Your Homework Assignment
Here’s your homework assignment to complete by 30 days from today:
Lead worship solo for a group of complete strangers. Don’t give them lyrics.
Further details: Have a list of 10 songs you pull from. Start with a song you think they’re familiar with. Try a hymn, an oldie, a top-40 worship song. Read the room and base the rest of your set based on their engagement from those. Who’s in?
I wasn’t planning to do this, but I got to the worship space, and they had forgotten to bring the projector. I had also failed to bring my iPad for my chord charts. So I punted.
This was unplugged for a group of about 60 teens and twenties in YWAM. I didn’t know how many of them spoke only English and how many of them spoke only Spanish. (if you add that dynamic to the assignment above, you just raised the bar and earned extra credit!)
I started with Build Your Kingdom Here, emphasizing that each of us brings an atmosphere with us. Sometimes we need to deal with that and change it. Sometimes we need to push deeper into it. But we started by singing “change the atmosphere” on repeat.
Then I launched into Marco Barrientos’ song “Dios De Lo Imposible.” I suddenly heard a volume increase in the room. “Ah,” I thought. “I need to make sure to go heavier on the Spanish songs for this group today.” I had initially planned it later in my set, but I wanted to engage with the native Spanish speakers in the room.
I stayed in the same key and segued into the Spanish version of I Give You My Heart. I had to be pretty glued to my lyrics on the computer for that one, so I bounced back and forth from English to Spanish.
I’ve been doing this bilingual version of the Maverick City song Promises that I’ve been journeying with quite a bit over the last year, so that’s where we went next.
Then I chose to do a song that hadn’t been on my list by Alejandro del Bosque, a worship leader from Monterrey, Mexico. It’s a beautiful, simple song called Adorar that declares our desire to be worshipers. Here’s a rough translation:
Worship is everything in my life
Blessing You is the passion that burns in my heart
Pleasing You is my great desire; it is my great ambition
Worshiping is what keeps the breath in my being, to be able to please you
It’s the reason I live, why I exist
I want to be a worshiper who always seeks for Your heart
Who delights in Your presence and desires to love You
I want to be a worshiper who has surrendered before Your feet
Who delights in Your presence and desires to love You
I know both English and Spanish versions of Great Are You, Lord, so that was our next declaration. I created a translation in Spanish based on this one. (If you’re a sound tech, you might have been traumatized by seeing the eight female singers on the video!)
I wrapped up the hour-long set with the classic 10,000 Reasons.
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I share all those details from my experience to encourage you to step out and complete your homework assignment. Listening to our congregations and making appropriate adjustments is one way to be a more effective worship leader. And putting yourself into a less comfortable environment is like adding length or weight to your workout - it strengthens you!
-Dave Helmuth
(purchase my book, “Worship Fertilizer: (the first hundred)” HERE)
Your Homework Assignment (Nº 314)
