I thought I would write a quick post on two kinds of mistakes that can occur when leading worship, as the topic of how to handle incidents during public worship has come up in several conversations I have had recently, both at school and at church.
The first kind of mistake is the one that everyone knows about.Read More »
With the work of Robert Webber, Cherry Constance, Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, and the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies, there has been an increase in popularity for understanding the church’s Sunday morning worship as follows:Read More »
Every church follows a rhythm in time. Major decisions often center on the pattern that we create. For many evangelical churches, our church follows the time of sermon series. Often 4-6 weeks in length, these series are often topical and strive to offer practical advice for living the Christian life.
The question for worship leaders who serve at these churches is this: how do I plan for these monthly series? A couple of weeks ago we looked at what planning each week may look like for an evangelical worship leader. This week we are going to look at a slightly larger picture, how to plan for the next sermon series.Read More »
With the Iowa Caucus coming up tomorrow, the Presidential Election season will effectively go from the pre-season, if you will, to the regular season. I thought I would write an extra post this week to address worship leading and politics.Read More »
Preparation and execution are essential to effective worship leading. Part of preparing and executing well is having a timeline to complete tasks, as they need to be done. Worship leading is no different. Worship leaders ought to have a timeline for when tasks need to be completed.Read More »
When it comes to the art of selecting worship songs, everyone has a rooted opinion. Most of the time we are quick to disregard someone else’s opinion because it does not coincide with ours. So how do we select worship songs if everyone has a different opinion?
The key is to find a barometer that goes beyond each individual’s personal preference. Read More »
When we hear the title “Worship Leader”, many of us immediately picture a musician leading us in song during our Sunday morning worship. This is a fair, yet incomplete picture, of the worship leader. Certainly song plays a large part in the role of being a worship leader, but by no means does song encompass everything a worship leader does on a Sunday morning.Read More »
All sorts of websites, blogs, and resource pages have “Stage Presence for Worship Leader” articles and quite frankly they are just not helpful. Well, not for me anyway. “Know where the Spirit is taking you”, “Pray beforehand”, and “Read your congregation” have no practical ramifications. This article is going to actually offer practical ways to improve your worship leading stage presence.
Now, to stay consistent with my attempt at reconciling theology and praxis, let us look at a couple of theological ideas that shed insight onto what it means to have good stage presence as a worship leader.
The idea that worship leaders usher the congregation into the presence of the Lord is an incredibly misleading theology that needs to be reconsidered. God calls His Church to the assembly and He is our host. Therefore, in our response to assemble we enter into the presence of God. For worship leaders this ought to be liberating! You are not responsible for bringing the congregation into the presence of the Lord. By the faithful’s decision to assemble they have already entered the presence of God.Read More »
