I have been looking forward to sharing with you some essentials that we teach here in HungryGen Worship and I believe it will bless you and encourage you to continue to push towards living a life that reflects the heart of a worshiper. We are going to run over a few tips that may help you in your journey of becoming the worship leader God created you to be. Some of the information I will be sharing also applies to those who are not necessarily leading worship teams, because we were all born to worship, therefore take what you can and let us grow together.
Be the Worship Leader of your own life.
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! – Psalm 150:6
We were created to worship! Every day you can make the choice to be the worship leader of your own life. You don’t have to have the title of a Worship Pastor, hold a microphone or be on the stage to be a “worship leader.” What does it mean to you to be a worship leader? For myself, it is much more than just singing a song to the best of my ability or impressing people with gifts and talents. Gifts and talents are great, but anointing is what break the yoke. It starts in your day-to-day life with spending time in the secret place and finding intimacy with the Holy Spirit. Bury yourself in the word and grow a hunger for his presence. Seek him and you will find him. Being the worship leader of my own life can also be affected by different outlets I use to feed myself whether that is through music, podcasts, books or the people I allow to speak into my life and influence me. We could use all these things to feed our spirit in a fashion that is honorable and pleasing to God.
You are a vessel waiting to be used by Him, so clear out time in your schedule and make yourself available him. You may not feel equipped or qualified right now, but God isn’t looking for qualified people. He is looking for someone who is available. Make yourself available with faithfulness and obedience and the qualifications will follow. Lead yourself by allowing the Spirit of God to lead you. Once you can follow, then you can lead. Through you God can create atmospheres for miracles, healings and the supernatural to occur wherever you are. Sure he could just do it himself, but he wants to use you! He wants you to be a part of the amazing things he is doing here on Earth and in peoples lives right now. If I deny the Holy Spirit in his pursuit to lead me then I am denying myself the ability to reach deeper levels of his presence and if I don’t reach those levels I cannot lead others into a place that I have never been to before, but only dream of.
I have been asked many times “How do I know if the Spirit is leading me during a worship service?” or “How can I guarantee that our worship is Spirit led?” It all starts in the secret place. In the secret place is where you fill your spirit so when its time to lead worship you have something to take out from. You cannot draw water out of an empty well. The way you worship God in private will be revealed in public. You could be a class act on stage and have no anointing. Your talent can expose you, but what sustains you is where your spirit lies. We can only learn how God wants us to worship if we spend time in his word and in his presence. Being obedient to the Holy Spirit is a key that unlocks doors for not only yourself, but for others as well. For example, the way you worship during a service can be the reason why your neighbor who is standing next to you finally gets the courage to worship God freely without caring who is watching. Raising your hands as a sign of surrender, shouting with joy, dancing in His presence and smiling are all great ways to give worship to God and to be a role model for other current believers or new believers. No you don’t have to be on the stage to have this type of influence and yes, that includes being an example even if the worship band isn’t necessarily playing your favorite song. God still gets all the glory!
Worship is a Weapon
If you ask around the HungryGen Worship team you will find that most, if not all of us will tell you that worship was and is a weapon we have used to defeat and overcome certain issues in our lives. God gave us music as a gift and the more we learn how to use it according to his word the better and more comfortable we get using it whether its in front of a sanctuary full of people, in our secret place or while God is using us through worship to lead a congregation into his presence. I encourage you worship leaders to reach within yourself to lead from a place of boldness and authority. Begin to believe that God can use you to be the voice for someone who cannot find their own voice. That you can in fact be the point of contact for someone to have their first encounter with the Holy Spirit. You are the forefront of the battle that has already been won. Worship is like a knife that cuts through the enemies bondage and hold over our lives and at the same time is a direct connection between us and Holy Spirit, bringing us closer to him with each praise that comes out of our lips. When you are happy, feeling blessed and life is good, worship. When times are tough and life has you run down, worship. In everything and with everything, worship. When the enemy tries to be the loudest voice in your life, pick up your weapon and worship a little louder and don’t stop singing till you walk out of the valley and even then, let the music continue to play.
