Tim Hughes – Leading Worship Seminar

Who are we leading?

Choice of songs and style will have an impact on those we are leading

Small groups different to large congregations.

Alpha course: not going to do 30minutes of tongues… Songs about washed in e blood of e lamb

Always need to be mindful of those we are leading.

Is the style accessible, make people feel at Home or freaked out.

If you are leading 10 people with an acoustic guitar the dancing generation may not be the best choice..

If you’ve got the full band it’s different.

How are we preparing to lead?

Practically and Spiritually

• Worship teams meet, pray, eat together
• Need to input into the musicians spiritually

All of the musicians are worship leaders

• Drums can impact worship
• Singers can influence

Not just hired musicians levitical calling to minister

How do I spiritually prepare?

• Walk with God in the ordinary daily walk with God
• They and know the holy spirit in all that you do.
• Make an effort to make moments to worship

Practical preparation

• Song lists important for structure
• Important to have a theme

Allow God time and space to speak, ask what God wantsSubstance vs simplicity Good to have deep and meaningful, but also good to have simple tooKeeping it fresh

• Look some old hymns, how can we make them fresh? Give them a new face
• Bring new songs

How important is it to link the message with the worship?

Try and find themes that link in after the messageBut Worship should be about the cross and Christ centred

When should you introduce a new song?

• sandwich it between 2 familiar songs
• Don’t do too many new songs at once
• Songs that we hear that we like, review songs that may be tired
• Bring ideas round the table

Songs that we write

• introduce at a specific event where arrangements are polished to give the song the best shot
• Be honest with yourself
• ask other people
• Ask people who aren’t musicians

What it God doing?

Difference between a song leader and a worship leader

Worship leader is sensitive to Gods spirit

Philippians 3:3 (NIV)
For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh

We worship by the spirit of God

Zechariah 4:6 (NIV)
So he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: `Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.

Do not Fall into the camp of trying initiating worship, try and force it.
People think that worship is a thing we DO, the other side of this is at worship is a gift to join with the Father, Son and Holy SpiritNeed to learn the difference of initiating worship and leading worship through the spirit

Do not be afraid of space and quiet (dropping the pad sound) and just wait.

Music is the science of combing sounds with silence. The space we create is as important and the sound we create.

Allow space in our personal lives for God, create time and silence, put down our instruments

How are people responding?

If people aren’t responding, maybe they don’t understand what is going on or how to respond.

This is a ministry not a gig.
When your leading, try and keep your eyes open, otherwise you don’t know what’s going on. Keep one eye on God, one eye on people

If it’s too hard and people aren’t responding, think what am I doing?

• Too many new songs OR too many old songs
• Maybe too much noise or even too quite
• Songs are too high

You Can always default back to the “song of the moment”

If it’s still hard, ask some more fundamental questions:

• Do people know why we sing for 20 minutes?
• Maybe need to explain worship at the start
• Try starting worship by saying something like: “lifting high the name of Jesus, when we draw near to God, He will draw near to us”

How do you flow into the next song if it’s not on the list or not prepared?

• Know a lot of songs….
• Need to LEARN the songs…
• Need to revisit the song lists
• Need to play well and sings well
• If something is going on about healing or grace or the cross, be aware of the songs.
• Learn new material
• Learn tags “I stand with arms out abandoned” | “I’ll stand…..”
• Depending on the musicians you can just jump straight into it.
• Have songs ready if they are not on the set
• When we choose songs, have extras ready.
• Knowing which key the songs are in also helps to flow.

What should you do if yup don’t feel up to leading worship?

Sometimes these are the best times.
Push through as God will not leave you, don’t be afraid of those times, it is normal at times. Important to push through.
If that is a consistent thing then ask some more questions

Where do you recharge, refresh?

Need moments of withdrawing and refreshing otherwise you end up leading with your own strength and up in burnt out. Best gift we can give our congregation as worship leaders is to red hot; on fire; engaged

How are you being replenished?

• Divert daily, find a way to switch off
• Withdraw weekly, have some time off
• Abandon annually. Time out to chill, go on holiday

How are we developing?

Leading worship is not pass or fail
If it goes well then you’ve learnt something
If if goes wrong you’ve probably learnt even more

We should be thinking:

• How can we grow
• How can we develop
• What can we do things better

Take the time to,invest in leading worship. Larn from being a part of the team. Learn how other worship leaders flow. Ask someone you trust for constuctuve criticism, take it on board. Important to have those people around. Important to be yourself, easy to copy other worship leaders. God made me who I am… Allow that to come out of your worship leading. One of the best ways to learn is being pushed into the deep end. Don’t be afraid of those things. If you see someone who may be in the wings, try and give them a push and develop that way…

Do you think it’s important for the worship team to spend time together away from the context of leading worship?

Gather as a team to hang out develop relationships, pizza, bowling etc. WARTs stupid awards spoof oscars(Worship arts recognition trophy)
Musical train wreck of the year
Diva of the year
Rock and roll worship moments of the year
Best dressed
Etc fun..

When the hard workmis fun, then yur up for it.
When the hard work is boring and tedious then noone wants to do it

How do you draw new musicians in without dropping the quality?

Important to have people to develop and grow.
Pair musicians ie strong bass weaker drummer or vice versa.
Invest in the individuals, pastor them, how can they improve,

Worth doing to develop the team..

Asking musician to learn and flow through all of the songs
We are absorbed by the songs, listening to them all the time, but the congregation may only hear them once on a Sunday.

Unrealistic expectation to learn 150 odd songs, may be better to have a core 40 or 50 songs you can askmthe musicians to really learn

Can trying banning songs for a term. 3 months.

Often get lazy by relying on the big songs.
5 or 6 songs a term to really work on

In summary

1. Who are you leading
2. How are you preparing
3. What is God doing
4. How are the people responding
5. Where do you recharge
6. How are you developing

Keep asking those questions and we can continue to develop and grow.