The Seven Biggest Mistakes You Can Make as A Worship Leader [Part 1]

In the first episode of Season 5, co-hosts David Zimmer and Bob Kauflin are joined by Bob’s son, Devon, to talk about seven mistakes congregational worship leaders often make. While these aren’t the ONLY mistakes you can make, they certainly rank among the most common. The conversation was so enjoyable that they only got to the first 3 mistakes. You’ll have to check out the next episode to hear the last 4.

Resources and Scriptures mentioned in this episode:
Engaging with God by David Peterson
Christ-Centered Worship by Bryan Chapell
For the Glory of God by Dan Block
Reverberation by Jonathan Leeman
Bible Delight by Christopher Ash

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,” (2 Timothy 3:16)

“The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.” (Psalm 19:7–10)

“‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”” (Matthew 15:8–9)

“How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” (John 5:44)

“Praise the LORD! I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation.” (Psalm 111:1)

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” (Colossians 3:16)

Have a question about this episode? Shoot us an email at soundplusdoctrine@sovereigngrace.com

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Transcript

David Zimmer: Hello and welcome to season five of the Sound Plus Doctrine Podcast. My name is David Zimmer.

Bob Kauflin: My name is Bob Kauflin, still hasn’t changed.

DZ: And we are joined by Devon Kauflin.

Devon Kauflin: Great to be here.

BK: For the big inaugural.

DK: I know this is a… The kick-off episode.

DZ: And this is the…

DK: Thanks for having me.

DZ: Kick-off episode.

BK: You’re welcome. We didn’t just invite anybody to this Dev.

[chuckle]

DK: Of course not.

DZ: And we have a kick-off title.

BK: Absolutely.

DZ: What is it Bob?

BK: It is, “What Are the Seven Biggest Mistakes You Can Make as a Worship Leader?”

[vocalization]

BK: I know. We did a lot of research for this and we came up with the seven biggest mistakes…

DK: So, why is it only seven?

DZ: Yeah.

BK: Perfect number.

DK: Are there other mistakes that could be made…

DZ: Nope.

[laughter]

BK: Nope. This is…

DK: This is the definitive list of mistakes…

[laughter]

BK: Well, I was doing some research, David and I actually were on YouTube…

DZ: Right. Yeah.

BK: And we were thinking, “What are the things that training people are talking about?” And we realized that you have to have a number in your title, that really helps to get people to view it. And if it’s something big, then more people come, so…

DZ: Yeah.

BK: This may be your first time here in the podcast and you’re thinking,” Who are these idiots?” [chuckle] And you should stick around because maybe we aren’t as idiotic as you think. [laughter] or maybe we’re worse.

DZ: Yeah. Or we have four seasons to prove how idiotic we are.

[overlapping conversation]

BK: Yeah. That’s right, that’s right.

DZ: So…

DK: But if you want a comprehensive list of what to avoid…

DZ: Yeah.

DK: This is it.

BK: A less click-bait title…

[laughter]

BK: I was gonna say a less. I thought you were back paneling.

DK: Oh no I’m going all in.

BK: A less click-bait title would be, “What are some things that those who lead music in their church often do, which they shouldn’t do?”

DZ: Yeah.

BK: How about that.

DZ: That’s great.

BK: But that just doesn’t play as well. [chuckle]

DZ: No.

DK: No.

BK: You don’t wanna put that on top of your…

DK: It’s way too humble.

BK: It is.

DK: Way too humble.

[laughter]

DZ: Wow. So good.

BK: Well we better start talking about this.

DZ: I know.

DK: Yeah, right. So seven…

DZ: So what’s the first reason?

DK: Number one.

BK: Number one. Not going to your Bible first. That’s the biggest mistake.

DZ: Right.

BK: You know, it’s amazing how much training we do… And I would have been guilty of this for many years, I think. So I’ve been leading music in the church for 45 years, 47 years now. It’s amazing how those years just sneak up on you, and I know for the first 25 or so, I didn’t really do research in Scripture. I said what other people were saying. I was interested in tips, practical ideas, musical ideas, things… I had this idea of what worship was, it was the singing in the church where you have this encounter with God, and so what can we do to make that better? And it wasn’t until I read Engaging with God by David Peterson that I realized, Oh, oh, God should actually be the one to determine what we do. He actually gets to define worship.

DZ: Yes.

BK: And it was…

DZ: Right.

BK: It was a 180 for me. I mean, maybe not 180, 145.

[laughter]

BK: It was significant.

DK: So what would have been some other things that would have come before Scripture?

BK: What made me feel good, what seemed to work.

DZ: Right.

BK: We use that… We throw that out there like “This works, this works” But to what end? You can… Something can work for the wrong reasons or for the wrong goals.

DZ: Right.

BK: What other people were saying. My experience, for sure. So those were the things… And I would just pick scriptures out as they suited my purposes and I noticed that everybody else was doing something similar. The charismatics to go to the Psalms, Presbyterians would go to Hebrews 12. Everything decently in an order…

DK: 1 Corinthians 12.

BK: What’s that? Yeah. Yeah. That’s right. 1 Corinthians and Hebrews 12 “Worship God and reverence and fear.” We’d all pick our verses out that supported what we were doing.

DZ: Yeah.

BK: And the idea of a comprehensive, you know, Biblical theology of worship just didn’t even occur to me. So praise God in the last 30, 40 years, there have been a number of great books written on that topic. I think Bryan Chapell’s “Christ-Centered Worship”, which is more about liturgy, certainly “Wngaging With God”. Dan Block’s…

DK: “For The Glory of God”

BK: “For The Glory of God.” And a few others just that are helping us think through what it is. So…

DK: But just to pick up on that, I do think there is this conviction that as leaders in the church, we need to have related to the doctrine of scripture, the sufficiency of scripture.

BK: Yes.

DK: And so what God has given us in his word is really all that we need to nourish God’s people.

BK: Yes.

DZ: Yep. Yep.

DK: And so anything that you can be reading and doing to cultivate a love for God’s word, I think it’s gonna be… Is really gonna serve your church and help you to avoid this mistake of not putting the Bible first. And so books like I think of Jonathan Lehmann has a book, “Reverberation”.

BK: Yes.

DK: It talks about what happens as God’s word is brought to bear on God’s people or even… I know we both read recently, Christopher Ash had a devotion, it walked through Psalms 119 called “Bible Delight”.

BK: Yes.

DK: And, you’ve Psalms 119, you’ve got this…

BK: It’s fabulous.

DK: Whole chapter, the longest chapter in the Bible. That’s all about how good God’s word is.

DZ: Right.

BK: Yes.

DK: And how the blessing that we receive through God’s word. And so if we have that conviction, it makes a lot more sense to put God’s word first.

DZ: Yeah.

BK: God is God, we’re not. We don’t get to say, “Hey, God, we think you’d like to be worshiped this way.” You know, whether that be flags or whether that be loud music or whatever, we…

DK: Bright lights or dark lights or…

BK: Yes.

DK: Whatever it is.

BK: We need to…

DK: There’s no end. Calvin said… I think I’ve shared this quote before, there’s no end to our wanderings.

BK: Yeah.

DZ: Yeah.

DK: Once we become the kind of the standard determines what we do, there’s no end to our wanderings.

DZ: Yeah.

BK: In our previous podcast, five values of corporate worship, one of them was Scripture governing fueled, and that’s what this is speaking to.

DZ: Yeah.

BK: We just believe… In our arrogance, I would say, that we can come up with better ideas than God has. And God speaks against that. People who came up with our own ideas of worship in the Old Testament were killed at different times.

DK: It didn’t go good for them.

BK: It didn’t go good for them. Yeah, so both in the way we think about it and then what actually fills it, I think is what you’re talking about. It’s the word of God is meant to shine in our services.

DK: So practically how do we put the Bible first? I mean just.

BK: Oh, man, Well, I think… I’m sure we’ve talked about this, but we begin and end with the word of God with a Benediction… A call to worship, a Benediction.

DK: So, in our structure.

BK: Yes.

DZ: In a public gathering.

BK: Some have said we… I think it was Mark Dever or different people have said, we sing the word, we pray the word, we preach the word, we see the word in baptism and the Lord’s supper. Am I leaving one out? Songs are structured by the word. It just fills everything. So our prayers are Word centered. We’re calling on the name of the Lord, calling on his character, reciting God’s promises back to him. We’re singing the word, not just portions or phrases that we like, but really thoughtful. Ya know, theologically driven songs rather than just theologically aware songs. We’re using our Bibles. If a service… You never see a Bible, physical Bible in your service. That says something to people, something that like that what we’re doing is ephemeral. It’s as transient as the iPhone or the, whatever people carry. So, those are some of the things just being very conscious that when people leave the meeting, they recognize, “Oh, they’ve sat…

BK: “They’re under the authority of something else than their own preferences or what’s trendy.” And the sad thing is that we can use the word of God in such a way that it serves our purposes. So you have very popular preachers and musicians taking a scripture here and there using it to do what they want to do, which could be anything from having a platform for themselves or increasing their ministry to making people feel happy. But not necessarily asking the question, “What has God said?” That’s what we’re responsible to communicate in our gatherings. And I think of Psalm 19, when you think of all the things that a meeting is supposed to accomplish, to refresh people, to open their eyes, to restore them.

DZ: Convict.

BK: Convict them. Psalms 19:7, “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple, the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing, the heart.” Even that idea… What’s gonna bring joy to the people in our congregation? Oh, how about the precepts of the Lord?

DZ: Amen.

BK: Oh, that’s so legalistic just to… And it can be done. The word can be used as a sledge hammer. The word can be used as where you’re trying to pour a hundred gallon truths into five gallon brains, and it can be used unwisely, but if the word doesn’t drive and fill what we do, we’re not worshiping God in the way he intends us to.

DK: We’re making one of the biggest mistakes you can make as a worship leader.

BK: Exactly.

[overlapping conversation]

DK: What you’re doing.

DZ: Exactly. One of the…

DK: Mistake number one.

BK: Seven biggest mistakes. Exactly.

DZ: Wait, that’s not on our list.

[laughter]

BK: Matthew 15:8-9, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” So, what happens… And maybe we can move on to the next point. What happens is we develop our own practices and whether they be technological or visual or personality or administrative, whatever, we develop our own practices. And we say this – or musical -, this is what worship is. And Jesus would speak to that. He would say, “You’re making doctrines out of the commandments of men.” So, yeah, there are a lot of ways, different ways we can do things, but don’t make it a doctrine. God’s word tells us what we are supposed to do as we worship Him, number one.

DK: Amen.

DZ: Yep.

DK: Number one, number two.

BK: Number two, making it about you rather than Jesus. David, I think you should talk about this since you have the most experience.

[laughter]

DK: You’ve made this mistake a lot.

BK: Just kidding.

[laughter]

BK: Just kidding.

DZ: So much. It’s so easy to platform. Just like, you see this as, “Oh, this is popular.” This is a popular platform for me to just get comfortable on.

BK: Do my thing.

DZ: And do my thing and bring what I have to write at the table.

DK: Well God has given so many gifts. He’s given me all these gifts. So people should be able to see them. And that’s why we’re here.

BK: We want to be blessed by them.

DK: Yeah. For sure.

DZ: Exactly.

BK: And sadly, again, you don’t know people’s hearts. You don’t. Only the Lord does, but what can come across visually in a lot of videos is an individual who’s upfront. All the videos, a lot of the video shots are close up. Their face is right here and it’s like, “This is just making me think about this person.” And for the person, I don’t know what it’s doing for the person, but it’s a little bit awkward when what I want to do is exalt Jesus, but “Boy, I sure am glad about how good I look right there.” Oh, that is so…

DK: Well but it’s interesting. The person more than likely doesn’t have anything to do with those production decisions.

BK: Right, that’s a great point.

DK: And so, that person could be very sincere but there is… There are maybe people around them that are also making it about them instead of Jesus. And I think that’s… Saying, make it about you, it’s not just the one person who’s actually doing something.

BK: Yes, there’s a team.

DK: There’s a lot of people that are involved in this.

BK: Team will make it about you. And they…

DK: So that you can be a plural. We all are making it about us instead of about Jesus.

BK: Go ahead.

DZ: Well, I was just gonna say, off of a big production scale, even in a small church, you can really create an identity as the worship leader of that’s who I am.

BK: Yes.

DZ: That’s what I do in my context. So in that, you’re making it more about yourself than about Jesus. It’s like, “I’m here to serve. I’m not here to platform.”

BK: Yes. I was gonna say it is… I think it falls upon the leader if that’s happening where a lot of people around me are making that happen, making it about me. It falls upon the leader to say, “We’re not gonna do this. We’re not gonna make it about me. I’m gonna, build into other people. We’re gonna make it about the congregation.” That’s really who we’re there to serve. So, the idea of me, this video, because that’s what we’re usually talking about. It doesn’t have to be a video. It could be Sunday mornings. They’re often they’re connected about whether it’s successful being determined by how good I looked, how well I did, that’s making it about me.

DZ: Yeah.

BK: It’s not about me. It’s not about my glory. It’s not about my success. It’s not about how well I did everything. It’s about, did people see the glory of God and the face of Jesus Christ? And am I more concerned about the praise from God, rather than praise from people? Because praise from God is gonna come as I exalt his son, Jesus Christ. That’s what brings praise from God. He’s gonna say yes, because that’s my son. I’m delighted in him. I’m well pleased with him. And when you are satisfied in him, when you exalt him, that blesses me. That pleases me.

DZ: Yeah.

BK: So Jesus said in John 5:44, this is what He says, “How can you believe when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” So I think that’s what we’re doing. We want this praise from people and we’re even willing to share it with Jesus [laughter]

DK: Right, right.

DZ: Well, and I think one subtle way that that happens, it ties back to point one of making it, putting God’s word first.

BK: Yes.

DZ: Is that we so often draw from our own experiences, our own thoughts and feelings about Jesus when we’re speaking or we’re on a platform and we’re sharing. That’s even just one subtle way that we can draw it back to Christ. I’m using scripture. I’m giving back to God what he’s given to me.

BK: Yes.

DZ: It’s not what I’m mustering up.

BK: Yes, yes. Doesn’t originate with me.

DZ: Right. It doesn’t originate with me.

DK: When we make it about us. There is this weird, I don’t know, a priest complex that goes on where we start to see ourselves as the dispenser of God’s blessings.

DZ: Yeah. Right.

DK: But God’s blessing is not found in us.

BK: No.

DK: In a sense.

DZ: Praise the Lord.

DK: It’s in Jesus Christ. I was thinking about Psalms 67 the other day, “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us.”

BK: Yes.

DK: And so as we gather, that’s what we want. We want God’s face to shine upon us. Not.

BK: Yes. Yes.

DK: My face or your face. We want the face of God to shine upon us. And does that through Jesus Christ.

BK: Yes.

DK: And so we gather to look to him, he is our great high priest and he is our… Its been used before, but Jesus Christ is our worship leader.

BK: Yes, yes.

DK: Not you.

BK: That is worth repeating.

DZ: So good.

DK: And we need to remember that and not make this big mistake.

BK: It’s a big mistake.

DK: Making it about us.

BK: Making it about you instead of Jesus.

DK: Instead of Jesus.

BK: Yeah and one of the signs that we’re doing that is when we get very anxious about leading and I’ve talked to numerous leaders who struggle with, oh, how’s it gonna go? Well, Jesus has come, he’s lived the perfect life. He’s died in our place for our sins. He’s risen from the dead he’s returned to his father. He’s reigning. He’s interceding for us. He’s coming back. The big stuff has been done, you don’t need to worry about oh.

DK: Yeah.

BK: Yeah. How’s it gonna look? How am I gonna do?

DZ: How am I gonna look?

BK: Yeah.

DZ: Yep, yep. Yep.

BK: The Lord may choose in his wisdom and his sovereignties to make you look bad so that Jesus can look better.

[laughter]

BK: And how many times we had situations like that, where you mess up.

DK: Have you ever had any of those?

BK: I remember one back in ’89. I think.

[laughter]

BK: Where…

DK: I had one where I think it was, I was leading, My Hope is Built On Nothing Less.

DZ: Yeah.

DK: And we were modulating into the final verse and so that’s…

BK: “When he should come.”

DK: When he should come and I started singing in Christ alone.

[laughter]

DK: And that was a low moment. [laughter]

BK: I wish I’d been there. But I don’t know if people came up, but often people come up say, “Oh, I just loved it when y’all messed up.”

DK: Yeah.

BK: It just made me feel you were so human and we’re all in this together.

DK: Because up until that moment, it just kind of.

DZ: I felt you were transcending.

[laughter]

DK: Yeah. Anything but human.

DZ: Oh my goodness.

BK: Okay. Absolutely. Okay. Enough on point number two, point number three, we’ve got seven points to go guys.

DZ: Yeah. These are big.

BK: And I wanna make sure we get to the end. Otherwise people will be left hanging.

DK: We might have to leave them hanging because these mistakes are so big.

DZ: Yeah.

DK: That they might not fit on one episode.

BK: Well that’s possible. All right. Number three, we talked about making it about you rather than Jesus. Number three, making it about you rather than the church.

DK: Ooh.

BK: Okay, so that’s different.

DZ: That’s a slight change from what you said previously.

BK: Which what I said, what do you mean?

DK: He said the church instead of Jesus. Is that the slight change?

DZ: Yeah. Yeah, that was really…

BK: Oh yes. Well, you have to know how to articulate these things so that they catch people off guard.

DZ: Yeah. Well I’m caught off guard.

DK: Well, there is an intentionality in the flow of these where, how we think about what we do begins with God. And so it begins with God and how do we know God, we know God through his word and what he has said.

BK: Yes.

DK: And so then from there, it’s the priority first is this is about him.

BK: Yes.

DK: And so as we start not making it about you making it about Jesus, this is derivative of that. Not making it about you, but the church. And so we’re speaking to a congregationally prioritized way of thinking about.

BK: Yes.

DZ: Excellent.

DK: What we do as we gather.

BK: Yeah. You see in the Psalms so many times and the Psalms is just, God gave us the Psalms for a number of reasons. It’s His word, but it gives us a model of what our relationship with Him is meant to look like.

DZ: Yeah.

BK: And a number of times the Psalmist says, well Psalms 111:1, praise the Lord. “I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart in the company of the upright.”

DZ: Yeah.

BK: “In the congregation.” We haven’t gathered just to have our individual isolated worship experiences with God. We are doing this in the midst of the congregation. And I’m sure, we said a number of times in the podcast, the band, the musicians are members of the congregation before anything else, we are members of the congregation. We are going to lead musically. We are going to pastor through what we say, we’re going to help hold things together, but we are not the ones doing the worshiping and everybody else watching, or we’re not the channel to God. We are a part of the congregation, so practically…

DK: So what’s going on corporately is more important.

BK: Yes.

DK: Than what’s going on.

DZ: Yeah.

DK: Up front and this hits on how we think about who we are as Christians.

DZ: Yep.

DK: In relation to God. And so do we think of ourselves as is it primarily on me and God, like God saved me, which yes he did but that the particularity of salvation is corporate in its dimension.

BK: Yes.

DK: And so God saves a people and that’s how God has always worked throughout history. He saves a people. And so when we think of ourselves as being in Christ, it’s not just, I am in Christ.

BK: Yes.

DK: It’s we are in Christ and we’re a part of Christ’s body. It’s not, I am Christ’s body, it’s we are Christ’s body. And that’s how Paul in particular speaks of being a Christian, he’s writing these letters to churches. And he says, you are in Christ. And we read that oh, yeah, I’m in Christ, great.

[laughter]

DK: But it’s no it’s you as the church body are in Christ. And so as we gather together, we should go with that awareness. That oh no, it’s not just me and my experience it’s what is God doing among us? How is God shaping us? And that really changes. I think what we prioritize.

BK: Yes.

DK: I know that we’ve talked about this on another podcast before related to those five values. But it really… It’s like the eyes are off me.

BK: Yes.

DZ: Yes.

DK: Even in that past one, where we were just talking about the past mistake, number two big mistake.

BK: Number two.

DK: When we talk about that…

BK: Making it about you rather than Jesus.

DK: But the pressure that people feel.

BK: Yes.

DK: I’ve had conversations with people about that. And I think if we have our perspective rightly informed by who we are and what we’re about, it’s like, I can’t… I don’t relate to that pressure.

BK: Yeah. Sure.

DK: ‘Cause it’s not about me.

BK: Right.

DK: And if I wasn’t upfront in this context, what I would be doing, like how I would be participating wouldn’t really change. I’m here for the same reasons, seeking to do the same things as we look to Jesus and seek to be conformed to his image together.

BK: You have the added responsibility for the leader of making sure the band is playing together.

DK: There’s some logistics.

BK: Yeah. Some logistic things. But I agree. I don’t understand when people say “Oh it’s so hard leading or, just, it’s nice to just be off”. And there can be week to week.

DK: There are some practical implications.

BK: Yes, yes. But from your heart, just what you said, you’re doing the same thing.

DZ: Yeah.

BK: You’re part of the congregation.

DZ: It’s not autonomy.

BK: No.

DZ: As a “worship leader.” And then I think you can… That can be slippery because “I’m the one that’s practicing, I’m the one that’s talented or gifted” or quotes all in quotes.

BK: Yes.

DZ: You lose that perspective quickly. But just what you’re saying, you’re joining in.

BK: Yes.

DZ: You’re collectively.

BK: Which brings up some questions. So when I’ll get questions sometimes at the Sovereign Grace Music, they’ll say can you offer your music which we offer for free by the way, can you offer me music like in… When a girl leads and when a guy leads? And I’ll say, well, no we try to do.

DK: We have congregations that have both men and women [laughter]

BK: So you’re not serving somebody. So we try to give keys that our congregation can sing. And we’ve talked about this before. C to C is ideal. Everybody can typically sing C to C.

DZ: Yeah.

BK: But it’s just that mindset that says, Oh no, whoever’s singing the melody.

DK: Let’s make sure they sound the best.

BK: Make sure they sound the best. So doesn’t have to be that context. It could be a tenor who likes… They just sound really good in Es and Fs and F sharps. And so, Chris Tomlin now the great thing is you don’t have to do Chris Tomlin songs in the keys that he does them in, or anybody, you have to do Sovereign Grace songs in the keys we do ’em in.

DZ: Right.

BK: But you should…

DZ: Especially not Devon’s keys.

BK: Especially no… Devon has a good key, he sings in good keys. His voice is kind of…

DK: God gave me a congregational voice. It’s kind of an everyman voice.

BK: In more ways than one. But you… Chris is a worship artist. I don’t know Chris, I’ve met him once, but he sings in…

DK: God has gifted him with a higher register.

BK: Yes. And so that’s great. But when you stand in front of your congregation, you are seeking to serve everybody there.

DZ: Yeah.

BK: And so if you make it about you, rather than the church, you’ll be singing songs in keys that you sound great in…

DZ: Totally.

BK: Or maybe with ranges that you sound great in or tessitura, songs with tessitura, where you sound great in the average place where the song hangs out and you just can’t wait for that octave jump because that’s where you sound so great. And you’ll think everybody’s gonna love this. And a lot of people just styain’ down low and they can’t do it because that’s not where they can sing. Any other ways that we can make it about us rather than the church?

DK: What would you say as a just as a musician, as somebody who’s accompanying not necessarily singing, he spoke to keys. What are ways that we make it about us?

DZ: Oh, Yeah. We talked about it on the drum podcast, but just overplaying, playing loudly, really no awareness that there’s other people around you, not listening.

BK: Yes.

DZ: I think a lot of those things and then…

DK: Listening, I think that…

DZ: Absolutely.

DK: Just pausing on.

DZ: Yeah.

DK: And just whether you’re a member of the congregation or you’re playing an instrument up front.

DZ: Yep.

DK: If it’s about us, we wanna listen.

BK: Yes.

DZ: Absolutely.

DK: And so we wanna listen to other people singing.

BK: Yes, yes.

DK: We want to, listen to other instruments playing. Like, there’s this other awareness that we really should cultivate.

BK: Yes.

DZ: Yeah.

DK: Because again, we are the body of Christ. We are a people bought by the blood of Jesus Christ.

BK: Yeah.

DZ: And also encouraging leaders or musicians to engage in the service, in the sermon, in the preaching of the word. It’s not a time that you check out or go to the green room. That’s when you’re engaging.

BK: Yes, yes.

DZ: You’re always engaging whether you’re playing or not. We’ve said that, but it’s worth repeating again.

DK: That’s good.

BK: Yeah. We’re not there to perform. We’re not there just to show up and do our gig.

DZ: Yeah.

BK: We are there as part of the body of Christ. We are there as part of this church, hopefully to experience all that God has for us through His word, through the gospel, through the work in the spirit, in that gathering.

DK: Yeah.

BK: The fact that we get to serve in one way is no difference than someone who’s serving as a greeter, someone who’s serving as in administration, in the children’s ministry, wherever we’re all using our gifts to build off the body of Christ to build us into each other. God does that by his Spirit. So it’s just something that involves all of us. And no one is set apart in a special way. That makes us so different from everybody else. Yeah. So we have to hear the congregation. We have to be aware of the congregation. I think that this affects arrangements as well. We can be so happy with an arrangement that makes it difficult for the congregation to sing. That’s so diff… Maybe a familiarity but different musical accompaniment and it’s…

DZ: Yes.

BK: We’re thriving.

DK: Or an extended instrumental break.

BK: Extended instrumentals, yep.

DZ: Right.

DK: Where it’s like as musicians, you’re like “Oh this is awesome. This is great.”

BK: Yeah.

DZ: Right.

DK: And everybody in the congregations is just kinda like.

DZ: Just watching.

DK: All right.

BK: Okay, okay to listen.

DK: All right. When’s it gonna be over? All right. When do I start singing again? [laughter]

BK: So…

DZ: Yeah.

BK: A lot of ways not just you can make about you individually, but about the musicians.

DZ: Yes.

BK: And I think you mentioned the green room.

DZ: Right.

BK: Oh Lord, please. Don’t let us have churches where we have green rooms, at least a green room culture.

DZ: A green room culture.

BK: That could be a place for someone to rest. And, but you… There… It says something to the church when you’re done and you walk down off the stage and you… Whatever you call it, the platform. And you sit with congregation, that’s what should be happening. And I want people to see that, I want people to see, okay, I’m leading, but now I’m sitting under the authority of God’s word, the preaching.

DZ: Yes.

DK: But, and just it’s having that conviction that God is here.

BK: Yeah.

DK: Before we showed up, God was here and God is here as we gathered together and God intends to do something.

BK: Yes.

DK: Through this whole time. And if I’ve got that expectation and that…

BK: Yes.

DK: Something is to bless His people and to build them if that’s something is worth sticking around for.

BK: Yes.

DK: I wanna be there and we forget that. We just… We make it about us. And so it’s like, all right, my part’s done, I’m out.

DZ: Right.

BK: Yeah.

DZ: Right.

BK: Okay guys, we’ve covered three points.

DZ: Wow.

DK: Three big mistakes.

DZ: Well, and I think we’re almost running out of time.

BK: I think we have to have a second podcast on this.

DZ: So I think…

BK: So this is just three of the seven biggest mistakes you can make as worship leader.

DK: Number six. You will not believe.

DZ: Yeah. Tune in next week.

BK: Can I reiterate what they are?

DZ: Yes.

BK: Just in case people are wondering, if they’ve already forgotten. One, not going to the Bible first. Two, making it about you rather than Jesus. Three, making it about you rather than the church. Three of the biggest mistakes you can make as a worship leader.

DZ: Don’t do these, tune in next week.

BK: Alright. Hey…

DK: Boom.

BK: But thanks for joining us this time.

DZ: Yes.