This little pocket of encouragement came out of inspiration from one of our services a few weeks ago. The words “Come on church“ were said possibly fifteen times across four songs.

“Come on church, let’s sing”

“Come on church, lift your voice”

“Come on church…” etc

In our debrief before the second service, I encouraged the worship leaders to use the phrase “Come on” once… maybe twice at a pinch and set both worship leaders the challenge.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with saying “Come on church” or “Church why don’t you lift your hands” or any other common phrase:

• Put your hands together
• Let’s give God a shout of praise
• Hands up 
• Come on, we sing…
• Sing your own song
• Let’s sing together
• [or insert any other variation of the fave go to’s, we could go on for days]

The point is to be intentional and not overuse any particular phrase or tool. This is where timing comes in.

TIMING 

• Chose your moment well when asking the congregation to lift in any way. For example, an encouragement to shout or sing a new song or lift hands in the wrong moment can do the opposite. Eg If you encourage the congregation to lift their hands then go to a soft moment, or transition a song it can fall flat. However, an encouragement to lift their hands before a building chorus or bridge might just the ‘tool’ to have everyone pressing in together.
• If you wanna use “let’s sing” use it before a familiar part of a song. Don’t start with let’s sing before the first line of the song. Not everyone is musical- they don’t know what you’re singing. ‘Let’s sing becomes a throwaway line….
• If you ask people to sing a new song, then lead by example. Don’t leave them hanging. Let the progression be familiar and safe. Make sure vocals are all singing too. Asking people to sing their own song in an unfamiliar progression will leave them silent and unsure.
• Change gears slowly. How many times do we start with a high energy song, lots of smiles then finish into song two the immediately everyone shuts their eyes and disconnects with the people. Open eyes at the top of service. We are connecting, celebrating with them, reminding them of the goodness of God. Of course, close your eyes, but timing…. be intentional and your role is to lead people. We do this by connecting with them first.
• Timing of an exhortation can make or break its usefulness. Eg “Let’s sing”….. then eight bars later we actually start singing. Actually practise how many words you can fit in before a chorus/bridge. Confidence is key. To be honest, this is one area I have to constantly practise. Timing as in actually timing 1,2,3,4 is one area I have to be so intentional about. So often I have been caught out encouraging the congregation with a phrase only to have it half cut off by the words of the next part of the song, or worse yet, I miss the next part of the song because of my encouragement and have an extremely long interval before we can ‘get back on the ramp.’ When this happens you lose momentum AND lose confidence. So particularly when I’m learning a new song, I practise what I can fit in before the next part of a song.

Wanna go next level?

Here’s a thought: Record yourself leading worship and listen back and identify the number of different tools you use when leading. Did you share a bible verse? That’s a tool. Prayed? Tool. Asked congregation to lift their hands? Tool. Allowed a moment of rest, and softness: tool.

How many tools do you have in your belt? To grow in the skill of worship leading we need to grow in the number of tools we have in our belt to use AND sensitivity to the timing of when we use each tool, how often we use each tool and how we use the tools.

Please don’t write me letters about how worship leading is more than just a skill. Yes, yes there is a huge spiritual component, I talk a lot about that and am the first to say I prepare as much spiritually than I do practically every time I lead. However, for the love of people, the craft, creativity and a desire to lead people well, we need to get better at this stuff. Yes, we need to prepare spiritually but we also need to pay attention to the practical skills too.

Next up: Revealing Jesus in our exhortation.