Friday, October 14

Worship Leading: Sing the Songs

Here's a quote from a well-written article on Inside Worship.

Done tastefully, and sensitively, spontaneity is one of the greatest allies of the worship leader. But it can also be a crutch, hiding our fear of missing the Spirit and our fear of just moving on to the next song. The songs are written to lead people in worship. If we just sing them, and move on to the next, worship is often led without much of our inspiring efforts moving people along.

Brian Doerksen once said, it takes as much faith to move to the next song on your set list, as it does to linger on the one you're singing. I.e. Don't work so hard. Sing the song; reasonably repeat it to milk the moment of intimacy with God corporately, but be careful not to step over the line. People disengage and you are the only one worshiping in the room.

I'd never want to quench the passion that leads us into precious, spontaneous moments of worship. But, again, passion under control is the key to effective worship leadership. We want to create a bonfire, not a wild fire that commits arson!
Anybody have any stories to share on this?

2 comments:

Jeremy said...

A few times at our church recently we have been singing "Blessed be the Name of the Lord" and have song the chourus about 5 times at the end - which I as a person in the congregation get tired of...

And this leads to another question: at what point is it okay to stop "singing of your love forever?" Okay, that's just my bad humor, but I've also heard that one beat into the ground as well.

Matthew Westerholm said...

I *could* sing of his love forever, but I might use more than one song. . .