick songs throughout a worship service,
how you order the songs, what are you telling,
what story are you telling?
Or are you just doing a song selection
based off of just the emotional flow of worship?
Which is important, emotional flow is something
that we need to keep in mind, but it's not the only thing.
As a worship leader,
never forget your pastoral role and responsibility.
Push yourself to connect with your congregation
during worship because they need you to,
and maybe no one else is gonna tell you that,
but I'm gonna tell you that: they need you to lead them.
So maybe this week,
after you plan out the songs in your set list,
identify a place or two, probably no more,
even just one place in your worship gathering
where you can push yourself, and kind of step out,
push through that fear that you may have
about public speaking,
to share something meaningful with your congregation
that's hopefully biblical and theologically sound as well.
It should be, worship leaders are often known
for not sharing the most biblical and theologically sound
things in worship, so don't do that,
but just spend some time,
maybe it's just a scripture passage from God's Word
that you could share with your congregation,
or maybe you're gonna be singing a newer song
and you never really unpacked some of the meaning
of that song for your congregation,
so go ahead and unpack that for them as well.
And if you need help as a worship leader,
and in the planning and leading process,
and just knowing how you go about
spiritually pastoring your congregation,
I wanna invite you to check out Worship Leader School.
It's an online website for worship leaders,
full of online courses, and also a community of the students
who are part of Worship Leader School,
where you will find all the training, advice, and support
you need to plan and lead worship.
And there's even a course in there
that specifically is on how to speak or pray in worship,
and how to prepare meaningful and thoughtful things
to share with your congregation.
These are things I wish I would've learned
such a long time ago.
I started leading worship ten years ago,
but it wasn't until, like, three years ago
that I started to really figure out
how to connect with my congregation.
So, don't go that long without learning
how to do these types of things,
and it's not bad to have to learn a skill around this,
because it's just like any other skill.
God will work through you and do some amazing things
if you actually put thought and intentionality
into becoming a better worship leader
who knows how to pastorally engage the congregation.
So that's all I have for you, click the link below
and check out Worship Leader School today.
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(calm music)