How to Prepare to Lead Worship
How do you prepare to lead the church in worship on Sunday morning?
Whether you prepare well or prepare poorly before Sunday, you’re a leader when you step on the stage. At Rock Point, we have a new “Manifesto of a Worshipping Team” that is our battle cry as worship leaders. The sixth affirmation of our manifesto is this:
"We choose confidence and excellence, not perfectionism." We represent Christ our King well by doing everything with excellence, as if it was for the King of the Universe instead of just for men--but we remember that we serve because Jesus loves us instead of trying to earn His love. We are confident in our position in Christ, secure in Him, and not in our abilities. We humbly seek to grow in our craft while growing our hearts, grateful to share and grow the talents God has given us! When we are secure in our identity in Jesus, we seek to be confident in our craft so we can focus on leading our church instead of “just” playing music. We actively seek to grow as musicians, vocalists, and worship leaders to present our best gifts to God and His church.
What does this affirmation look like in practice? It means we prepare for Sunday, because we believe that building craft builds confidence, and confidence shows up. It shows in how you lead on the stage, and then in how you interact with the church off it. We want to be worship leaders who lead our church in worship that is thankful and joyful--we want to exalt the Lord and give Him the praise only He deserves. We get in our own way of accomplishing this goal when we are more focused on playing music than we are leading worship.
We believe that when the church gathers, we should posture our hearts, heads, and hands according to the Word--worship leaders take it one step further and say we need to prepare our hearts, heads, and hands to lead well. This is part of the “leaders are held more accountable” theme we see in scripture. Psalm 100:1-2 says to the congregants, “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!” (ESV). Notice, the only descriptor is “noisy” and “glad.” Also, Psalm 33:1 says, “Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous! Praise befits the upright.” We are told to “shout” and “praise.” But for the worship leaders, the next verses say this: “Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre; make melody to Him with the harp of ten strings! Sing to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts. For the Word of the Lord is upright, and all His work is done in faithfulness” (Ps. 33:2-4, ESV).
Do you see the connection? Because God is faithful in all of His work, the people should be faithful to praise Him--and the worship leaders should be faithful to lead well. The people just have to make a jofyul shout: the worship leaders ought to play skillfully. So, this guide is a help in our journey of craft. Why? Because building craft builds confidence, and confidence shows up.
Now, we recognize that if you are reading this, you are likely a volunteer. You may not be a musician as your full-time occupation--you likely have a busy job and a busy family. We are not trying to compete for the time you should be rightly be spending elsewhere in your life. We have, however, provided an ideal to aim for so you can feel prepared spiritually, mentally, and practically by the time you arrive on Sunday morning to lead.
First, a few encouragements:
This guide is not exhaustive: we encourage you to spend time growing as a musician outside of your preparation for a Sunday. Our team would love to provide you with resources to help you grow as a musician. Learning music theory, new techniques for your particular instrument, or spending time jamming can all be great ways of growing your craft. Those are not part of this guide, but you should be finding ways to stoke your enjoyment in your instrument to fuel you to grow.
This guide is not a mandatory way to prepare: we’re not going to police this from a staff perspective. We wanted to provide an ideal we can all shoot for so we can talk as a team about how we prepare!
This guide assumes you are engaging in our process at Rock Point, that you worship, walk, work, and witness with us as a church. We are also assuming you are striving to be in God’s Word every day. We will always, always affirm that we want you to prioritize growing in your relationship with Jesus before growing as a musician. That’s why craft is #6 on the manifesto--right behind “We choose character over competence.” That (hopefully) is a given, but we wanted to make that clear!
We also have made available an actual 7-day practice method for you to try, but for this post we’re going to focus on the big picture of preparation. You can find that practice method (and this entire post in PDF form!) at www.myrpchurch.org/rockpointworship.
Okay, let’s dive in! Here’s how we believe you can feel prepared to lead on a Sunday morning!
Prepare your heart to lead well.
The first thing to prepare is your heart. There are so many ways for you to prepare your heart before Sunday, and it’s something that everyone should do before coming to church.
One of my favorite worship leaders is a guy named Phil Wickham--we sing a lot of his songs on Sundays. In a podcast he was on with Worship Online, he tells the story of how his mother would remind him every time he got on stage, “Take a moment to remember what God has saved you from.” This is so vital for worship leaders. Remember the gospel in your heart to prepare your heart to lead. God made you to know Him, but your sin separated you from Him. But God, rich in mercy and love, sent Jesus to die on a cross in your place so you could know Him again. He gave you an everlasting love, an eternal hope, a firm foundation, a worthy mission, and an abiding friendship--in Him, your soul can finally be satisfied.
The Gospel is the goodness of God. We are compelled to sing by His goodness--we are prepared to lead worship when our hearts are motivated by that goodness. Not by a desire to be seen or applauded by people. Not by a desire to work our way into God’s good graces. Not to explore the depths of our creativity or just enjoy music. We lead people in worship because we have been saved by God to worship--and we want everyone to join us!
Saturating your heart in the truths of the Gospel will prepare your heart to lead well.
Prepare your head to lead well.
You also need to prepare your head well. This is the mental preparation arena. There is already so much to balance in a week, but God gives us wisdom to order our lives well for His glory! Think practically about how to organize your week, how to optimize your time for preparing your hands, and how to serve your family, work, and church well all at the same time.
Here are some ways to prepare mentally:
Identify your priorities. Just like all of life, your week has priorities. Your family, if you have one, comes first--we’re going to encourage that every single time. If your work week (or course load, if you’re a student) is going to be too much, ask for a personnel switch as early as you can. This is especially important when setting blockout dates in PCO each month: the more proactive you are about your schedule means the fewer scheduling conflicts we have. That means we operate as a much less stressed team!
Schedule time to practice. Don’t neglect your family or your work to practice for Sunday, but think proactively about how you will prepare spiritually and practically. Schedule your pockets during the week to listen and practice to the music. Think about when you can spend thirty minutes a day, or perhaps an hour every two days. Consistency is your path to success in achieving the practice schedule we’ve provided below. Make a plan for when you are going to practice, and stick to it!
Plan your Saturday with your Sunday morning in mind. You will be at your most alert and ready by getting a good night’s sleep on Saturday night. Saturday is a great day to prepare--most people don’t work or have class on that day, so it’s prime time to enjoy fellowship with others and get some good time in to prepare for Sunday! Also think about your family’s plan when you serve on Sunday: how will you take care of your family and not neglect them when you have to be at church early in the morning?
Make time to play, not just practice. Why is this a mental preparation? It’s really not, but it fits here because it’s a sensible precaution against burnout. “All work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy.” Look intentionally for opportunities to enjoy music outside of prepping for Sunday. This will do two things for you: It will keep you enjoying the gift of music God has given you, and it will keep you from making Sunday into something it’s not. Sunday is not about our highest musicianship or greatest creative expression: It’s about singing together as a whole church. Proactively enjoying music outside of the context of the church will protect you from that.
These are just some ways to prepare your mind to lead well on Sunday. This is not your job, but having a proactive mindset is the next best thing to a professional one.
Prepare your hands to lead well.
Lastly, it is important to prepare your hands to lead well. Although this will likely take the most quantity of time in a week to prepare, it is third on this list intentionally. We choose character over competence--that’s the order of priorities here. It is vastly more important to be a person who can be modeled after in the economy of the Lord than to play David’s secret chords and woo the ear with amazing musicianship. Often, however, we allow ourselves to say “It’s more important to prepare my heart, so I can skip on preparing my hands.” Not so fast! Let’s read Colossians 3:23-24, which says, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ” (ESV). I hope there is a little bit of a fire lit beneath you thinking about that. God says we can worship Him in every moment of our lives--in our work, in our play, in our preparation, and on Sunday morning when we gather. Let’s remember who all of that is for: it’s for Jesus the King.
As you remember that, also remember that He is Jesus our Brother, Jesus our Savior, Jesus our Shepherd, Jesus our Friend. The One who is our Lord forever is our nearest companion. So work hard for Him because He is worthy of it--and work hard for Him because His goodness compels you to give everything you have.
So, how do we prepare our hands well?
Obviously, practicing is the answer. You have the setlist as early as ten days before Sunday. We double-check our multitracks and charts every Monday so our practice resources are fresh and ready to go. We link to practice lessons and walkthroughs on Worship Online, Austin Stone Worship Resources, and wherever we can get them to you. Those are resources to use when you prepare.
At Rock Point, we have rehearsal on Wednesday evening--right in the middle of the week. This is intentional: it’s an opportunity to work on meshing together as a band, and it’s an opportunity to check our preparation at the halfway point. It’s a great opportunity to test where your level of preparedness is.
But, there is good practice and there is bad practice. Sarah Kay, author of No Matter the Wreckage, said, “Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes permanent. Repeat the same mistakes over and over, and you don’t get any closer to Carnegie Hall.” Vince Lombardi more famously put it this way: “Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.”
Why you should try this preparation method!
The goal of this process is not to execute your part perfectly as a musician. It’s to ensure you are so confident musically and filled up spiritually that come Sunday morning, you don’t have to apply nearly as much mental energy to the music. You can focus on joining and leading our church in worship. Your hands know what to do, and you’re saturated in the “how” that it becomes background movement. Now you can keep singing with the church at the forefront of your mind. You can focus on fellowshipping. On praying. On God’s Word.
Can you do those things without preparing like this? Of course--you may not feel 100% confident every weekend you serve. You may even follow this process and still not feel totally prepared! That’s perfectly okay when we remember three things.
First, we rely on the power of the Holy Spirit instead of our own. We believe that God cares about His church singing more than the quality of our musicianship. As Keith Getty puts it in “Sing,” God is far more concerned with your integrity than your tunefulness. That should give you confidence when you make mistakes or don’t feel prepared. Showing up really is the most important part.
Second, we pursue excellence out of a heart of gratitude and adoration. We should not do a single thing from a heart of trying to earn God’s love. We could never earn it--and thankfully we never have to! God has given us all things freely through Christ Jesus. If you have been saved by His grace, He loves you as a dearly beloved child. You can find your identity in that: not in a misplaced desire to earn His love by being good enough morally or even, dare I say it, by playing well enough on Sunday morning.
Third, we do pursue excellence to utilize well the talents that God has given us, to lead our church well, to enjoy God’s gifts of music, and to grow as people who are learning to be more like Jesus. Those goals do not require perfection--and in fact, we want to stamp out the lure of perfectionism wherever we can! But we can positively motivate ourselves to grow in our craft. We want to see a slow upward motion on the graph of our ability, just as we see a slow upward motion on the graph of our faithfulness. The goal of craft is confidence--not identity.
Let me say it again: “The goal of craft is confidence--not identity.”
Or to beat a dead horse: “Craft builds confidence, and confidence shows up.” Let’s just keep showing up.
So, we challenge you to try this process to help you feel prepared to lead on Sunday morning! We think this process will help you stay focused and motivated in your practice so that our team is united in preparation and operating at peak efficiency--not for our own glory, but for the glory of Jesus Christ. You can always ask questions during the week, or anytime! We would be happy to help.
You are loved, and you are sent!
Rhett Thomas
Worship and Creative Director