To be a worship leader, you must take into consideration some basic rules of leadership. If you lead worship and haven’t taken the time to read a few books or view DVDs about leadership, it would do you a lot of good to do so. Now, I’m not promoting any authors or works, but I am promoting leadership development.
One of these basic rules is that if you call yourself a leader and no one is following you, then you aren’t leading. This leads me into the Law of the Audience.
Our church is currently working through a new adult home group / discipleship program that involves teaching the same courses in four sessions throughout one year. I’m currently in the middle of my second session, teaching from “Worship Theory.” In my current session, I suddenly find myself referring to information that I started when I began the book project; information on worship leading.
In a post entitled A help for struggling worship leaders, I mentioned that a worship blogger was working on a book, and that he asked worship leaders to give him input on their “greatest challenges”. One comment on that blog was, “…is there a way to determine if people actually worshiped rather than were entertained? My goal is to point them to Christ and help enter into God’s presence, but how do we know if we have been successful?” I alluded that the answer to this question is found in your Philosophy of Worship. Let’s jump in from there.
It sounds really complicated and scary when you talk about developing a Philosophy of worship. Let’s face it, so many of us are wondering about what to do, where to go, who to talk to for today; and then we worry about our future and how we can walk in God’s perfect will for our lives, and how to build the Kingdom, and if we’re growing closer to Him or not… Do we really have time to stop and think about, to sit down and “develop” a philosophy of worship? Hasn’t someone written a book on that and given me all the answers, Cliff Notes style, so I can read/memorize them once and move on to the next thing?
Continue reading “Worship “Litmus Test””Let’s start thinking about and discussing worship and worship leading, shall we? I mean, let’s get past all the “theory” talk for a while and really get into the meat of it.
Of course, this is going to take some effort from you, the readers. As of today there are 516 hits to this site, but a total of 17 comments to all of my posts. So c’mon, gang, let’s get serious. Let’s talk. I’m know you don’t want to just hear my ramblings.
Let’s start with something basic to get the channels open. Here’s the day’s question: How do you choose your songs?
I’m going to pass on the Childlike Wonders thoughts, as I’ve been distracted lately and I’ve got my mind somewhere else. This post is the introduction to a short series, and the posts that follow will be looking for input from you. Thanks.
There’s a popular worship blogger that, I believe, has taken a great leap into the unknown. He is currently writing a book aimed at worship leaders in their mid-twenties who want “to grow in [their] effectiveness.” On his blog, he has left an open-ended question: What are “the greatest challenges you face as a worship leader”?
Yesterday I met with a fellow pastor and was showing her around the site a little bit. As I explained to her the Law of Dynamic (a.k.a. Law of the First Date), she asked me if in following such a method, would we be in danger of trying to force the Holy Spirit, or force human reaction, and actually remove the leading of the Holy Spirit.
As I started to understand what she was asking, and though I responded a little bit then, it seemed like a great opportunity for a follow up post.
Chris MacKinnon 