Leadership | I am an Offering

What are the Habits of a Highly Effective Worship Leader?

Ryan Egan — March 8, 2011 — 2 Comments

Worship leader and blogger Chris Kuti wrote a fantastic article yesterday entitled 22 Habits of a Highly Effective Worship Leader. I’m in full agreement with all of them. Here are some highlights:

1. Hang Out With Your Pastor God is using your Pastor to lead your church somewhere, and picking up on this direction is only going to come by spending time together. So often Worship leaders get their marching orders and hide till Sunday. Don’t. Your effectiveness, in the context God has you in, is in the balance.

3. Encourage Your Musicians Call them, get them gifts, have a monthly fun night. Don’t talk about music when you’re spending time together, get to know them and what interests they have besides music. Do whatever it takes to let them know they’re appreciated.

8. Fast and Pray I always remind myself that “you can’t worship a God you don’t know.” This needs to be your most guarded habit of the day.

13. Watch Yourself Record every service and watch yourself back. You are your best critic. Don’t just watch yourself, this is a great time to assess your other players and vocalists.

20. Memorize You cannot lead people effectively staring at a music stand the entire set. I often use small “cheat sheets” on the ground to help me remember verses to new songs, but I’ve even noticed the negative effect they have on my confidence.

21. Lead Another Leader to Lead Your effectiveness is not measured by how much the music ministry needs you. Rather, how are you equipping younger worship leaders to do what you do better than you? Your goal should be to go on vacation and not have to book a guest worship leader if you don’t want to.

I’m in full agreement with his whole list with one addition: I would change number 15 to “Read and Study.” It is so important to read. Read all you can. Read the Bible especially, and read books on philosophy, theology, leadership, and more. But don’t just stop at reading the Bible. Study it. Memorize it. Meditate on it. By doing so God’s Word will naturally pour out of you as often as you lead worship.

What habits have you formed as a worship leader or church leader that have had lasting, positive impact in your ministry?

In For Worship Leaders, Leadership, Training

I Have Worshiped…

Ryan Egan — March 1, 2011 — 4 Comments

I’m stepping out in confession today to confess that I have worshiped other things in place of my God. I have worshiped…

The thrill from a tightly-arranged song
The emotional surge during a corporate worship setting
Musicians and worship leaders who are better than I am
My own musical skill
My reputation among my own congregation
My reputation among fellow worship leaders and church leaders
The teaching, planning, and preparation that goes into worship ministry
Music
Technology and shiny new gadgets

When I really stop and ask the question of what do we worship, I realize that there have been many times where I have placed someone or something as more important than God. I give it more worth at the time, effectively making it the object of my worship instead of my amazing God.

I have worshiped worship itself, and I need to worship Jesus.

In For Worship Leaders, Leadership

Dan Cogan Does a Sunday Worship Service Without Music, Can You?

Ryan Egan — February 25, 2011 — Leave a comment

What do worship leaders do most of the day was the question from last week and one of the items I mentioned was memorizing music. I’ve always been a firm believer of the importance of memorizing music to move us to be less distracting during worship (not having our faces buried in our music stand and being able to smile, etc.) but had forgotten about the flip side of actually becoming a distraction if we’ve attempted to memorize the music but haven’t been thorough about it.

Worship leader and songwriter Dan Cogan has posted two articles in a series on leading worship without music over at Worship Ministry that I think are definitely worth checking out. He mentions how his pastor wanted to make sure that the congregation came first in the situation:

His focus was the same as mine: removing as many distractions as possible. That goal has a twin–not BECOMING a distraction! And if I got too far ahead of myself with the memorization project I could quickly become just the thing I’m trying to remove: a distraction.

This seems obvious to me now, but I had never thought about it that way! I’d definitely recommend reading the rest of both of his articles; some good insight to be found there.

What have you done, with the intention of minimizing distraction, that has actually become a distraction?

(photo by billaday)

In For Worship Leaders, Leadership

On Grief and His Salvation

Ryan Egan — February 22, 2011 — 3 Comments

I’ve always had a hard time knowing what to say to people in certain situations that I’ve never been through. Even considering myself as an emotional empath there are often situations where I try to be empatethic toward someone but find myself thinking, “Well, I feel bad for this person but I have no idea what to say because I’ve never been through it. So, I’ll just say, ‘I’m so sorry,’ and more than likely never follow-up with them again.”

But when you go through it, when you experience what you’ve only just heard about, a whole world opens. You want to get back with those people from before and love on them with a love you can only give now that you “get it.”

One thing remains for the believer, however, that is a common bond even if you haven’t experienced the same kind of grief; the unending, deeply-rooted joy of God’s salvation that He has purchased for us at the cross. No matter what happens, nothing can take away the finished work of what Jesus did there.

So we cling to His Word, His salvation, and His promise of eternal hope:

“The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.” – Psalm 9:9

In Leadership, Theology

A Successful Way to Stir Up Passion for Ministry on Your Team

Ryan Egan — February 15, 2011 — 4 Comments

This past weekend we enjoyed spending Saturday morning at our Living Worship worship team workshop. It was a very fruitful time and made me value even more the opportunity to provide training for our ministry team. Some things we covered were:

Why We Do What We Do – an overview of the purpose of our Music and Worship Ministry
Vocal Blending
Instrumental Blending
Audio issues
Video issues
Putting it all together

I share some thoughts in the video above of a major freeing moment I had at the workshop as well as the importance of training our teams. Be sure to take a look!