Molding a worship leader...

There are some people you will meet in your lifetime who seem to have "just the right" mix of qualities to be where they are. In ministry it's referred to as "a calling" - in education it's often looked upon as a "calling" as well. Whether your duty or calling is to be a worship leader, pastor, teacher or office secretary - each requires certain abilities or qualifications to be effective at it. As a full time educator for nearly 25 years, I've served on many committee's charged with putting together evaluative instruments for educators both in music as well as other curricular areas. But when it comes to choosing or evaluating effective worship leaders, they are a "quirky" bunch indeed! I have to laugh at the thought of this... Being involved for so long in music education as well as the music business, I understand too well the mind of musicians. Really... You could write a couple of books on this subject and never really explain it well enough. You'd only scratch the surface! One of my favorite "pop" singers; Billy Joel, makes a comment in one of his music videos about his feeling that most musicians (including himself) are inherently "manic depressive" by nature. It's all in the way musicians minds are hard-wired together (by God of course).

Getting back to the topic now of molding a musician into a worship leader, it will give you great insight into the difficulty of the task when you realize the very nature of how musicians are "hard-wired" by God.

Here are the three common "traits" of most good musicians;
1. They are Creative!
2. They are an Extrovert.
3. They are Egotistical.

Okay, take a good long look at those three traits again... One of those three traits is the one that gives most worship leaders the greatest trouble. It's the trait that runs head-long into what worship is all about, in fact - it runs counter to Christ's very message of servanthood and self-lessness, vs. selfishness. Can you guess which one it is then? That's right, number three - Egotistical. The first two traits generally aren't bad, and in fact - important to have. They can even be positive to have in a worship leader! Creativity can be a positive trait to have in worship planning, inspiration in the use of scriptural ideas and musical skills in combination with each other. An extrovert can be a positive trait to have, in being able to meet new people, build worship teams, and work and minister to others!

But oh boy, when we get to the ego part - yikes! We run into so many problems don't we?

Ego really has no place in worship! None at all.

I'm going to be honest for a moment (really!) - back when I was 21 years old (a few years ago) the world was all about ME. I did some strange things back then to bring attention to myself when I was playing music in public places or well, most anywhere I wanted to impress people. I went through these "phases" you might say. It's kind of funny now to think of it - but I was serious about it then don't you know! Having to have the newest hair styles, the "coolest" hair color (I grew my hair long and had my mom dye my hair "bleach blond" one summer so I would look like a "surfer", had to have the newest clothing styles, had to have just the right brand names on my shirts and pants AND had to have the "coolest" electric guitars and gear to play, not some cheap knock-offs... The list goes on and on! LOL.

The bottom line is - I was a long way from being an effective worship leader back then, I had a lot (a lot!) of molding to go through first! Some people go through traumatic events as young children or teenagers that humble them and tear down and tear away many of the egocentricity's that plague many younger musicians. This explains why so many young rock musicians over the last 50 years have succumbed to drug or sex addictions. It's the ego problem, and getting over that is paramount to growing into an effective worship leader.

Age has absolutely nothing to do with this. I've met many young worship leaders who have absolutely NO ego at all. They are humble before others, confident in Christ and yet have a heart of true servanthood. On the other hand, I've seen older worship leaders who still struggle with this... God molds us all in different ways and in different times it would seem.

It all boils down to getting rid of the childish EGO thing. This is the first step in molding a worship leader (or ANY leader for that matter)

Here is what Paul teaches about this;

"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me." (1 Cor. 13 TNIV)

Blessings in Christ,

Dave