The Job of the Worship Leader
As worship leaders, we know that our calling and commission is to exalt the Lord. It is our highest honor and greatest privilege to worship God individually and corporately, privately and publicly; personally and communally.
We know whom we worship. We know what we worship. We know when to worship. We know how to worship. And we know why we worship. Worship is not some new phenomenon that arouses one’s interest about a Supreme Being. It is not some false reality about an imaginable deity. We worship God and His Son. We magnify and lift up His name. We declare His attributes and speak of His character. As Psalms 29:2 says, we “ascribe to the Lord, the glory that is due His name; worship the Lord in the splendor of His holiness.” Psalm 30 declares, “I will exalt you, Lord.”
The Biblical leader Moses, as a worship leader to Israel cried out to God in Exodus 15:2, “The Lord is my strength and my defense; He has become my salvation. He is my God and I will praise Him, my father’s God, and I will exalt Him.” Psalm 34:3 calls for communal exaltation – “…oh magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together.” In exaltation we should magnify God to make Him bigger. We are so quick to do it with everything else – money, materials (houses, cars), and celebrities, etc. The question is, “Do we magnify God in our worship or do we portray “selfie” worship?
As worship leaders, we have to be clear and careful in our presentations to illustrate God and exalt Christ in a culture where everything attempts to be bigger than Him. As F. Segler writes in his book Christian Worship, “Worship is an objective-subjective experience. It is objective as people think primarily about God; it is subjective as they think primarily about themselves. A balance of the two is realized in genuine communion with God.”
Worship is a Christ-centered encounter and a person centered experience. It involves all aspects of man’s personality – mind, soul, spirit, body, and heart. It is the conscious and unconscious act of a human being, as he/she understands God’s relationship towards him/her.
The job of the worship leader is to navigate the audience through the process. The worship leader serves as a change agent on behalf of Christ, who aids individuals in knowing, living, feeling and trusting God.
Worship touches and releases the will of man into the will of God. It involves decision and commitment, devotion and allegiance, emotionalism and intellectualism, sacrifice and service, humility and submission, exaltation and edification.