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5 Secrets of an Effective Worship Leader

(The Things I Wish I Knew When I Started Leading Worship)


Benjamin Eggers

Leading worship is one of the most rewarding and frustrating experiences in a church service! On the one hand, there is little that can match the feeling that occurs when a congregation is united in worship, the worship team is in the groove and everyone is excited about the presence of God in the service. On the other hand, it is more than frustrating when you find yourself constantly bombarded with complaints that the music is too loud or soft, the worship team is acting like a pack of prima donnas and the entire first row of the congregation sits through worship with their arms crossed, steadfastly refusing to even mouth the words. See what I mean? Rewarding and frustrating.

Studies have shown that the worship leader is the second-most criticized person in the entire church. (The first is the pastor's wife, but that is a story for a different day.) It is not an easy task to take a group of people that have been struggling all week long and lead them into the throne room of God. It is, however, possible and the tips below will help you to do just that.

1. Worship is interactive
Remember that this is not a performance. As a worship leader, your primary concern should be to allow your congregation the opportunity to draw close to God during the worship experience. Worship is not just about singing songs, it is a chance to meaningfully communicate with God as evidenced in the following verse from Psalm 100:4 "Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name." Worship is not a spectator sport, it is participatory. As a worship leader, helping your congregation and worship team want to participate is one of your primary goals.

2. Judge your success differently
One of the most difficult things to do as a worship leader is to judge whether you were successful or not. This problem is compounded by the fact that everyone has a different opinion about what worship is and whether you are a good worship leader. Your own pastor may differ from you in his measure of success. Add to this the fact that many artists are perfectionists and you may find yourself feeling like a failure when you don't meet up with some ill-defined goal for worship, i.e. "People didn’t seem very into the music," or "I forgot the words on one of the songs." In measuring your success, you must remember this: People have free will. They can choose to worship or not - sometimes it has nothing to do with you. In order to measure success in worship leading, you have to take a longer view. You must ask yourself: "Are those under my care growing?" And when you have one of those Sundays when nothing seemed to go right, the only way to know that you were successful is if you can answer "yes" to the following two questions: 1. Did I give 100%? and 2. Did I do what God wanted me to?

3. Lead, don't push
When it is one of those Sundays where the congregation seems like they are challenging the belief that you can't sleep standing up, or your worship team comes in with faces that are more sour than a patch of lemon trees, the tendency in every good worship leader is to want to break them out of it. Unfortunately, many times our tactics of how to do that consist of pushing them harder in the direction that we think they should go. That can include cajoling, speeches on the importance of worship, lengthy prayers, and even yelling. That doesn't usually work. Remember you are called a worship leader, not worship pusher. When Sundays like that happen, lead. Lead by your attitude, lead by your enthusiasm, lead by your energy. Like we talked about in the previous tip, people have a free will, you job is not to make people go in a certain direction, your job is to show them the way and allow them to follow.

4. Talk less
Worship was described to me as a walk from your everyday life with all of its pressures and stresses into the presence of God. That is why we many times start with faster songs and move to intimate worship. The idea is to allow the congregation to turn their eyes from themselves and their lives and focus their attention on God. In order for that to happen, the worshippers must participate. They will little by little, forget their surroundings and give glory to God. An overabundance of talking from the worship leader interrupts that process. It pulls the attention that the worshipper is paying to God and redirects it to the leader to find out what they are saying. If you are going to give direction, prayer or talk to the congregation, keep it short and to the point. Allow the worship to grow organically. Remember, your congregation needs to hear from God, not necessarily from you.

5. The 80% rule
I have talked with many worship leaders over the years that have expressed frustration at the lack of enthusiasm from their congregations when it comes to worship. Some of that may be because the congregation doesn’t know how to worship, some may be because of their beliefs about what worship is and some of it may be because of the worship leader. Many times the worship leader is the limiting factor of the worship at their church. I was at a worship conference and heard the 80% rule - it goes like this: the worship team will only worship to 80% of the leader’s worship example and the congregation will only worship to 80% of the worship team’s example. So, if you want your worship team and congregation to be more heartfelt with their expression, start worshipping.

These are a few tips for successful worship leaders. I hope that they encourage you in your calling and help you and your congregation fill the gap that was left when the morning star fell from heaven. Remember, over and above all: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come." (Rev. 4:8)

Benjamin Eggers has been a worship leader for over 12 years and led worship in many different types of churches. Find out more about him at beneggers.com.