The concept of the role of worship leader has deep biblical roots. From the trumpeters leading the army of God into battle, to King David dancing before the Ark of the Covenant as it was brought into Jerusalem, those who went before the people of God in worship found a unique place in God's economy. Today, while the settings have changed, the distinctive roles of the worship leader have not. Those who lead in worship still fulfill the same roles that have existed through the ages. The fulfillment of these roles creates an environment from which worship emanates.
We often hear worshipers express the desire to move to "the next level" in worship. This is a worthy goal and a noble endeavor. But for many the path is elusive. It is not the result of greater effort or better technique. The path to the higher road is found by pointing our worship leadership to the roles clearly modeled in the Word of God.
Let us examine the enduring roles of the worship leader.
Inviter
First, the worship leader is the Inviter. In the role of inviter, the worship leader calls people to come and enter into the presence of God. Jesus described the coming Kingdom as a party to which one has been invited (Luke 14). The worship leader extends God's invitation to join in the celebration as it is set in motion.
The inviter uses God's own words of invitation. Some examples:
Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest... (Matthew 11:28)
O magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together... (Psalm 34:3)
I was glad when they said unto me, "Let us go into the house of the Lord"... (Psalm 122:1)
Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! (Isaiah 55:1)
Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him... (Psalm 33:8)
Come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our God, our Maker. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand. (Psalm 95:6-7)
Invoker
As the Invoker, the worship leader calls upon the presence of God and reminds us that He is present with us. The Invoker stands with us and through his words to us (whether his own words or words of scripture) says, "Here's God! He's meeting us right here, right now, just as He promised!" The Invoker creates a sense of awe in us by reminding us that we are in the presence of the living God.
Some examples:
The Lord is in His holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before Him... (Habakkuk 2:20)
Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age... (Matthew 28:20)
Identifier
Identification, either through scripture or storytelling, is one of the most powerful ways to draw people into God's presence. Identification is the act of the worship leader creating a "real" situation in which the worshiper can say, "That's where I am!" Identification may be through a story that draws others in and then lets their emotional identification be the vehicle through which you draw them into the presence of God. The visual image of what you are doing is putting them in a wagon and pulling them along, and where you're pulling them to...is to Jesus.
For example, worshipers are singing, "To see You high and lifted up, shining in the light of Your glory, pour out Your power and love, as we sing 'Holy, holy, holy.'" As the music continues, the worship leader begins quoting from Isaiah 6: "In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and lifted up. His train filled the temple and the seraphim around Him cried out 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.'" Then the worship leader recounts Isaiah's reaction: "Woe unto me! I am a man of unclean lips." And God's response follows: "Your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven..."
Other biblical passages of identification:
I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me to drink... (Matthew 25:35)
While he was yet a long way off, his father saw him, and felt compassion for him, and ran to meet him... (Luke 15:20)
I was blind but now I see... (John 9:25)
Proclaimer
As Proclaimer, the worship leader speaks the truth of the gospel to God's people. The gospel is good news and the good news delivered by God's word is cause for rejoicing! Proclamation can be inserted at any point in the worship experience. The gifted worship leader will have a repertoire of good news scriptures for a variety of circumstances.
Examples:
He whom the Son sets free is free indeed... (John 8:36)
Your sins are forgiven...go and sin no more... (Luke 7:48; John 8:11)
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness... (1 John 1:9)
Spokesman for the People
As our representative, the worship leader speaks to God on our behalf. He speaks with an "us" voice or with a single voice as a representative of the congregation. We recognize his voice as being our voice because he has identified with us.
Examples:
Lord, we come to You...
Open the eyes of our heart, Lord, we want to see Jesus...
Sir, we want to see Jesus... (John 12:21)
Spokesman for God
As a representative for God, the worship leader speaks to God's people with His voice. Just as the Spirit moved the prophets, he doesn't say, "In the Bible it says..." He doesn't say, "In First John chapter 3 it says..." And unless the scripture says, "And Jesus said..." or "The Lord said...” he doesn't say that either. He simply speaks the word directly, sometimes even apparently arrogantly (but not), rather in a spirit of humility, in the first person.
For example:
I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly... (John 10:10)
In my Father's house are many mansions...I go to prepare a place for you... (John 14:2)
The Orchestrator of the Spirit and Emotional Response
Using music with invitation, invocation, and identification, the worship leader draws us to God by bringing us into His presence. Using proclamation and his role as spokesman, the worship leader speaks God's word as we are gathered in His presence. It is done very much in the sense (without verbalizing it this way) "People, meet your God" and "God, meet your people."
The worship leader functions as the introducer. The worship leader is the one who knows both parties intimately: "Ma'am, I believe I know someone who can help you, who can give you just what you need." "O holy God, here is someone who longs to know you and who you can gather as one of your own and touch her heart."
The Worship Leader's Persona
Can a worship leader ever be down? A worship leader can come in the spirit of Psalm 130 ("Out of the depths I have cried to Thee, O Lord...") for the purpose of identification and perhaps even testimony, if that's where he or she is. But worship does not leave us there. It is the worship leader's responsibility to lead us out of that place.
In the Poseidon Adventure, the ship capsized and the people were trapped inside. They were desperate to get out but didn't know which way to go. A leader arose and said, "Follow me!" He gave the people hope and led them--through many tests and much difficulty--to their rescue. We must follow one in whom we have the utmost confidence that he knows the way out, even though he's in the same "boat" that we are.
The worship leader ministers the word of God to himself in worship. If his own spirit does not leap for joy, if his own spirit is not pierced by the word of God, then he is not speaking the word in power. In fact, it is only as the Spirit of God creates two things that worship happens:
First, the word of God creates an internal affirmation; the sense of "Yes!" Just like the woman at the well who, when she heard Jesus' words (even though they weren't the words she wanted to hear) said, "This man knows me!" (John 4:29). The internal affirmation is that confirmation inside us that says this is truth, whether we like it or not! When the disciples were on the road to Emmaus, they spoke to each other, saying, "Didn't our hearts burn within us while He was speaking to us...?" (Luke 24:32) That's the internal affirmation that the word of God has been spoken.
The second thing that happens when the worship leader speaks the truth is not just an internal "yes!" but there's an internal (and sometimes an external) leaping for joy, a hallelujah! Our holy God has spoken! The result of being a "right divider" of the word is that the word produces a powerful response in the hearer when it has been rightly applied. The word can only be rightly applied when the worship leader knows the heart of God, knows His voice, knows His word, and knows His people. It comes from spending time with God and with those who make up the congregation of those who gather to worship. To "rightly divide" the word is the privilege of communicating each heart to the other: God's people's heart to God, and God's heart to His people.
It doesn't work for the worship leader to come into a service and say, "I don't know where you all are this morning." The worship leader must know. Whether he knows supernaturally by revelation, whether he knows by identification, or whether he just starts with his own week, he must know. He must look at and listen to the body before and during the service. He can ask the pastors what kinds of things they heard from the body that week.
When the word is spoken out, the effect is much like what is portrayed in the movie Hoosiers. The basketball team from a tiny high school is huddled in the locker room before the state finals about to play a team from a school many times their size. They are about to enter an arena that seats tens of thousands of people. They have never even seen anything like this before. At the end of his instructions to the team, the coach turns to the minister, "Reverend..." The pastor opens his Bible, and without introductory comment, without citing book, chapter, or verse, he begins simply to read the word of God: "And David put his hand into his bag and took from it a stone and slung it, and it struck the Philistine on his forehead...and he fell on his face to the ground. Thus David prevailed over Goliath..."
And the word of God has such impact, such power, just laid there...openly.
David oftentimes switches from third person to first person when referring to God in the Psalms. He'll be talking about God, and then all of a sudden his words are the voice of God speaking in the first person. The worship leader needs to make that seamless transition back and forth, speaking to God, speaking for God. It is here that the worship leader truly functions as a minister of the word.
Brokenness and the Worship Leader
There's a passage in Revelation that talks about the streets being pure gold, and yet they were transparent: "And the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass" (Revelation 21:21b). This is an analogy of what is of value to God. What is priceless (gold) in God's eyes is the transparency of His children--in the brokenness of His people. "For those whom the Lord loves, He disciplines" (Hebrews 12:6). He chastises. He chastens. There is a sweet aroma about one like Jacob who walks with a limp because he has encountered the living God.
In order to lead others to the throne of grace, the worship leader must be transparent before God and before God's people. He must be a person of unusual openness, a person who is willing to bare his heart, his shortcomings, his understanding of the cry of the human heart, for the sake of bringing the people of God into God's presence.
A worship leader who is not real before God can only lead people so far. A worship leader, who (unlike Adam) has nothing to hide before God because he has confessed it all and laid himself open before God, can come into God's presence because he knows he's been forgiven and accepted by God. And a worship leader who knows he's been forgiven and accepted can call others, lead others, and bring others into that place where they are hesitant to go because of their own shame, sinfulness, or unwillingness to be broken before God.
In fact, the scripture says that the Spirit wages war with our flesh ("For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please." Galatians 5:17). One of the ways that the internal affirmation of the Spirit works is that our spirit bears witness to God's Spirit through the knowledge (the agreement) that our flesh, our pride, our outer man and our inner man, need to be broken and yielded to the Lordship of Jesus, that is, need to come under His control.
And when we hear that word that calls us to be a seed that falls into the ground and dies in order that we might bring forth much fruit ("...unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" John 12:24), that calls us to take up our cross daily and follow Him, our spirit bears witness and we move beyond the desires of the flesh and the limitations of selfishness into that wider realm where God's Spirit has free reign. And it is there that true worship happens.
The Worship Leader's Use of the Word of God
The worship leader's responsibility is to be faithful and accurate in his use of the word of God. However that does not mean that he does not have some license in his use of the word of God. Appropriate uses of the word of God include paraphrasing (as long as the meaning of the scripture is not changed) and applying it to a different audience (as long as the sense of the target audience is not changed). For example, a scripture passage that mentions the children of Zion could be applied to the church. When David talks about his enemies, the worship leader might want to refer to "those who give us a hard time."
It is also permissible for the worship leader to take selected verses out of a passage, again, as long as the meaning is not being changed. In fact, often times this can be done in order to extract the meaning and avoid the side issues that are sometimes brought in by reading entire passages. For example, the apostle Paul could be quite wordy and a single sentence might traverse several topics.
Remember that the purpose of this is to bring people face to face with the living God. As His word is applied and spoken to them and their situations, it is powerful.
Things the worship leader must not do with the word of God are:
Here is an example of how a passage could be paraphrased:
Bible passage: "Comfort, O comfort My people, says your God. Speak kindly to Jerusalem, and call out to her, that her warfare has ended, and her iniquity has been removed..." (Isaiah 40:1-2a)
Paraphrase: "Comfort, comfort My people, says God. Tell them that their days of struggling and strife are over, and all has been forgiven..."
Two of the best resources for paraphrasing and understanding the meaning of scripture passages are The Message by Eugene Peterson and The Cotton Patch Version of the New Testament by Clarence Jordan.
Summary
Peter Senge, the MIT professor and management consultant, often poses a question of CEO's and other business leaders at seminars he conducts. He asks, "If your organization was a ship, what would your role be in relation to that vessel?" He always receives a variety of answers, such as "the captain," "the navigator," "the cruise director," or "the pilot." However, he says he almost never receives the answer that he believes is the most appropriate: "the architect." The ship, he says, can do no more than the architect designs it to do. It cannot go faster, turn more sharply, or provide more comfort or functionality than the architect has designed in.
So it is with the roles of the worship leader. He or she is the architect of the worship experience. The worship experience can soar no higher, touch no more deeply, and provide no more solace or strength than has been architected by the worship leader.
The roles of the worship leader are designed to create a worthy vessel that carries the worshipers nearer to the God who is worthy of all our praise.
• change its meaning,
• put verses together in a way that changes the meaning of both (e.g., "And Judas went out and hanged himself." "Go and do likewise."),
• take scripture out of context (e.g., taking a passage that is spoken to unbelievers and applying it to believers), or
• quote scripture to belittle or put anyone down.
Experiencing Worship, The Study