Hey everyone, this might be a long one. I was wondering about a few struggles as a worship leader and what y’all do to combat these things or if y’all even deal with these things. I lead at a small church 50-70 on any given Sunday. I use to lead on guitar but have been leading on keys for sometime now just to improve my keyboard skills. Anyway, that’s just to give a tiny bit of context. Now I’d like to express my struggles.
1: I feel myself as a strong instrumentalist but a fairly weak singer and even a worship leader at times. My church btw pays for vocal lessons which is a blessing but it’s still one of my weaker areas for sure.
2: How do y’all choose what songs to sing?
Usually I try and pick songs that are somewhat relevant to the message my pastor is going to deliver, but sometimes that can be a challenge. For example the message might be about spiritual maturity, which is important, but like try finding a song that people know and will sing to about spiritual maturity.
3: How can I get my team to understand what worship is? I get so passionate trying to explain to them the importance of worship and how worship should continue beyond 20 minutes of worship on a Sunday morning and go on into the rest of our daily lives Monday-Saturday.
4: the last one kind of led to this one. How or what do you guys do to “lead worship” from Monday-Saturday? I got real sad and worried when I realized that my church was not giving, which to me is a sign that as a collective church body we are not worshiping financially. Which was not really about money at all but more about the spiritual well being of the church body. I felt I failed the church as a worship leader to express how important worshiping with your finances are. How can I express to my church how worship should be your entire being and everything in your life should be centered on Christ? I mean I know the holy spirit is the one to lead them into that place in their lives but if I’m leading a church to worship (apart from music) then how can I do that more effectively?
5: I took it upon myself to read all of scripture because I believe a good worship leader needs to know scripture. And I learned so much and just found Jesus in so many new and different ways and it was all real exciting and great. This is where I’ll be vulnerable now. I now feel like, how can draw closer to God? Like I want to feel this closeness. I love Jesus and just want to be present with him but sometimes I get off work and I’m just wiped out. I mean I pray a lot, I read scripture quite regularly (daily). I just feel distant from God at times but every once in a while a get a glimpse of awe and absolute praise. I can’t be the only one. What I’m asking is basically, What do y’all do to keep yourselves filled? I mean I know life can drag, but it’s been dragging a lot lately.
Anyway feel free to answer 1 or all these questions and maybe even post your own struggles as a worship leader. I mean I have a ton more to express but I felt the post was long enough. Thanks!