Leading Worship

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.