Making Space for New Leaders [Part 2]

My hope last week was to give a vision for why we should make space for new leaders. This week I hope to give a few practical steps about how we might make space for new leaders.

There is a training rhythm that I have seen repeated often across social media, it goes something like this:

1. I do, you watch, we talk

2. I do, you join, we talk

3. We do, we talk

4. You do, I join, we talk

5. You do, I watch, we talk

I think this is a healthy rhythm for developing worship leaders as well. Because leading worship can be complex - in its preparation as well as its execution - you want to make sure that these categories are true in your preparation and planning, in your leading from the platform, and in the normal rhythms of serving.

Preparation and Planning.

How do you build a set list? How do you schedule a team? What is the philosophy of worship? The smallest amount of my job is the most visible portion of my job. When you're training and developing new worship leaders, they need to know the thought process behind your song choice, the conversations you’re having with the pastor, and the way you prepare personally, spiritually, and practically for a rehearsal and for the weekend. Sound doesn’t just get set up, lyrics don’t automatically appear on the screens, and the team leading can’t just show up without knowing what music is on for the service. Do not just show the what, but the how and why behind what leads you into the weekend. For many of us, this will likely mean we need to do some work to articulate our auto-pilot decisions.

On the platform.

Leading worship requires trust. Trust is only developed over time. I find it helpful to have new leaders face be familiar with the congregation from the platform before they are responsible for leading a song or a service. Have the new leader accompany you over a few weeks playing and singing. Then after several weeks of leading in that way, ask them to lead a song - or a Scripture reading, prayer, or verbal transition. As they settle into that new rhythm, and the congregation becomes familiar with their leadership, have them lead everything with you accompanying their leadership. And finally, allow them to lead on their own with you leading from the congregation.

Leadership happens on and off the platform. If we truly desire to disciple, equip, and train others to lead, we must give them access to our lives, and every aspect of our leadership - not just the obvious places. Invite questions, ask questions. Listen, be interested. Create a safe place for mistakes. Be gracious. Give away authority. Invite collaboration. Die to yourself.

Making Space for New Leaders [Part 1]

The job of every leader is not to produce more followers, but more leaders.

I have written before about my youth pastor telling how I should always be looking to work myself out of a job. And truthfully within the Church, there would probably not be many leaders who disagree with that statement - Jesus did call us to make disciples after all! But how do we move this from good intention to action?

Within the church that I serve, we have a leadership development framework - a process by which we identify, develop, and train those who we believe could one day help to work us out of a job. Maybe your context does not need to require something that formal. Here are some questions to consider in raising up other leaders:

• Who is servant-hearted?

• Who is teachable?

• Who is already carrying the culture we are trying to build?

• Who is already leading without a title?

• Who can I encourage to do intentionally what they are already doing naturally?

• Who does the team trust and respect?

• Who does the team listen to?

• Who do our people trust?

I often think of leadership the same way I think of parenting - part of my job is calling forth the gifts and talents of the person under my care, even though they may not be aware those things exist within them. As leaders (and parents), this requires prayer, time, intentionality, and relationship. It also requires a fair amount of humility - being willing to die to myself, my own sense of self-importance, considering others more highly than myself, and giving away authority. And this is what it is to make disciples - what a beautiful gift that Christ calls us to give and receive.

Next week we will look at practically how that might look as you invite others to lead and serve alongside you on and off the platform.

If you desire to make space for new leaders, here are a few other posts you may find helpful:

Identifying and developing new leaders.

A team of worship leaders.

The benefits of co-leading.

Making Space for new leaders Part 2 (Coming Next Week).

Asking Someone To Step Off The Team

Relationships are hard work.

Relationships with volunteers you are leading can also be hard work.

There can be an unstated expectation that in the life of a church, if someone wants to serve they should be allowed, regardless of their level of skill, or their personal integrity. After all, are we not called to extend grace and forgiveness? Are we not told that every member of the Body brings something useful and beautiful to the Body?

As followers of Jesus, our first responsibility is to lead and shepherd our own hearts, and the hearts of our families. Then as people who carry a role of responsibility within the local church, we are called to shepherd and lead the team we serve, and then the wider congregation. One of the ways we shepherd our team, and the people of God is by guarding in humility who is on the platform.

What we must acknowledge is that every member of our team is a worship leader whether they ever hold a microphone or exercise any authority. There is a level of trust our pastors, elders, and congregations are placing in us to shepherd the congregation well by first shepherding who is on the platform. For me, this means several things, first, I want to have a relationship with the people who are serving on my team outside of our shared common task. I want to know them, and for them to know me. I want to be aware of the shape of their life, and how I can pray for, love, and shepherd them as we serve together. It means I never want to rush someone into a place of leadership or authority. Discipleship is the long game, and I am okay to go slow in onboarding new people to the team. This also means that I want clear communication and expectations about what it means to serve as a member of this team. Not just in the expectations on the platform, or the sound booth, but in the way we are to lead lives of worship, submit to the leadership of our local church, commit to the community of faith, faithfully give, and serve as we invest in our own personal walk with the Lord.

These boundary lines obviously do not prevent being placed in a position to ask someone to step off the team or to take a break from serving for a season, but I have found that clarity, in the beginning, relationships that extend past a shared common task, provide the loving context for these kinds of conversations to take place.

The truth is sin easily entangles. We should not be surprised by this in the lives of people with whom we serve, because we should be aware of this reality in our own lives. We must be humble and prayerful whenever we approach a brother or sister caught in sin - and keep watch over ourselves (Galatians 6:1).

As worship leaders, we are not solely responsible for the care and shepherding of those we lead, but we can often be the first line of defense. We may be more aware of the nuances of the lives of the people with whom we serve than any other leader or person within our churches.

Life moves in seasons. Perhaps you need to ask someone to step off the team not because of ongoing and unrepentant sin, but because that individual is in a season of life where they need to be encouraged to place their energy and efforts elsewhere. Maybe that is in their family, their studies, or in a different area of ministry within the church. When we help shepherd our team through seasons it confronts in us the tendency to hoard, or possess the people that God has entrusted to us, and frees those we lead to serve with joy rather than obligation or compulsion.

Experience or Formation

Can I make a confession? I have an allergic reaction to the word ‘experience’ when tied to the corporate worship gathering. I certainly want our gatherings to be experiential - challenging and informing our minds, stirring our affections, and emboldening us to be sent out on mission. But the word experience unnerves me because that is the same way we describe entertainment - it was an experience. We had an experience. We use this word when speaking about goods and services, and products that we consume.

But my conviction is that the purpose of the corporate gathering of the people of God is the spiritual formation of the people of God. Formation does not happen in an instant. And therefore can often not be quantified, or codified as an experience. That is because formation is slow, steady, consistent process which occurs over time.

In the same way, the elements and the centuries have combined forces to shape the Grand Canyon or the Giants Causeway, so too our lives must be shaped by the Word of God, the people of God, and the Spirit of God faithfully over many years.

Experiences can be substitutes for formation because we can measure experience faster than we are able to measure formation.

Our culture is quite content with emotional Summer camp highs and quite uninterested in anything that does not spring up immediately. As followers of Jesus - and as worship leaders leading our team and congregation through the corporate gathering - we would do well to remember Jesus’ parable of the sower:

“That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. And great crowds gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat down. And the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear.”” Matthew 13:1-9

May the Lord find in you and me, in our teams and in our congregations, good soil that produces the deeply-rooted character of Christ.

Lead Toward Need

There is a difference between a song leader, and a worship leader. Being a worship leader is primarily pastoral before it is musical. And the idea of pastoring is really about shepherding. Knowing, loving, caring, and providing for sheep.

Now, I’m not what you would call an ‘animal person.’ We don’t have a dog, and we were just barely persuaded to let our children use birthday money to buy fish. So I have no authority to speak to animal care. But I have learned as a parent caring for little humans that my children will be malformed if I give them whatever they want. I have to set and enforce loving boundaries for their good and ultimate joy.

If as a worship leader you see yourself as a shepherd of people, you will have to be comfortable with not giving the congregation everything they want, but leading them toward what they need. This is no small or simple task. It requires knowing your people, understanding your culture, and a willingness to learn, grow, and be attentive to the voice of the Holy Spirit as you lead. It means sometimes people will be unhappy with your leadership, and unhappy with your decisions. It means sometimes they will leave your team, or leave your church. But worship leaders are not jukeboxes or cruise directors. Nor are we dictators or tyrants. Our leadership should always lead to the flourishing of those under our care.

“But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” - Matthew 20:25-28

We lead among, not over. We lead as sheep before we are shepherds. We lead as those whose convictions are firm, philosophy intentional, and heart-tender to the Lord and His people.

Every Resurrection Sunday

The Sunday following Holy Week can feel… well… anticlimactic. Likely you have invested more time, energy, creativity, and intention during Holy Week than almost any other time of the year. Does the Sunday following Easter just mean ‘business as usual’? My personal conviction is that there is no such thing as just another Sunday. That every Sunday as we gather with the people of God matters to our formation as the people of God, and matters as we declare God’s worth and value corporately. But I get it, you’re still recovering, and the excitement can sometimes feel deadened by the normalcy of life.

But the truth is, every week is a mini-resurrection Sunday.

That is why Christians gather on Sunday rather than Saturday. We are reenacting this day, orienting our lives around the day that Jesus rose from the grave. Every Sunday should stand as a marker in the week and in our life that Jesus is still alive, still ruling and reigning, and that He is worthy of our worship.

Remind your team, remind your people, and remind yourself that this Sunday is a mini-resurrection Sunday.

Good Friday

The Gospel is good news.

Good news that God saves sinners. Good news is that on the darkest day, God shines forth as the one who is good, and does good.

When God made the world, he called it good.

When God made humanity he called man very good.

And then He rested, having completed His work.

When Jesus remade humanity, he said it is finished.

He gave up His spirit and rested. Rested in His completed work. Rested in the love and joy of the Father. This same rest is offered to all who trust in Christ’s completed work on this Good Friday. This day that by any standard would be called evil, wicked, and fruitless. But not for a Good God. Not for the One who works all things together for good, and glory.

No one is good but God alone. And today on this Good Friday, we can again celebrate His goodness.

Judging The Service

It is very difficult to assess week to week if you are making progress. Because week-to-week evaluations can largely become asking the question ‘Did people respond the way we hoped or anticipated?’ If the primary purpose of the corporate gathering is for the spiritual formation of God’s people than we can only tell as we look back over months and years if we are making progress in the work that we feel called to do as worship leaders.

So how do we judge the service? Honestly, we can’t. I encourage a service evaluation. But ultimately, we aim for intentionality and consistency. We labor to build trust in and among our people so that as we stand in front of them and lead them in sung worship, that they feel safe, and trust that we will lead them to a good place.

Ultimately, as followers of Jesus, our main job is making disciples. And part of making disciples is realizing that discipleship is a lifelong work. It is slow, ongoing, and never ends. So rather than judging a result, we have to become comfortable with tension. We have to be comfortable in allowing the Spirit to guide us into using the best of what we can offer to do what only He can do - lead people to Jesus, and transform their lives.

Go slow. Be consistent. Formation takes eternity.

Head and Heart

When it comes to life, I tend to lean heart. When it comes to song choice, I tend to lean head. Something I learned from worship leader, Charlie Hall, is that our congregations will always be best served when we can balance head and heart in our worship songs.

Our congregation must have their minds informed, and filled with the truths of Scripture, and the weight of God’s character, but if all we do is give them knowledge, we so easily become brains on sticks. If all we do is sing rich theology, every corporate gathering will feel more like an intellectual exercise, heavy and dense, rather than an opportunity to respond to God’s revelation of Himself through those truths. Likewise, our congregations must have their affections stirred for the person and work of Christ. We must give people the opportunity, space, and language to express the full scope of their lives and response to God. Simple songs of devotion, honest prayers of confession, joyful celebration, and raw lament have to find their place within the life of our congregations.

Ideally, these two things would live to together - songs that are deep and true, while yet simple and emotive. Maybe you have a few of those songs in your rotation now. What I have often seen is that songs - like me - tend to lean one way or the other. So as you are building your master song list, taking an inventory of your songs, and building set lists that reflect the Gospel story, one of the rhythms you can incorporate is building set lists where songs that lean head, are next to songs that lean heart. And songs that lean heart, are next to songs that lean head.

Soundchecks

In many ways, sound check is the foundation of a good rehearsal. But in the scope of our preparation, the sound check can often receive the least amount of attention.

Like most things, the main work of a soundcheck begins before a soundcheck. Have you ever walked into a soundcheck where things are still being set up? It is a bit like being invited over to someone’s house for a meal, and they are just coming home from the grocery store. Whether it is a team, you as the worship leader, or the person running sound, you have to make sure that the right equipment is set up for serving.

Whatever the rhythm for your context, communicating that expectation to all involved is essential. Will they show up to plug and play because someone else has set up the sound? Are you a mobile church that requires all hands on deck to get the equipment set up and torn down each weekend? Whatever the situation, the instruments, inputs, layout, lyrics, any printing, and set lists need to be ready for the band to run with their primary responsibility - leading musical worship. Don’t waste valuable rehearsal time on set up.

Once the space is set up, finding consistent rhythms will help your team have a plan as to the way you move through soundcheck. I’ve worked with some sound people that like to dial in the EQ of each instrument before the band begins to play a note. I’ve worked with some sound people that like to do a line and level check, and EQ on the fly. Knowing the rhythms that work for you and your sound person will help you know how to plan, prepare, and communicate to your team about what they expect during a sound check.

For a team to be able to play well together, they need to be able to hear. This means part of your soundcheck needs to be spent making sure that everyone can hear in a balanced and clear way. Whether using in-ear monitors, or floor wedges, rehearsals will feel disjointed and discouraging if there are constant starts and stops to adjust levels of monitoring for the team.

One of the things that I have experienced slows every soundcheck to a stop is musicians playing or talking over the top of the sound person attempting to check, or communicate with a specific member of the team. There is a level of respect and care we provide for one another when we are aware that there can be time for conversation and playing around on our instruments - and the sound check is not that time.

Worship leaders need to help lead the team through a soundcheck so that they can ultimately lead a team through the rehearsal.

Kenyan Reflections

‘We would like the team to lead worship in several languages…’ That request came along with the invitation to lead worship for the global assembly of a large missions organization that would be hosting its annual conference outside of Nairobi, Kenya. I had led worship in English and Spanish before, but never on this kind of scale. But part of leading worship is learning how to serve the people.

And this gathering would be made up of over 200 missionaries from multiple countries. Graciously, the Lord provided a team of amazingly talented musicians to help me lead, who could also carry some of the languages needed for our time in Kenya.

I have a post coming in a few months that will outline some of the things I have learned about leading worship in various cultures, but for the moment, let me leave you with this encouragement: the Church is global, diverse, and advancing. I pray that these small glimpses of a global church will fuel joy and enthusiasm in my daily serving within my local church… I hope you have the opportunity for those glimpses as well.

SUNDAY

• Doxology (English, Spanish, French)

• Abide

• Goodness of God (English, French)

• 10,000 Reasons

MONDAY

• Mambo Sawa Sawa (Swahili, English)

• Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus (English, French)

• O Praise The Name (Anastasis)

• Yet Not I, But Through Christ In Me

• How Great Thou Art (English, Spanish, French)

• I Love You Lord (English, Spanish, French)

• In Christ Alone

• Abide

• We Fall Down (English, Spanish)

• Agnus Dei

TUESDAY

• Hosanna (Praise Is Rising) (English, French)

• Is He Worthy

• Great Are You Lord (English, Spanish)

• Our God

• How Great Is Our God (English, French)

• Yet Not I, But Through Christ In Me

• Blessed Be Your Name

• Wonderful, Merciful Savior

• Abide

• There Is A Higher Throne

• Jesus Paid It All

• Doxology (English, Spanish, French)

Charity, Keith, Aaron, and Akim. The outdoor event space where we led. One of our speakers, Rene.

Worship Leaders And Presence

The music really ushered me into the presence of God this morning.” I’ve heard it said, and I’m sure I’ve said it myself. Does this sound familiar to you? Certainly, as musicians, there is an affection that we experience for the Lord as we play or listen to music. It speaks to something of the transcendent life for which we have all been created. But the truth is there is no combination of chords that usher us into the presence of God. There is no perfect set list, no skill level of musicianship, and no flawlessly executed liturgy which ushers us into the presence of God. Because there is only one who ushers us into the presence of God - the God-man, Christ Jesus. For followers of Jesus, there is no moment where we do not stand in the presence of God because we stand in Christ who is before the Father in this moment making intercession for us (Romans 8:34).

“For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus…” 1 Timothy 2:5

There is no place in all of creation where God is not present. But as followers of Jesus, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, we carry the presence of God with us everywhere we go. When the people of God gather to worship, God is present and enthroned upon the praises of His people. As we open the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit is present and active, lifting our eyes to behold the beauty of Jesus.

We may sense God’s manifest presence in a unique way as we gather, sin, and expectantly wait for God to speak to us through His Word - but God is no more present in these moments than he is as our people get ready for work the next day, fight with their spouse, take their kids to school, and go to sleep at night.

Nothing ushers us into the presence of God or the throne room of grace apart from the God-man, Christ Jesus. And nothing can separate us from the presence of God. So when people tell you that something you did ushered them into the presence of God, remind them - and yourself - it is only Jesus who has done that.

J. Ryan Lister is a clear and helpful writer. If you are looking for more resources when it comes to learning and studying about the Presence of God, I found this short article very helpful.