Have you ever been on stage, getting ready to start singing, everyone is listening to the intro music and ready to give their all in worship, and then it happens… You start to sing and NO ONE goes with you. The song is too high. The women are screaming and the men don’t want to sing in the key that you are in so they try to sing lower and they are growling. But you’ve already started the song and you hav to finish. You’re stuck in Wrong Key Land. You can’t get out for another 3 minutes or so. Those 3 minutes feel like FOREVER! You can’t do anything to fix it. You wonder why you ever started singing in the first place. You want to cut off your hands and hide in a box for a month…okay maybe not THAT bad but you get the picture.

Right now I am still in that stage at my new church. Worship leaders will tell you this and non worship leaders may have never thought about it, but churches have a key. And sometimes finding that key takes a little time. Sometimes you find it rather quickly, like I did at my previous church. Sometimes it takes a few weeks, like it’s taking at my current church. My hope is that it doesn’t take too long because people will eventually stop singing and they look at you in that ‘poor kid, he has no idea’ look.

If you’re an experienced worship leader that has experienced this, how did you fix it? Or did you? If you haven’t had much practice with this, just know that it WILL happen.

Being a worship leader is SOOOO much more than putting worship sets together during the week, running rehearsals and singing on Sunday. It even goes past the numerous workshops and planning meetings that seem to be never-ending. It takes us past webinars and blogging. Sometimes it is as simple (and as difficult) as being a shepherd within the church in which we are serving.

Encouragement can sometimes be the hardest thing to do even though it can be one of the easiest things to execute. We spend so much time making sure that all of the big time, super important, worship leadery things are taken care of that sometimes we overlook the people that are helping us out on a day to day and week to week basis. I have found that it’s easy for me to let my perfectionist nature when it comes to music overtake my desire to be an encourager of the people that are giving of their time and talents to the ministry as well.

I’m thinking about this a lot today as I’m going to prepping for the first choir rehearsal at the new church. They have been excited to have a choir with a consistent leader before I ever walked in the door good. Well I’m in the door and they have been chomping at the bit. Sunday after service there may have been 1700 people come to me saying that they would be there tonight (which is funny because there were only about 125 people there). I am working through music and all these things and plans for rehearsal, but I am also making sure that I have ways built into my teaching that are encouraging and loving so that we move forward together. I believe that this whole choir concept is going to be a little different than what some of them expect and that’s the plan. I’m ready to see what God’s gonna do because I think it will be fun. I’ll let you know how it goes…

This whole blog is about taking what we have known or have learned about worship and turning upside down to be focused on God and not ourselves. I have tried to share how that transformation happened in me. I remember when the thought process changed for me and how, even though it wasn’t ‘easy’, it was definite and I went with it. Ever since then I have been doing my best to make this change in my mind and heart. In my mind, I have always thought that if I got something, then I must be the last one to figure it out and everyone else has been doing this for awhile. This thought process has changed over the years, but this concept has all be completely cured me of that way of thinking.

I started working at a new church this month and what a joy that has been! The people are sweet and I’m already starting to make some friends. The other thing that is happening is the learning of the culture of this church. As a musician and someone who has spent all of my life in church, it doesn’t take long to get an idea of the way a church flows. This church is no different. I was brought into this church not only to fill a void musically, but to help be a part of changing a culture within this church. Now I have been asked to do this multiple times before and I haven’t always said yes to the challenge. But this time I did. This time I felt like there was a chance that this could really work. Not trying to discount the Father and His power at all, but in other instances I wasn’t sure if what was being asked was a good idea.

I believe that there are 3 ways to change a culture within a church, or anywhere for that matter. If you have these 3 things in place, you have a MUCH better chance for success. Here they are:

Have a Clear, Deliberate Vision

The church that I’m currently a part of is really wanting to move forward from some of the really old things and ways of doing church to new ways of ‘being’ church. They are trying to do some really cool new things with the sermons, musically, and relationally that look different than church used to look 20, 30, 40 years ago. What’s tough is that there are some people still there from 40 years ago. That makes it hard. But the vision is clear. So even though it may be a tough ride, everyone knows what they are working toward.

Have a Committed Team

It’s one thing to have a vision that is clear, but it can be hard to change a culture when you’re the only one thinking that way. When you have a group that is flowing together with the vision that has been set before them you are going to be able to sustain through the struggle of change.

Lead, Don’t Drag

I think this may be the most important. If I’ve learned nothing from being a part of churches, people don’t do change well. If I’ve learned nothing from Baptist churches, I’ve learned that they don’t like change EVER! Obviously I say that jokingly, but it’s really hard to move people in church from the things they are comfortable with. So when you want to change something, you cannot drag people along or they will NEVER go for whatever it is that you’re doing. You may bring them to a point, but they may never totally accept it (You can lead a horse to water…). If we lead our people with clear explanation of what God is doing and how and why, we have a much better chance of them following. Besides, dragging people hurts both the people and you. You give them ugly scars and you get a nasty backache from putting a whole church on your back.