When I first started leading worship, I would go up on stage and just worship. You’re probably thinking “so what?” Allow me to explain.

I would tell myself that it didn’t matter what anyone in the congregation did, I was just going to worship. It’s easy for many of us to have this mentality, especially when the worship at some of our churches can be less on the exciting side. As long as I got lost in worship, I was doing my job…right?

Wrong! Contrary to what we may believe, our first job as a worship leader isn’t to worship. It’s to lead other’s in worship!

I would go out, get lost in worship, and then you know what happened with the congregation?…nothing. Many of you may have had these same results. My point today – How can you lead someone anywhere when you’re lost?

Yes, as worship leaders, we worship on stage. However, at the same time we should have an eye on the people, leading and showing them the way to worship. The responsibility of leading is in our hands. It would be nice to go out there and play one chord then lay on my face and cry out to Jesus every service, but who would that help, besides myself?

We have to be aware where our audience is in terms of worship maturity.

A few years back I went to a worship conference where the worship was incredible. We played one song for 2 hours and everyone embraced it as they worshiped the Father in their own way. Of course I was on fire after this. So I took this type of worship back to a student service that Wednesday night.

I encouraged them to worship, and again, I got lost in worship. You can guess the results. Everyone stood there and watched me worship like I was crazy. What was the difference between the student service and the worship conference?

The worship conference was full of worship leaders and spiritually mature church leaders hungry for the presence of God. We could have walked out there and said “ok, start worshiping” and they would have done it. They were in a completely different position than the students. It was insane of me to expect the same things from those students.

Be aware where your congregation is spiritually and encourage them to the next level.

Sunday morning is not your personal worship time.

This is the most important part! You are leading others. This makes your personal worship time of the utmost importance. You can’t lead anyone somewhere you’ve never been. Be consistently worshiping through out the week so you can lead when it’s time.

What are some other ways to keep us focused on leading during worship? Share below in the comments!

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