What Inspired You to Begin Leading Worship?
Over the last several weeks and months I’ve had the privlege of “meeting” several folks who lead worship throughout the country. These people range from staffed positions like “director of worship” or “worship pastor” to volunteer worship leaders in local churches or church plants throughout the world. One thing I’ve yet to see though, is what inspired all of you to begin to lead worship in the first place. I (and probably others) would absoultely love to hear your story. Ultimately God is the one that puts the spark in us, but he uses people, places and experiences to do it.
So come out of the woodwork - don’t be shy, and share your story with us. Was it encouragement from a family member or friend? Were you surprised to end up leading worship somewhere but ended up loving it? Even if you are “just a piano player” or “just the screen operator (you lead worship too!!),” please let us know!
For me it was rather interesting. I was in my first year of Bible School at the Association Free Lutheran Bible School in Plymouth, MN. I was excited to possibly begin a career in youth ministry. One weekend, while counseling at a camp, there was no one to “lead music.” I had sort of done something like this before, but didn’t really know what it looked like. I was just getting introduced to “leading worship” at the time. Someone said, “Hey Ryan, you have your guitar here. Maybe you could lead.” So, I jumped in. Let me tell you, it was amazing. To be able to be a part of helping those teenagers engage with God through music was unreal. I never went back and have been pursuing leading worship ever since. Granted, it’s not my job at the moment (hopefully someday it will be again) but it is my passion.
So what ignited your passion?
I remember, growing up in church, thinking that the guy who stood up in front of everybody and flapped his arms had just about the dumbest job in the entire world. I mean, anybody could pick a few songs and then stand up and wave his arm at the congregation while singing in a mediocre fashion at the congregation. I mean, come on, my own Dad did it whenever the full-time guy was on vacation.
That was until we got a new “music minister” when I was a middle schooler. This guy was a real musician. He played piano better than anybody I had ever heard, even my aunt the church pianist. I was interested in music, so I talked him into letting me join the choir. I was musically challenged each and every week, and it was fun.
Beyond all that, this guy took an actual interest in me and other teens in the church who seemed interested in music. He offered to give voice lessons, piano lessons, music reading lessons, whatever in an effort to be involved in our lives and see us advance one of our passions.
As is usual in church life, he moved on to another church, and so did our great youth minister. We got a new guy who was hired to do both. He wasn’t an instrumentalist, but he could sing really, really well. Best of all, he picked up where the last guy left off and continued to encourage us to use our talents.
All told, 10 of us teenagers from those years went into full-time ministry, and nearly all of us are still active today. This was 10 kids from a church of around 150. All because they invested themselves in us. So now, I have the same “job” that I thought was so dumb as a kid, but I still don’t flap my arms, I strum a guitar.
Comment by Jeff M. Miller — July 30, 2008 @ 9:08 am
Jeff,
Awesome testimony! I hope I can inspire people as well and not just be up there “leading music” every Sunday. Good stuff - thanks for sharing!
Comment by Ryan Egan — July 30, 2008 @ 9:11 am
Strangely enough, this Sunday marks the seventh year that I’ve been leading worship.
It started with a home-group I used to go to, they decided they’d start to sing a few songs at the start of each session. A lady who attended knew that I had a music degree, so she asked me if I could lead it next week. I reluctantly went away, purchased a book of worship songs, and began practising like crazy on my keyboard. At that point my skills were very limited. The next home-group came and I nervously played through a couple of basic songs on my keyboard that I’d brought along.
The first time I led in a church service would have been a few months after that I guess. The church was quite sparsely attended that morning because a lot of people were away at camp. Which I was very relieved about. The music was TERRIBLE. Everything went wrong, technically and musically. If anybody was able to worship God during that service, then it was simply down to his grace and mercy. I had absolutely nothing to do with it. Nightmare. And things could only get better. Which, I hope, they have
Good to look back on. Hope more people comment, Ryan!
Comment by dave8 — July 30, 2008 @ 1:39 pm
Dave - thanks for sharing!
I’m still chewing over how I’d like to comment on your most recent blog entry. Those were some good questions that I’d like to try and answer, but require some longer thinking! I’ll be stopping back sometime this week after thinking about them for a while.
Anyone else?
Comment by Ryan Egan — July 30, 2008 @ 1:46 pm
SIMPLE…from here - http://cecworship.wordpress.com/2007/03/26/testimony-kinda-longsorry/
My name is Joel Klampert and I am a PK (pastors kid). Now this brought on so much trouble. I went through middleschool and even high school seeing God bless our family and even seeing miracles. to give you an example; me family wasn’t very well off and one month we couldn’t afford our oil heat. My mom and dad prayed about it asking God to help us out. we came home to find the exact amount of $ we needed in our door in an envelope. This has actually happened to me 3 or 4 times. and also has happened with bags of groceries. Well much like your typical morons in the Bible I still doubted. Being a pastors kid actually makes this stuff harder because you find yourself relying on your parents faith.
Ok fast forward to 1994. 11 grade. I have gone through most of high school as an outcast from many and found myself actually hurting from rejection. between this and a few other things I thought that it wasn’t worth it to be on this earth any more. I contemplated this quite a bit. And then something changed. In one of my dark brooding moments i was listening to Mozart’s Requiem. My favorite piece. I remembered from the movie Amadeus Solieri saying he could hear God in his music………God spoke to me through it that day also and I began to have my own faith.
I had always wanted to be a missionary growing up and my senior year found myself applying to get into YWAM DTS program. which is a missions training program. When I graduated I went right to Virginia to learn what I could. It was there that God really began to reveal himself to me. Personally not as my parents faith. I reveled in worship and soaked in the word from my teachers. I was prophesied over and God really moved. I saw miracles of God working through me rather than just me seeing things happen to me.
This DTS had people there from all over. Africa, Argentina, Chile, Holland, Germany…etc. Well one man there was a pastor of 35000 people in San Paulo Brazil. He spoke very very little English and mostly Portuguese. In bible class I ended up translating for him in Spanish…big deal you say. Yes it was. If you know me at all you know in 8-11 grade I failed every year of Spanish and was even kicked out of Mrs. richters class. I couldn’t speak Spanish. Well here I could but only when I spoke to him. I cant really explain it, but God helped us communicate.
It was then time to go on our missions trip. we were to go to Israel and work on a kibbutz. Well I prayed about it and God gave me a vision of a little girl in Kiev Ukraine. and he gave the same vision to 3 others. we brought it up to our leaders and they prayed and we all believed God wanted the 4 of us to go to Kiev Ukraine. so we did. There was a messianic church there and we were going to be training them. What I was in for was more of me being trained myself
Well we went to our first church leadership meeting which lasted 4 or so hours. and every one of them did. We prayed and laid hands on each other and worshiped. It was amazing. I could feel Gods power like I had never before.
I was always drenched in music. my Dad was a professional drummer and my mom was a trained opera singer. I played some piano I also sang but never gave any interest to learning an instrument fully myself. until we got to Kiev. We needed somebody who could lead worship. There was a spare guitar and a chord chart. I sat down with it and within 1 hour I was leading worship for the group. God gave me the gift of worship and guitar. I was floored and so was everybody else.
So it was my responsibility to help the worship team. I met with a girl named Natasha. She spoke only Russian and maybe hello in english. We had a translator and he helped us has out music while I taught her how to do piano for worship. well one day he wasn’t there. We met anyway and had a great meeting. God did it again. I was able to speak to her in English and she understood and she could speak to me in Russian and I understood. We were both blown away. It only worked for each other because God had some stuff he wanted to do in us.I was only able to understand her Russian speaking….nobody else.
One day we were asked to go pray for a paralyzed woman. me and another guy from my team went and prayed for her. we did this every week till we left. Our last day with her….she walked.
In church The pastor asked people to raise their hands if they were sick and they would be healed. people did. I watched God take away cancer, blindness, deafness, and illness after ilness. You might not believe it but one person another day was actually raised from the dead through Gods amazing power.
I saw this kind of stuff every day and I was hammered with the love of God. He showed me that his power is very real today just as it was. In America we have too much stuff that blinds us. Miracles like these don’t happen because we don’t rely on God.
We were in our apartment and invited a church leader over for dinner. he came in and froze. He said in Russian of course…something is wrong here. He walked into the bedroom and went under the bed to find a hidden occult book of some sort. I was floored. this was not found in his power, but this man was so in tune with the spirit that he could sense when things were not of God in a room
Ok so we left and headed for JFK where I meet up with the Brazilian pastor again. He has just received word that his father cousin and uncle in Brazil were all killed big a mac truck and crushed beyond recognition. What would yhou do if you recieved this kind of news?…..He got off the phone and told us where we all began to cry and he stood up and at the top of his lungs began to sing worship to God. I was floored. here was a real live Paul. If only I could learn to Put Christ in the center at all times
then we get back to NY and I tell my dad God wants me to start a bible study …so I do and we ahve a great group of college age people…about ten. all worshiping and ministering. and God has me meet my wife there also. And then God gives my wife to be and me a vision of a rock n roll church service. SO we started it and it was amazing. It started off with a bang and ended up getting smaller and more intimate. I preached and people got saved and we worshiped and God realy really moved.
Eventually my wife and I moved when we got married and GOd began a new chapter in many other states and he also blessed us with 2 great boys (and a baby on the way). I now own a graphic design company and God has instilled a heart of worship in me. I lead worship and teach worship and also direct music. He has brought my music skills beyond what I can fathom and brought me a wife and family who also see God in music. I am now rooted in the Charismatic Episcopal Church where I believe God is doing an amazing work with restoring the ancient faith and giving us a future of relevance in music, teaching and outreach.
I saw many things growing up an realized many of Christ’s miracles, but never really saw God in it. intil one day he changed me.
Some people are afraid of doubt. for me I embraced it because without doubt you cant have faith. faith is believing in the unseen. if you didnt doubt it then it would be fact.
The only thing I struggle with now is trying to be as open to him as I was in kiev. It isnt as easy in USA. there is too much to distract me. But I do know that through my hands and mouth comes the praises of the King and he has done marvelous things.
Comment by klampert — July 31, 2008 @ 7:40 am
Wow - that was a fantastic recounting of the power of God through your experiences. Thanks for sharing!
Comment by Ryan Egan — July 31, 2008 @ 8:18 am
The Full story here
I’m a PK (pastor’s kid). I grew up in a very musical family. My dad was a worship pastor when I was younger. He’s my hero. Now, I’m a worship leader.
The more detailed version over on today’s post.
Thanks for giving us the opportunity to share!
Russ
Comment by Russ — July 31, 2008 @ 9:24 am
Russ - thanks for sharing! I love “My dad was a worship pastor…He’s my hero. Now, I’m a worship leader.” What a great testimony to the power of our families!
Comment by Ryan Egan — July 31, 2008 @ 9:26 am