Worship Leaders are Theologians.
If I were to sit down with someone over coffee who is interested in beginning to lead worship and they would say “where do I begin?” I would say start with your theology. What do you believe, why do you believe it, and how will it help you be the best worship leader you can be? Otherwise, how do we know where to begin? If we are talking about the worship of Almighty God, we’d better not start with what we think.
I can remember being a senior in highschool and my Student Pastor finding out I can sing a little bit and could play guitar well enough to make it through three songs while the person running the overhead could move the transparency for people to know what to sing. Yeah, I’m that old. I mean I knew the basics. Love Jesus. He died for us. We are singing to Him. But beyond those basics… I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I need a solid theology of worship to help me know what’s important, to know what to focus on, and to know if I’m doing it right. Without a theology of worship, I have no map to guide me or no compass to show me true north as I lead others to revel in the glory of God and to respond to it in worship. Theology literally means “study of God” and if we add “worship” to that we are just trying to see what God has to say about how He is to be worshiped. And no other voice matters but His in the how and the what and they why of worship.
If I were sitting across from you at a coffee shop enjoying a delicious pour-over: I would want to help you decipher… are you wanting the stage? Are you wanting the youtube moments? Or are you wanting to raise people’s gaze from the mundane of life to the majesty of a Savior? If you don’t start with a theology of worship, you’ll end up trying to plant the fruit of what you see on the latest worship band’s highlight reel into the ground of your local church and it won’t produce anything. You have to plant the theology of worship that is robust, Biblically-saturated, and gospel-centered… then you are starting at the right spot. If you want to know how to lead worship start with spending time, deep time studying what the author of your soul, which was made for worship says about it. Get to know the Savior who made the way for you to be even able to worship Him, how He fulfilled the OT covenant, and how His death and resurrection is the power and the center of all of your worship leading. You want to be a worship leader? First, be a worship theologian.