It started out with an email and ended in heartbreak.

You know what I’m talking about. A beautiful soul with total confidence wants to join your worship team as a vocalist. The only problem is, they can’t sing.

And it’s not always that they cannot sing. It may be that their vocal tone just isn’t of a pleasing quality. In this case, there was no sense of pitch.

I was really hoping they were amazing so I could smile, affirm them, and offer them a spot on our worship team.

But I couldn’t do that. I had to be honest. Right there at the audition.

And this person left mad. In their mind, they were the cat’s pajamas of church vocalists.

If you’re a worship leader, you’ve been in this situation. If you haven’t, expect to in the near future. How do you handle a conversation like this? What is the best way to speak the truth without breaking hearts?

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The longer I lead worship, the more I see a problem.

I’m a professional worshiper. I get paid to be at church.

It’s my job to lead people in worship. I know how to “clock” it in, get it done well, and move on.

And you know where this hurts the most?

People can be blessed by my worship leading and have no idea my prayer life doesn’t exist. People can look up to me as a “man of God” but they don’t know that I haven’t read my Bible in a month.

I’m a professional – I know how to fake the spiritual life. But the truth is I can kid everyone except the one who matters most.

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