It’s the start of a new year. “New” is on everyone’s minds.

• What new changes do I need to make?
• What new disciplines do I need to start?
• What new ideas should I implement?
• What’s the new hit song?

Let me just say this. I’m a big fan of new ideas. They can revive what is stagnant. They can breathe life where momentum has been lacking. But worship leaders, you need to know something.

The value of what you bring to your local church isn’t constantly chasing what is new and novel. The latest and greatest isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.

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Going deep with God. That’s important, right?

But it’s almost like we’ve equated going deep with being weird. So we’ve gone the other way. For fear of being weird, we’ve kept ourselves from diving headfirst into Jesus. From allowing His lordship to permeate our speech, our time, our entertainment, and our choices.

But we need to go deep. Especially if you want to be a lead in any way. Especially if you want to make a difference, Depth is not a question.

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We talk a lot about songs. We talk a lot about music. We talk a lot about worship. But an often neglected (but no less important) aspect of leading worship is how you approach transitions.

In this post I want to give you an outline for how to think through your transitions each week. And this is something you should think through and give as much attention to as the songs themselves.

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Worship leaders, we’ve gotten really good at leading songs.

But for us to see the breakthrough we want to see, we need to grow as leaders. Why? Because we are leading a post-Christian people. There are people in our churches who have never been to church. They don’t know the Gospel and they don’t know what to do in worship.

Your leadership skills on Sunday will help those who are new Christians to engage in worship. Having a great band and getting through songs isn’t enough.

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Ever feel like you’re just dialing it in? That you’re just going through the motions of your ministry like a checklist you can’t wait to finish?

Sometimes it’s not even burnout, you know? You’re just tired. You’ve been doing the same thing over and over again for years. While you want to “come back to the heart of worship” sometimes you just want to wrap it up and watch football. You want to disconnect. You can’t wait for the weekend except for the fact that the weekend is game time and it has become work for you.

But we all know we can’t live in this realm. Worship is too important to dial it in. The Kingdom of God is too important for us to sleepwalk through Sunday. We need to be on the edge of our seat. We need to gaze in wide eyed wonder. The Kingdom of God doesn’t slow down.

Should we?

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