It comes down to the right perspective: Lead Your Church to Worship *Together* I recently attended a Christian conference in which the sessions each opened in corporate worship. The music leaders were top-notch musicians and very sincere. The quality of the music was excellent, but I found myself rather disconnected from worship most of those times. After the conference, I tried to take stock of my experience to figure out what happened, and that brought me back to this list of rather common mistakes worship leaders (including me) make. The New Testament does not speak directly to the “mechanics” of worship leadership, but it does speak to worship in the churches. I believe Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 14:26-35 can actually help worship leaders more than we might realize: What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church. If anyone speaks in a tongue, two--or at the most three--should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God. Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets. For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. We can identify three principles from these words that can guide our decisions in some very important areas:
Now, how do we translate those into specific actions that will help us do our jobs? Here is a nonexhaustive list that comes to mind:
I summarize all of that into these simple words for leading worship: worship personally (that means you and your leadership team), engage the community (build up your church), and connect every individual with God (or rather remove obstacles). That is your responsibility as a worship leader. With God’s help, we can do it. MW Note: I just discovered (through unrelated research) that this article was posted on WorshipLeader.com at https://worshipleader.com/leadership/7-action-steps-toward-church-participation-in-worship/. I had submitted it for them to post but never heard back from them (which usually means a rejection), which is why I posted it here without attribution.
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