Beyond Sunday Worship

Worship Podcast

5 Ways You Can Improve Your Leadership

The subtitle of my blog is “Worship. Leadership”. The reason for this is because worship leading is so much more than just singing songs, maneuvering through a worship set, holding band rehearsals, and listening to music all day. Being a worship leader involves leadership. It requires spiritual leadership.


I mean, noboday wants to follow a worship leader who doesn’t worship, right? Nobody wants to follow a worship leader who doesn’t love Jesus, right?

In this post I would like to outline 5 ways to improve your leadership as a worship leader. Or any leader, for that matter. These are things you can start doing now. I have a huge heart for you and believe God wants to use you in incredible ways.

1. IMMERSE YOUR PLANNING IN PRAYER

Part of what we do as worship leaders is plan. We plan a weekly setlist. We plan Easter productions and Christmas productions and scheduling and a host of other things. When you beging to immerse your planning in prayer, it shows in your leadership. It’s not just about getting things done. It’s about the presence of God, discipleship, vision, passion, expectancy. These are the things you want to impart to your team and congregation and it comes through prayer.

2. DEVELOP A DISCIPLESHIP STRATEGY

If you don’t plan it, it’s not going to happen. This is so important. Make your discipleship intentional. I’ve already written a previous post on How to Disciple Your Worship Team, so I won’t repeat myself here. I find it healthy to plan your year out before it happens. Sure, plans may change. But force yourself to get away for a few hours or a whole day and plan an intentional discipleship strategy for those on your worship team. You want your worship team members to grow musically, spiritually, and be sent out to do the same.

3. BE PREPARED

There’s nothing more frustrating than working with a ‘leader’ who is not prepared. Do the work to ‘set the table’ for your worship team. Put front end work into rehearsals, think through challenges you may face, set the stage, plan your devotional, know where you are going. It will seriously improve your leadership and likelihood of people sticking with you.

4. TAKE TIME TO THINK

I know thinking can be scary. You finally have to face the things you failed at. You have confront what isn’t working. But to be an effective leader you need to not just ‘do work’ but you need to ‘think about work’ to ensure you’re doing the right things. Is what you’re doing aligned with the vision of your lead pastor? Are you fulfilling the vision God has called you to? Are you stressed and losing patience with your team? These are the kinds of things you want to face weekly, think through them, pray through them, and come out stronger.

5. CELEBRATE YOUR TEAM

You may not think it’s that important, but taking the time to recognize individual people for what they contribute to your team is so beneficial. Not only does it encourage them but it increases the likelihood of them following you. People love to be recognized and will follow a leader who appreciates what they contribute.

LEADERS, what is ONE THING you have done to improve how you lead?

How Close Should Sunday Morning Worship Reflect the Recordings?

Over the years as I’ve talked to many worship leaders, I have encountered different approaches to Sunday morning worship – some who are vehemently opposed to structure and click tracks and arrangments and others who have their entire worship set planned to the ‘T’ without much wiggle room.

One of the questions that has come up time and time again is how close should Sunday morning worship resemble the recordings? I mean if Chris Tomlin, Jesus Culture, and Hillsong do it it’s gotta be from God’s rulebook, right? Well, maybe not God’s rulebook. But it can be helpful to use what others have done.

I like to strike a healthy balance between personal arrangements, recorded arrangements, and the spontaneous.

Here’s my thoughts:

UTILIZING RECORDED ARRANGEMENTS SAVES YOU TIME

As a busy worship leader, this is great. You don’t have to personally and creatively arrange every single song because someone has already done that work. Just listen in, take notes, and teach. It’s nice to use what they’ve done and build upon it.

UTILIZING RECORDED ARRANGEMENTS IS THE BEST WAY TO TRAIN YOUNG MUSICIANS

Young musicians are not typically honest about how bad they are. I don’t know what it is but it’s easy for we musicians to get an inflated view of ourselves. We easily blame external factors (can’t hear, can’t see the music, use the “it’s OK I’ve got it” comment, etc.) for our mistakes. Maturity is learning to admit when you mess up (maybe I should save this for another post :))Holding young musicians accountable to learning and playing their part of a recorded song teaches them a much needed discipline if they want to be good musicians.

ARRANGE, BUT LEAVE SPACE

At my church we typically do four songs for our main worship set. Not all four of those songs are sequenced and perfectly arranged. I usually leave one or one and a half for flowing purposes and ‘see where it goes’. This keeps the worship time from becoming too mechanical. Listen in to the Holy Spirit and follow Him where he is going.

Worship Leaders: what are your thoughts on the “do it like the recording” debate?

How To Practice Better – Acoustic Guitar

*This is another post in a series on “How To Practice Better”. Check out the other posts on worship leading and bass guitar. Subscribe for free to receive regular updates of my posts.

The acoustic guitar is the instrument in the band that is oft-overlooked and rarely practiced.

Why is that?

It’s because most people who aspire to guitar stardom start with an acoustic. They want to be rockstars but they realize it is extremely hard work to be good – to shred, melt faces, blow people’s minds with fingering speeds Jimi Hendrix would envy. So they learn three chords, two strum patterns, and start playing worship songs. They eventually take their bad practicing habits over to their Epiphone Les Paul and digital effects pedals, thinking they have finally made it. Far from it.

But what if you want more than that?

Here are a few tips to help you practice better with your acoustic guitar:

PRACTICE WITH A CLICK

I know I say this a lot, but it’s important. Pull out a metronome and practice those crazy strums in perfect time. Work on that internal clock. Most often the drummer is blamed for bad time, but the acoustic guitar is quite often an offender. Your band will thank you and maybe buy you a new guitar for such dedication.

KNOW WHEN NOT TO STRUM

It drives me crazy when acoustic players strum full force through an entire song. Relax. Sometimes all that is needed is a strum on the downbeats. But not just any strum. The most passionate strum you have ever strummed in the history of strumming. Slow your pick down. Sweep slowly over your strings, covering the entire length of that downbeat. Pour your passion into the simplicity. Play it like it’s the coolest thing you ever played. If you start arguing with your leader that it’s too simple, you may not be on the team much longer 🙂 Great music has space.

LEARN OPEN CHORD VOICINGS

I can’t stress this enough. I know it’s cool to learn bar chords for the first time. Sorry to disappoint, but they’re not that cool. Especially on an acoustic guitar. The best tones for an acoustic are open chord voicings. The less fingers you use and more open strings you strum, the better it will sound. Sometimes I will even detune my guitar to something like DADGAD in order to utilize more open strings. Also, get to know your capo. When a song is in the key of Ab, don’t play bar chords. Use your capo and get that open sound. I know some guitar players call the capo a “crutch for the weak” but I think THEY are the weak ones! In all seriousness, it’s not a matter of weakness. It’s a matter of good tone.

DON’T PLAY LEADS

I know it’s tempting to show up the lead guitarist with your smooth jazz leads, but just stop it. You are there for rhythm. Learn how to harness what you know and contribute only what the song demands. This goes for all musicians – submit to what a song needs. Don’t show off all you know within the course of a song. Don’t seek to impress, play simply.

Acoustic guitarists, the floor is yours. What is ONE PRACTICE TECHNIQUE that has helped you become better?

Worship: Consume or Be Consumed?

Worship music has become such an industry. It makes money. It dominates Christian radio. We get warm fuzzies when we hear our favorite artist singing our favorite song.

This is can be good, but I also think it spoils us for our local churches. Instead of pursuing God, we listen for our favorite songs. We view the worship time as a  3 song warm-up more than an encounter with the living God. If the worship leader does our favorite song, we will pump our fists and get into it.

But what if it never happens? How do we re-capture the essence of worship in a massive industry of worship consumerism?

I once heard Louie Giglio say that instead of consuming worship, we should be consumed by worship. What if you approached every service at church with an expectation to be consumed by the greatness of God? That may sound scary to you.

All I’m saying is that we be God-centered rather than song-centered; that we approach weekend services with expectation rather than routine. To the congregation’s credit, a good worship leader should skillfully help you do this. But that doesn’t leave you without responsibility.

Come be consumed by worship rather than consuming songs.

Question: how do you prepare your heart for true worship? What are some ways we can re-capture true worship in such a ‘consumer’ industry? I dare you to leave a comment 🙂