For the next couple days I will be in Cumming, Georgia attending the Velocity Conference with Michael. This morning he led a “pre-conference” session leading some church planters and church leaders through “The Nuts and Bolts of a Healthy Church System“. I had the opportunity to speak for a few minutes toward the end of his session as he focused on series/sermon planning.
In my talk I made reference to the “lead” worship leader of the church. That worship leader is not me…it’s the Lead Pastor. While I lead the church in the corporate singing of songs and design the majority of the weekend services none of that is possible without the vision and planning from my Pastor, Michael. Michael is the main vision caster of Oak Leaf Church. He relies on God to speak to him on topics and scripture to teach on in our gatherings on Sunday. Michael will share ideas, creative elements, songs, etc…which then help me plan the services for a specific series.
It is important that Lead Pastors do not segregate themselves so much from the creation of the Sunday morning worship experiences. You don’t have to plan the whole service. That is the role of your creative team and/or worship team, but don’t separate the two so much so that there is a disconnect. Worship (speaking in terms of Sunday morning gatherings) consists of more than just music. Our worship services consist of certain elements that help to engage our people into a worship experience with our Creator. These elements can be music, prayer, giving, preaching, baptism, communion, and more, but they are not separate. They all are essential to our corporate worship. Therefore pastors, when planning don’t just write your message and expect your worship team to do the rest. Cast the whole vision of your message(s) to your team, share any ideas or thoughts you have for creative elements, share song ideas, and share what you feel God wants your people to hear.
Michael shared today, “Creativity should not drive content. Content should drive creativity.” Pastors, be sure to cast vision and direction in order to enable your worship/creative teams to create a worship experience that is capable of facilitating worship with excellence.
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Good words, my friend. I would humbly add (maybe you said it!) that because worship is the whole of our response to God and the pastor/teacher is the under-shepherd for the church- responsible for all of our responsiveness (giving, serving, praying, teaching, singing, living, forgiving…) he is indeed the worship leader. He leads us to act in response to the whole Word in whatever way we are asked. Singing is a narrow part of that whole.