2 Things To Consider When Worship Leading With The Band.

Worship transcend beyond lyrics, words, notes or chords it’s a meeting place for God and man, it’s a place of man encountering God’s love and goodness. Music is one vehicle that will help us connect and engage with God and in different churches and denominations there is a variety of genres of music in their worship. 

King David introduced worship with instruments on a large scale when he institutionalized worship in Israel with the arrival of the ark and the tabernacle of God. Levites where set aside by King David and the priest to be singers, porters, instrument player and help priests in sacrifices. All Levites where divided by family and lineage to do specific tasks.

 “David chose 4000 musicians from the 38,000 Levies in his reign, or one in ten of the whole tribe. Of these musicians, 288 were specially trained and skillful. 1 Chronicles_26:6-7. The whole number was divided into 24 courses, each of which would, thus, consist of a full band of 154 musicians, presided over by a body of 12 specially-trained leaders, under one of the twenty-four sons of Asaph, Heman or Jeduthun as conductor”, Smith Bible Dictionary .

King David chose men who were skilled and set apart to worship appointing them to different aspect of worship and today that band, worship team, instrument player, pianist or violinist that you have in your church they have been placed there by God to help people connect with God through their ability to play music. 

Today this is still so much alive and though music has evolved but there are two main points as a worship leader we still need to consider:

1.      Vision and Communication: Band without direction becomes noise, as worship leader we should be able to speak and talk with the team and share the vision or the focus of worship. One way to remove noise is to communicate with the team, serving them and guiding them to that place that God has shown you. Even during worship we still have to communicate to show where we are going it doesn’t pay for you to get lost in the spirit and leave everyone else wondering what happening.

It’s more than just playing, as worship leader it’s about guiding the band to the rhythm of his heart. That has to be shown and communicated to them, I remember when the presence of God hit the tabernacle they couldn’t play. One question how many times has the presence of God hit our churches and we continued playing because we did not see Him, recognize Him or we just didn’t know what to do, so we kept playing music.  

2.      Skill: Lately there has been a lot of skill that is growing amongst bands and worship teams just like what they had back in David’s time and that is an amazing thing which allows our worship to become refined and better offering. Our God deserves the best no doubt about that. In it all as worship leader we need to learn to harness all that skills of the team and channel them into the place where God is taking the audience.

It’s the balance between perfection and also the presence of God. At times we take our excellence so much that we lose God in the process. It’s easy for us band people to get lost in pursuit of perfection and skill with the desire of giving an amazing worship experience.

So many times as band we get into a zone where you just start jamming and something kicks in and you just start flowing as a worship leader we should be able to work to bring the band or worship team to one place where you are going. It’s not good for you to be going in one direction and the band to be going a different place as well. 

Leading worship with a band makes a difference and it’s an amazing thing, may we lead not just the audience but also direct the team to meet Him as well.

Leading People In The Beauty Of His Holiness