Leading the Same Room Limits Me
One of your lids* as a worship leader may be leading the same room over and over. A more balanced approach would be to have times when you regularly lead a different group. Ideally, it would be outside your home church and spiritual culture, but a good start could be to lead in a kids class, youth, or a homegroup.
The main reason is that you have stopped expecting. Your expectations are flat. Worst of all, your expectancy is lower than appropriate. Your “anticipatory belief or desire” doesn’t match what God’s are for when His people gather to respond to what He reveals. You’ve stopped scanning the horizon for how God is at work when you’re leading worship.
This is not a call to have “an excited meeting.” It’s a call for you to work diligently to unshackle yourself from the ruts in you, your team, and your church.
We’ve long known that every church has its liturgy. Even you non-denominational charismatic or community churches! As one worship leader recently confessed to me, “I found the boundaries by hitting them.” -ouch! But regardless of if you’re a decently-and-in-order Presbyterian following centuries-old rules for worship order, or you just show up and see where the Spirit leads today, if you do that over and over, you’ll naturally find the bottom of the rut.
Uncle Kent Henry always said a rut is just a grave with the ends kicked out. And it takes intentionality to get out of one.
This is also not a call for you to abandon your church’s tradition and freak your people out by substituting Hillsong with bluegrass tunes. We are all about helping your church be the very best version of itself, following in God’s unique calling for you.
For example, the morning I write this, I’ve just finished leading a group of students and staff from all over the world at a local YWAM discipleship training school. The time of singing usually lasts about an hour, and I had planned seven songs. (House Of The Lord, Raise A Hallelujah, One Thing Remains, Death Was Arrested, Build My Life, Here As In Heaven, and Did You Feel The Mountains Tremble)
I led most of them in English and Spanish, meandering back and forth since the room had both languages represented. As we lingered at the end of Build My Life, I looked at the clock, and we had about ten minutes and two songs left. Both of the remaining songs are pretty epic and can be lengthy.
I began to sing spontaneously about being able to trust in Jesus alone. I could hear the room singing their own songs, so I continued in that mode. When things began to die down, we were about five minutes from the end. Rather than plunging into a final song, I decided to give them space to rest in the Lord, linger in prayer, and sing softly.
It was a sweet moment, and not how I had intended to end. But it was beautiful.
I don’t know if I would’ve felt the freedom to cut the last two songs and give time to reflect, rest, and pray if I was in my home church and only ever led there. I would’ve wondered what the team, pastor, or people would think rather than responding to what the Lord seemed to be doing at the moment.
And that’s what I’m talking about. Because I’m so often leading in a new place, I have my eyes scanning the horizon for what God is doing. It heightens my expectation and expectancy.
Our usual surroundings can dull that.
What do the folks you lead regularly do at the end of songs? Yawn, clap, cheer, sing spontaneously? Or do you even notice anymore? Imagine if you’re usually at your Baptist church, and as you end a song at the charismatic church down the street, the congregation begins to sing spontaneously. So much so that you have to stop the track that was already counting off the next song in your ears. Or if you usually lead at your charismatic church and you never know quite where things are heading, and now you’re guest leading at the attractional service at a Methodist church where the whole set is loaded in Abelton, and the MD is telling the team where to go next for your 13:25 minute set.
So get out. Hey, this isn’t why I wrote this, but there are always churches calling us to help them find a guest worship leader. Maybe that could be you! Let me know if you want that opportunity. And maybe just two of you want to switch some Sunday. (Well, not THIS Sunday, probably!)
*If you’re not familiar with John Maxwell’s concept of “the law of the lid,” you can read more about it in Fertilizer Nº 233. It’s something that acts as a limiting factor for your effectiveness.
-Dave Helmuth
(purchase my book, "Worship Fertilizer: (the first hundred)" HERE)
Leading the Same Room Limits Me (Nº 319)
