The One Mistake Every Worship Leader Has Made (And How To Fix It)

Have you ever heard a worship song & thought, "Wow, this song would be great for our congregation"?

Chances are, you have. As worship leaders, we are always looking out for new songs... Especially when that one student comes up to you saying, "Are we doing Oceans AGAIN tonight?"

In our search to create the perfect database of songs to choose from, we find ourselves running into this one problem: Choosing the "perfect set list" & having it become a trainwreck.

Click To Tweet 

"We create worship sets with songs in mind, not our team"

Our mistake is often that we create worship sets with songs in mind, not our team.

If your youth band consists of one guitar, one singer, & a cajon, don't do songs like "Alive" (Hillsong Young & Free) with the expectation that it will sound just like the original.

Similarly, we need to have our teams in mind when creating a set list for our services.

For example, if we are doing Oceans or another song in a higher key, I will be sure to schedule a male vocal to cover the tenor parts so that our worship set is not top-heavy (soprano-heavy).

We need to keep our teams in mind when creating sets. If we do not, we will become discouraged; our team will become discouraged; and ultimately our congregations will feel our discouragement.

To be successful and effective for the Kingdom in worship, assess the skills & talents of those on your team. Release them to add their strengths to the team, and be sure to encourage them to grow in those areas that are weak. Delegate responsibilities to youth leaders and students (yes, students) on your team with the anticipation that they will grow in maturity & responsibility. Create a culture of worship & teamwork on your team, and their hearts will flow out of that during a worship set.

Each team has been created uniquely in terms of people, gifting, and personalities. What has God called your worship team to value? Who has He called your team to be?

If you would like to book us for a worship team training/workshop event, contact us!

Doing Worship Well

Something I've noticed as a worship leader is that while performance is not everything, presentation definitely counts. If you've seen some of the videos put out by professional worship bands (Hillsong Young & Free, Bethel, Jesus Culture, etc), you've noticed that there is a certain quality in their presentation. However, most of our churches don't have the equipment or finances to hire our own set builders, lighting designers, & graphics assistants. So how do we work with what we have, staying within our budgets and still creating quality presentations?

One way is changing up the way we show lyrics slides. If you own a software licensed with your church like Media Shout or ProPresenter, you've probably used both stills (picture backgrounds) & motion clips for your worship lyrics. And if you've just started using it, you'll see that the features, particularly on ProPresenter, are great! But, five months later you realize you've been using the same backgrounds, fonts, and usually the same songs. How can we mix things up at this point?

Three words: Hand Drawn Lyrics. Or really any font that looks hand drawn. Here's an example:

This summer, we took our students up to Yosemite for camp. One thing that really up-ed our worship game was these "hand drawn lyrics". Rather than the regular black-and-white Arial 55-pt font on a projector screen, we gave the students some new lyric slides. Now this isn't the magic key to creating a worship atmosphere, but this is one step towards the goal. 

After trying this out for ourselves & seeing how much change it made to the overall worship presentation, we decided to share this with each of you. Try this on a Sunday morning or youth mid-week service & let us know how it affects your worship experience!

Here are some links to a few songs we've done these lyric slides to:

Oceans - Hillsong

Never Gonna Stop Singing - Jesus Culture

Good Good Father - Chris Tomlin

Holy Spirit - Jesus Culture

If you would like to book us for a workshop session on creating an atmosphere of worship and/or stepping up your presentation game, contact us!

A Symbolic Moment

The use of a symbolic moment can be so powerful, and can really put into action an idea. Such was the case as we ended camp in Yosemite Sierra. We had a powerful week talking about our intended, broken, and restored identity in Christ. We ended the week on top of Star Rock overlooking Yosemite and led the the students by candle light down to a meadow, where they waited in the dark shoulder to shoulder. The camp director then lit his candle and explained that we are the light of the world and that the light inside of us can never be extinguished. Each person then lit their candle and placed it on a cross at the center of the field. What an incredible way to not just tell but show these students the life changing power of the Holy Spirit. How can you incorporate a symbolic moment into your programming to help your students not just hear the message, but partake in the message. 

One Quick Way to Get Students Excited (5 Minutes or Less!)

We are always looking for new ways to get students engaged on social media & interacting with us. We have done video series' (and we're in the middle of one right now), student stories, & graphics made by students. All of these things are great! More recently, as we've been coming up for camp, we've decided to make 15-30 second videos promoting camp. There is so much excitement in promotion. If you don't promote your events on your social media already, we would encourage you to do so. It creates more traffic on your social media pages as well as engages students! This clip at the top of the page took a little less than 5 minutes to make & was done with two very simple-to-use apps, iMovie & Cameo. This is just a few minutes of your time for a long-lasting promotional tool to get students hyped! Our students loved it!It really is the little things that count. What are some promotional pieces you have used to get your students hyped? Submit your response in our comment section below!

Fighting Procrastination

It has such a stranglehold on my life and i've been fighting against it as long as I can remember. I have such a strong desire to wait until the last minute. I've worked so hard everyday to learn time management skills, scheduling, writing, and intentional reading. So this morning I'm Prepping my 4th message for this week thinking years back to when I couldn't even get one paper in on time. Thank you Lord for your spirit's gift of self-control. Pray that I continue to grow and push procrastination out of my life! 

Community Engagement & Your Students

A photo from the weekend of my high school outreach trip.

I was just thinking on some of the things I did with my old church as a student in high school. One of those things included going into the city and taking time to hear people's stories and serve them. For years I called it my "in-city missions trip". Sure, that's one way to put it. But as I thought on it some more, I realized a better way to say it was "community outreach/engagement".

Thinking on that, It really showed my mindset in high school. I did not see the rest of the city as my "community". I saw the rest of the city as a place that I stayed away from and every now & then would go into to "bless" or "serve" someone.

Years later, I am grateful to understand what it is to reach out to the community in different ways very often rather than once or twice a year "go into the city" and serve here and there. It begs the question, however, who do we see as our Community? And how often do we really engage our community for Christ? And ultimately, do we really desire to see our city (as a community) changed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

BITS AND PIECES

 

Most of the time I pray for God to reveal his full plan for an area of my life, but instead he gives me bits and pieces and reminds me that if I knew the full plan I'd do it my way and miss the blessings that he has for me. Never forget that God as a full plan for your life, a plan that if you fully knew you would try to change thinking you knew better. Let him guide and direct you through The Word, Worship, Prayer, and Community.