In Defence of Worship Leaders

I've been thinking about our rather ambivalent attitude to worship leaders. And coming to the conclusion that I'm ambivalent about our ambivalent attitudes.

Just reflecting, it seems to me that some people can have a hero-worshipping view of worship leaders. Which I accept is wrong. Because if you're hero-worshipping a worship leader, whose worship is the worship-leader leading?

But I shall leave that to one side and concentrate more on the other aspect of the conundrum. That's the one where worship leaders are criticised for having a pop-star attitude, or effectively criticised for enjoying leading worship - if they're musicians, for performing, and if they're not, for getting a power-trip from leading.

And it strikes me as a little unfair, that. Well, actually it strikes me as a lot unfair. You don't get people referring to the pastoral visitors and saying "well of course they'd do that - after all, they get a being needed buzz out of it. And they like visiting people." You don't hear "well, of course the flowers are well-arranged. They don't do it for God - they like arranging flowers. They get a real kick out of a nice setting of Michaelmas Daisies." You don't hear people complaining about the people that made the cakes for the cake stall, that they like baking.

And maybe it's because the worship leaders are so obviously out the front. But it strikes me that they get more of that than anyone. And then it strikes me that no-one works as hard for their rewards - if any. A singing worship-leader will spend time practicing their singing. And the guitar-playing worship leader will spend their time wearing callouses on the fingertips of their left hands, relentlessly playing the same four chords, and holding chord charts upside down wondering how to do which diminished seventh. While an organ-playing worship leader will typically spend a lot of time under the machine, up to their knees in dust and spiders wondering why the contra-trombone's a bit low this morning.

And if the worship leader is part of the worship group, it gets worse. All those evenings spent practicing segues between songs. All that time explaining to the guitarist that it's written "segue", not "segway". All those count-ins and intros to practice. All that time spent explaining to the bass player that if you hold up one finger it means "back to verse one", whereas two fingers means "back to verse two". And all that comforting the bass player and telling him that really, it's OK - he can count that high.

So you can see that, while you may think it's a breeze being a worship leader and all about getting the praise of men and women - it's not. It's about pain and sacrifice and prayer - about having the humility to lead others into a place of worship and trying to step back. Of being a performer, sure - but one who, when you step back from the performance, will so often not allow oneself to ask the question all performers want to ask - "was I any good?"

So be kind to your worship-leaders. They're just ordinary people. Thank you very much, Husborne Crawley. You've been great. Good night.