Free Grace Church: Fresno, Ca
Pet Peeves About Worship Leaders
I plan on spending the vast majority of my posts on this blog talking about what worship IS, not what it is NOT. However, as a worship leader I often watch the things other worship leaders do, considering whether it would be helpful to incorporate at our church or not. (Often, my answer is in the negative.) This post is along that line of consideration.
Last month, Carlos Whittaker of Buckhead Church (Atlanta, GA) blogged the (apparently) "dangerous" question: "What is the biggest gripe you have about something a Sunday worship leader does?"
Whiitaker summarized them in this top 10 list that includes examples of what people actually said. The introduction to the list made me expect these would be really hyper-critical or sinful, but I don't think they are. A lot of them are preference-oriented, but perfectly valid. As one commenter said, "leading worship is the art of removing distractions." (I think that's an oversimplification, but certainly an important part of being a worship leader.) Many of these "gripes" are based on distracting things worship leaders often do, probably because they have seen other worship leaders do them.
My personal opinion: I pretty much agree with all of these, except for the one about worship leaders never talking more than 45 seconds. I think those sermonettes should be rare, but can be occasionally helpful. For example, I took a few minutes recently to talk about what the words to "Come Thou Fount" mean. (Possibly the most confusing set of lyrics still sung in churches today.) I did that so the song would be more meaningful to us as we sing it.
My favorite from this list, because it made me laugh: "Using the song name as an introduction/transition - 'You know I was thinking about how much God has done for me…it really is ‘Amazing Grace’ isn’t it?'"