As i'm leading JYM worship, i went to read some articles on worship and got out some good stuff:
The worship leader has been asked to lead worship and is therefore spiritually and practically responsible for praying, getting there early, choosing the songs, practicing, and then leading us in worship. We need to grow leaders who are confident in taking risks, stepping up with authority to lead and supported by the rest of the church leadership team.
The worship leader is not the warm up act before the preacher gets on: the worship is the main deal. Worship involves everything we do from the way we welcome, to the singing, to the preaching, and the main reason we ‘do church’ is to worship God. So we need to encourage our worship leaders to own the responsibility and calling that is theirs. If you’ve been asked to lead worship, you must prayerfully, sensibly and creatively approach that time of worship with faith-filled expectancy. Let’s not devalue the currency of the worship leader by reducing our worship leaders to holy karaoke machines. It is a spiritual activity and must be cherished and valued.
When leading worship with our teams let's think about how we can make it fun. One of our values at Worship Central is to enjoy ourselves. I hope that after every team night, every rehearsal, every time we lead worship that the team come away having had a lot of laughs and great conversations. A sign of life will always be joy. Please let's avoid taking ourselves too seriously. Richard Foster in his book 'Celebration of Discipline' writes, “It is an occupational hazard of devout folk to become stuffy bores.” Let's buck the trend.
From Al Gordon : Love what Sandy Millar often says, "Intensity is not actually one of the Fruit of the Spirit." Makes me chuckle everytime.
I agreee... As a worship leader, i want to prayerfully think through my songs, to sense God's gentle leading, to prepare myself. Then i want to be at practice on time, help set up everything. Then i also don't want to be afraid of taking risks, and learn to step up with authority to lead the congregation. I want to constantly remind myself that i'm not a finished product and that i will always learn and can always be better. I want to get feedback and to always strive for excellence. I also wanna remind my team and myself that worship isn't just the singing, which isn't just a warm up kinda thing for sunday.. Worship is everything we do, the songs of praise, the listening of the Word, the fellowship with one another. My role is not just a holy karaoke song leader. Quoting from Al Gordon,"If you’ve been asked to lead worship, you must prayerfully, sensibly and creatively approach that time of worship with faith-filled expectancy". Faith filled expectancy, that's something i've been missing for awhile. And then, i wanna make worship practices fun, filled with great conversations and lots of laughs. I want worship sessions to be real and authentic, and when we sing, to sing with joy in our hearts. i don't want it to be just something we go through the motion. I don't wanna waste my time doing that! I want there to be real life, real cry, real praise in the worship. It's ok for it to be messy, and have life, than for it to be all prim and proper, but it's dead. That's what Mike Pilavacchi said and it has stuck with me.
I noticed our worship practices have become quite a bore sometimes, it's not interesting, fun anymore.. I want to change that. i will think how and try.. Wouldn't it be great if worship prac was something we all looked forward to, and come away having bonded with one another more, having a great time of making music unto the Lord? I think God would like that, rather than for us to drag our feets to prac with a long face that has our chins so low it's like scraping the floor and getting abrated, and playing our instruments as if it's last thing we want to be doing. music should be fun.
