Whatever I am to tell you comes
from experience and what I’ve learned from others.
Now worship is essentially talking to god. Forget leading
for a minute. It simply means talking to him, praising thanking acknowledging
the brilliance of god. After all god’s done for us, it is the time for us to
offer him our praise, and this we could do through many ways. In some ways I
think prayer is very similar to worship through music. Therefore we establish
that praise and worship is a form of worship and not the only one. Music is a
believe one of the greatest gifts of god to us. And is a personal favorite of
god cause his pl worshiped him through music all through the bible. Somehow the
act of singing out our heart to god is easier than to talk, or rather makes it
more meaningful. And from the word we learn that god sings to us too!! So what
better medium to worship him than through this? Being a leader is difficult if we fail to do this by just being by
ourselves in our room with a guitar. As in we shouldn’t need a crowd everytime
we want to worship.
But you already know all this. Now when it comes to leading
worship (or leading PEOPLE into worship), I read from a max luccado book that
being a worship leader means to simply reflect god’s glory. Nothing else! That
means when pl are lead into worship by us, they should feel the presence of god
and nothing else, you’re just an instrument of god standing in front for god to
use as a mirror to reflect his gory to those around. Looking at it that way can
bring up lots of things.
Firstly to be able to reflect his glory means to be filled
with the spirit. We need the Holy Spirit to be able to lead people. Because the
ability to lead pl into worship doesn’t mean we’re better than the rest, infact
we’re the same or even less. It’s the Holy Spirit that can give us the proper
leading ability. I’ll explain later what that practically means. When I first
started leading, it was the Holy Spirit that actually pushed me into blurting
out that I wanted to try it out, and it went great.
Now, in order to be filled by the spirit, do you think it
will come if our minds and bodies aren’t cleansed or focused? This is why we
never go into worship with a stressed, impure or distracted mind. Make sure you
pray sometime during your preparation to submit yourself to god as you are and
for forgiveness. If there’s any dispute with someone, clear it. Unless you are
able to worship with a clear heart, people around you won’t either.
Now practically to be filled by the spirit means to be in a
total communication with god. Now in front of you are people, yes. But this
time is not about you and its definitely not about them. Its all about god. So
don’t think about the people, whether they’re enjoying it, or worshiping, or to
meet they’re expectations. The only one you need to please out there is god. If
you can lead people in this way than they will feel the presence of the holy
spirit as IT works through them. We can’t make people worship or talk to god,
that’s the job of the spirit. All you have to focus on is reflectionJ
Finally, if we’re truly reflecting his glory, and worship
becomes all about praising god, then people who worshiped with you shouldn’t be
coming up to you after worship saying “I loved how you played that guitar”. It
means that they weren’t focused on god as much as they were on how you played
the guitar. Which brings me to talk about a balance between performance and
worship. Yes god doesn’t expect the technical aspects to
be perfect as long as our hearts and minds as fixed on god. But where near perfection
can be attained, wouldn’t it mean that we are putting in our best for him? For
example (and I’ve experienced this myself) worship is going splendidly and
suddenly a totally wrong chord is played by my rhythm guitarist. It totally
ruins my concentration with god which is of utmost importance to maintain both
as a leader and as part of the congregation. Now obviously we can’t worship
with a clear mind during worship if we keep worrying about the technical
aspects. So practice is crucial for that. In practice we can go all out to make
the best of the music or performance aspect. But during worship every single
member on the team should come out with the single minded aim of humbling and
putting aside yourself and allowing god to shine. I’m not saying we can’t
worship without instruments. But some of these songs which are written are
written in such depth that certain chords in the song put in an extra boost
into the emotions of the song such that it may not make as much of an impact if
not played right. You’d understand that when you start writing songs. Though
the words of a song are obviously the main arrow to strike the heart.
Preparation:
Start with prayer, as god to guide to in your song choice
and to cleanse your mind and heart.
Now for song choice, remember worship is a part of the
meeting. And imagine the meeting is on the ‘majesty of god.’ Imagine how much
more meaningful the whole meeting would be if we strongly proclaimed and
emphasized the majesty of god. So just check with the speaker for starters to
see what the topic is and you align your worship towards that. Now that’s not
always possible, the theme may be vague or there is no theme. Maybe there’s no
speaker. Now I know worship leaders who use a particular theme to the worship
and choose songs and talk about that throughout and others that don’t and
choose songs based on how the spirit leads them. There’s no right way to do
this. I sometimes have a theme, sometimes don’t. so talk to god about itJ because god knows all
the pl that are gonna worship with you and he just might give you a thought or
idea that specifically touches or
relates to them. For example once when I lead worship in new life, god put in
my head to talk about the love of god and I did. And I had a bunch of pl tellin
me after worship that it was what they had been discussing the night before and
they were blessed. At other times I don’t pick a theme. Infact sometimes I just
put in songs we haven’t done for a long time. But even through that I have to
receive god’s approval.
I had one leader who told me that he never prepared, just
used to select songs, Go through the words of each song and find out what the
god wanted to tell pl through these songs, and then speak whatever comes into
mind during worship. Which he said was the only way he knew how to worship
cause if he’d prepare he might forget something and not say stuff properly or
at all. And he’s a really good leader! Whatever is most comfortable with you
and god.
Its called ‘praise and worship’. And rightly so because we
start with praise and end with worship. A simple difference can be fast and
slow, but you know the difference when you hear the song. Uncle rajkumar, a man
of god who was vital to me getting to know god and lead a session on worship
which taught me most of what I know examined a psalm and realized the Israelite
way of worship was to start of with a song of:
·
Praise (simply joyJ
)
·
Exaltation (invite god in)
·
Thanksgiving (for everything)
·
Acknowledgment of god almighty (as king and
creator, and our salvation)
·
worship (surrender)
now we don’t need to stick to this but it’s a good guide of
what to achieve.
A simple example of something like this is oh happy day,
open the eyes, mighty to save, who am I, my jesus my saviour. But ya this is my
way of doing stuff and doesn’t need to be your way at allJ
Another aspect of song selection is the scales for each
song. Some leaders pick songs of a similar scale so as to maintain the flow of
the worship so instrumentalists don’t need to produce a drastic change (which
won’t be so drastic if there is talking in between but I’ll come to that
later), which is a good thing but isn’t always possible, and actually is
usually not. So its not essential, but do understand that the instrumentalist
(which might be yourself) would need a proper moment to revert to another scale
in a smooth manner. And make sure your instrumentalists know the scales before
worship. Very crucial!! Some songs have horrible scales which might favour only
boys or the other way around. I’d say to try and avoid those and introduce them
as a special song…
And never ever do a song based on popular vote or cause
someone asked you to do it. Because if you aren’t comfortable and if you don’t
have a personal connection with the song then it will not go well. I did
something like that in camp and it did not go well. Don’t do it! Also do
maximum one new song per session. I know that’s a big restraint but you
yourself will know the difference when you face a congregation who knows the
songs and ones who don’t. You shouldn’t leave people out just because you want
to sing newer songs, rather do them as special songs so they can worship with
it the next time. And do new songs either at the beginning or at the end, never
last.
After selection I pray again to see if god’s happy with it
and have a quick runthrough with myself to see if it flows.
Now the thought will come, what am I supposed to say up
there? J
My simple rule is don’t say anything unless its from god.
People didn’t come there to listen to what you have to say about god (contrary
to what some people actually come for), they wanna listen TO god. So let god do
the talking. Why would you wanna break up a conversation between god and some
person in the congregation? Unless the lord gives you something to say, don’t
say it, or it just becomes mindless chatter, noise unto god. In the beginning
yes you’ll need to say something just to make them prepared to talk to god. For
the rest I prefer to let the songs and god do the talking. Especially towards
the end when people are directly talking to god. The songs could say a thousand
more than we could, I mean they’re built with such meaning its brought tears to
people. Again, unless you get a thought in between or something that you know
you have to say. Especially when your open to say stuff to god. Never say anything
cause you think people want or expect you to say something, that will only
please men, your aim is towards god. Worship is different in different churches
and I read that if god wanted the same sort of worship he wouldn’t have created
so many diff types of people!! In my church back in delhi for example, we have
a short 20 minute worship with 5 songs and hardly any speech in between. That’s
what allows them to talk to god better. Who’s to say it’s wrong? When it comes
to diff forms of worship I just do what’s comfortable with me. Nothing is
higher than what you and god decide for worship.
I often felt this battle, having fear of what pl might
think, and that I might go blank and not say anything in worship ending in
disaster. In those times I remind myself that I’m not doing this for people,
I’m doin this for god. And all things work for the good of Christ who loves
you. You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. So don’t think
you can’t do it aloneJ
Now an important thing to understand (and sorry I’ve written
so much!) is worship is sacred. It’s a communication with god. Not a
performance and definitely not a time filler. Which is why I’m totally against
doing songs just cause there’s ‘extra time’. We shouldn’t bring down the sacred
feature of worship. It can’t be used to just have fun.
