Worship Podcast & Blog
It’s a scary question, isn’t it?
I don’t know about you, but I want to lead people to Jesus and disciple them enough so that they stay there.
I don’t want to simply leave them with a talented performance or a memorable concert.
I want people to know the presence of God and begin to live there on a daily basis.
But it makes me wonder – are our worship services structured to accomplish this? Or are they simply a concert to entertain and inspire?
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?
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.
If I showed up at your church and asked, “I feel called to lead worship. Can you help me?”
What would you say? Would you have a process in place to help me?
If you’ve read this blog for a while, you know we are all about discipleship.
But discipleship can be difficult if you don’t know how to disciple. What are the specific areas a young worship leader needs to work on?
I was talking to a worship pastor friend of mine a couple weeks ago who loves what he does.
He loves his church, is engaged with the mission, and looks forward to what he gets to do. He and his pastor have a wonderful relationship.
I have another friend who seemingly wants to slit his wrists every time we have a conversation about his church and his full time job as a worship pastor.
This seems to be common. Many worship leaders I know love what they do and where they get to serve. Sill, many more seem completely dissatisfied and disillusioned.