It’s interesting because I’ve struggled with some of those same thoughts before. I’m going to give a detailed answer this coming week so everyone can benefit from this question, but my first thoughts are this:

• Chris Tomlin is a worship leader in a local church.
• Lincoln Brewster is (as far as I know) a worship leader in a local church.
• Paul Baloche is a worship leader in a local church.

From everything that I’ve ever heard from these guys when they’ve taught about worship, they’ve all said that serving in the local church is far more important than being on a national platform.

Pursuing Jesus first, honoring Him with your life, talents, and songs that you write is much more important than making it big.

Like I said, look for a whole post on this…or maybe a whole series of posts next week so we can dive in further. Thanks so much for the question!

My freshman-in-college-Christ-following-want-to-do-something-bigger-than-the-church son is an excellent guitarist and has the potential to be an excellent worship leader. He has led worship a few times at our church youth. I try to encourage him by telling him that there is no difference between him and Chris Tomlin, Lincoln Brewster, etc, except the experience (and probably a manager/producer).

But I also tell him that even though a Texas-sized dream is good, there is nothing like the local church when it is running right.

If you have some thoughts that I could steer his way, I’m sure it would help him in his quest. You know how much parents know about life when teenagers are in the house…