Who Should Lead?

In a worship team, who should be leading? The worship leader or the band director? The worship leader is the one who leads the congregation. The band director is the one who leads the musicians. So if you look at it that way, the worship leader is the one who should be leading everyone.

Including the musicians.

This is of course a VERY ideal case. In real life, however, sometimes

1. The worship leader is new and doesn't know or understand the flow of worship dynamics; or
2. The worship leader doesn't know the technical aspects of the music, such as how to put the songs in a suitable key for the congregation to sing comfortably.

In such a situation, hopefully the band director will be an anchor worship musician and thus able to provide practical advice and support for the worship leader. If not, we end up with a lousy situation, a worship leader with a spiritual vision for the session (what kind of spiritual fruit should result) and a band director with a musical vision (what he/she wants the music to sound like). If they are heading different directions from the beginning, the chances of unifying the praises of the people are slim to none.

During the practice:

Band directors should just focus on getting the music right. Worship leaders, if you don't know the details of the music, you'll have to trust the band directors on this. On your part, you should tell the band director if the key is too uncomfortable to sing in.

Hopefully, that would not be because your personal singing range is too different from the congregation! Because if it is, then any key comfortable for you would be bad for the congregation, and vice versa. You may then need to think about switching to some other form of ministry, like maybe prophetic singing or evangelistic singing…

During the worship:

At this time, if you are the anchor musician, remember to give space to the worship leader and follow his or her lead. You may be able to subtly nudge the worship leader and musicians the direction you prefer, but that does not mean that you have to, or you ought to, all the time.

Remember: maturity in Christ comes when every member of the Body of Christ participates in the ministry.

Eph 4:15-16 - Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

So what you should aim for is to have the worship leaders able to lead effectively, but with their own individual personality coming through also. We all have our own quirks and preferences. A new worship leader may be able to introduce new songs to the congregation or do things that we can't because it's not congruent with us.

We are to make disciples not duplicates (Matt 28:19). So we need to know what are the essentials, what we should not compromise on, and what are the peripherals, what we can give people room to experiment with and even make mistakes in.

Conclusion:

As I said earlier, in an ideal world the worship leaders should be the real leaders, in both the musical and spiritual aspects. But God has his own plan, journey AND schedule for your church and congregation. I have a decent grasp of both, but if you are stronger at one aspect than another I strongly urge you to team up with people who cover your weaknesses and hold your hand as you grow in experience and confidence.

And if you are called to support others in their growth, don't micro-manage! Major on the majors and take it easy on the minors. And if you aren't sure which is which, you can always just email, right?