Comments on: Sunday [10.18.09] – interactive leading

By: Paulo

Paulo — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:37:33 +0000

aaah… the arduous task of trying to get worship team members to be expressive, transparent and accessible. Still working on it. I like the water gun idea!! LOL

Seriously, I think you have to have a chat with your senior pastor (if you are not him or her) and ask what the picture of worship you would like to see over the congregation is. Do you want to see an exuberant congregation? Are things OK now? Would you like to see a more subdued response in worship? Answering this is key because the congregation is a giant mirror of what is happening on stage. You cannot expect to see something in the congregation that you do not see on stage and this is something that I tell my worship facilitation team all the time. Dont expect to see people jumping if you yourself will not jump. Dont expect to see them smiling if you yourself will not smile. Dont expect to see raised hands if yours are firmly clamped to your side. Dont expect to see clapping if you will not initiate it… etc. I’m preaching to the choir, I know, but you asked, and I run my mouth.

Here’s a blog post in which I talk a little about the issue: http://woodvaleworship.blogspot.com/2007/12/living-sacrifices.html

PS: We decided that we wanted to have an exuberant church… we are pentecostals after all!

By: daniel john

daniel john — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 02:25:56 +0000

so you’re saying that I should use water guns & beachballs to help some of our newer worship leaders – great idea! I think that we will try and implement these radical ideas soon. Seriously though – thanks for the input. I was curious what others were doing/thinking on this subject.

By: David

David — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:58:14 +0000

Oh, and beach balls or huge balloons can be fun sometimes too…but, seriously, are often a bit distracting…lol

By: David

David — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:57:00 +0000

It’s exciting to see teams growing in interaction and expression. We’re good at this but need to make sure we don’t rest on our laurels and ensure new members also soak it in

For us, interacting with the congregation means eye contact, exhorting them(often mid-song … the worship leader will do this, while the backup singers keep singing the song, or free-worshiping during an instrumental break), and being examples of King David worshippers. Sometimes this will be lots of dancing, sometimes it will be kneeling.

We’ve never gone flat on our faces as it’s a little hard to sing that way…and we don’t often go on our knees, but it has happened.

Above all, being sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s prompting for how He wants a song to be communicated. Hard to learn, but once you get there…worship is never the same and you really miss it in weeks when it doesn’t happen for whatever reason.

By: Harold Forbis

Harold Forbis — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:38:31 +0000

Dan, sounds like your team is doing great, and you’re doing a great job leading them.

I’ve always said that when you’re on stage leading anything, you need to go overboard in being expressive – people can only see what’s going on inside if you show it outside, and that’s easier done than said (I really mean it that way!).

When we’re having someone lead an individual song, we have them step forward, to signify (to themselves, as well as to the congregation) that they’re going to be the one to pay attention to, to follow.

We probably need to shore up our interactivity-ish-ness. Maybe water guns?