10 Mistakes Worship Leaders Make - Response

These are thoughts from Dale - great job!

"I understand the definitions - good distinction.the football imagery is intriguing:

If the worship leader is the coach then his/her interplay between familiar and routine. A coach will use routine to help the team become familiar with his strategy for playing the game. But he wants his team to know how to do more than just the same plays all the time otherwise his team will lose.

No smart coach spends all his practice time working on the trick plays and the variations. Yet in some ways the coach is hoping to create such confidence in the team so that they can run the occasional variation or trick play seamlessly without tipping off the other team.

I see the same tension for the worship leader. He wants to create familiarity in the congregation and may need (I suggest) to use routine to establish that familiarity. But he/she must also remember that routine breeds complacency and stagnation. To inject spontaneity is to go outside of what is familiar.

Which still leaves me wondering if there is something I am missing in the pursuit of balance here. My perception is that a focus on developing familiarity can often lead quickly to the suffocating routine that you are warning against. But my own experience says that when too much spontaneity is inserted into the mix it can quickly become debilitating for the congregation as well which is what i think you are getting at also...I hope you don't mind if I drag some of my readers attention to these posts..."

Rex's Response

Dale, you've described the real world of worship well!

Let's assume that your congregation has tasted worship and knows the difference between praise, thanksgiving etc. and worship. Let's assume your team loves worship more than it loves music. Let's assume that you have a pastor who honors worship and you have the time and freedom to transition from song singing into Presence gazing. Let's assume that your congregation has a rich vocabulary and reservoir of songs that they are familiar with. Let's assume you're in a sanctuary of extended family and not just in a hall of strangers.

Okay - once you've worked through mistakes 1 - 8.... the tension between familiarity and complacency become relevant.

I'll fall back on another sports analogy; tennis. I was a decent player. Good enough to become a certified professional (USPTA) and still am. In high school I would drill and drill and drill the same shots over and over - during practice.

Backhands - down the line then approach shots. The coach would choreograph shot sequences and we would practice those for hours. They became second nature so that in a game situation I would execute in the flow (context) of the point, anticipate the next shot and respond automatically.

I went through stages in my game development. At points I did execute like I was going through some kind of drill - with no feeling for the context. I typically lost those matches. When shot was not ingrained I was SELF-Conscious. That usually resulted in over directing my effort, being tight and making mistakes. When the shot was automatic the feeling is exhilarating.

The point for all of this: There is no formula. Every congregation has a different maturity, cohesion, understanding of worship etc. Here is a distinction that may help. There is a difference between a Master of the trade and a Journeyman, similar to the difference between a tennis pro and a club or weekend player.

A master artist or musician is able to effortlessly transcend the medium. The journeyman excels within the boundaries of the medium. Getting back to another one of the mistakes - "A" is "A." We have to accurately assess our growth in the practice of worship. If we're novices, intermediate or masters - then we need to know what the means. I would wager that many who have the role of worship leader may still be novices as worshippers but highly proficient as musicians or choral directors.