The Opportunity Begins

Let's begin with a definition and some opening thoughts...

It’s all about the opportunity.
Worship leader(WL) job description, “The job of the worship leader is to create the best possible opportunity for someone to enter into worship by eliminating distractions and leading by example.”

It’s not about personal agenda.
Being elevated to a WL is being elevated to a greater servant.
There’s no room for personal agendas

Worship Leadership is more about who you are than what you do.Your ability to lead directly relates to your relationship with God when you’re not leading. The more you develop worship in the quiet of your relationship with God, the greater your ability to lead. The “revelation” or “conversation” between you and the Lord during a worship service you lead, will be more clear/less clear based on how you worship alone.

What's the song and dance about?
Leading people in worship can be really satisfying. It’s always great to see and hear the people of God turning their hearts towards Him in worship.
In our worship services, regardless of whether they are in a home, a smaller organization of believers for a meeting, or a regular service in the church, our job as WL’s is to fashion together a group of songs that create an attitude of worship that invokes a response to God from the people we’re leading.
As WL’s, your challenge is to go beyond meaningless recycling of your few favorite songs and creatively lead the congregation to respond to the truth of who God is in meaningful expressions of love, devotion, praise and obedience.
You may well spend more time up front in the meetings in which you lead and influence the tone of those meetings more than any other leadership role present for the same event. This is a large responsibility, which you must carry with integrity and a vision for the overall purpose of the church. Yours is a vital role so use it well!

Back to the heart of worship
We use the word worship in rather a narrow way today. The Bible sees worship as the response of every part of our lives to God. It embraces our relationships, our priorities, our work and our evangelism as well as the times when we meet together as God's people. It is important that we lead those times together in a way that makes this clear to people.
Our congregation is made up of people from many church backgrounds, or no church background, all of which creates a challenge towards brining people together in unity. It is vital to understand and make the most of this by using a whole range of musical styles and approaches within our meetings, rather than just trying to imitate your favorite worship leader or style of your favorite song. The aim of worship is to glorify God, not to try and 'make everyone else do it my way'.
Do keep in mind that there may be some people present who aren't yet Christians so there needs to be a simple consideration of the songs used and the implications of their words in light of the truth of the Gospel. Worship whets the appetite of the unbeliever. To see people rejoicing in God and declaring His Lordship is attractive to the unbeliever’s soul.
Worship in Spirit and in Truth.
Check through the words of your songs to see whether they will make sense to people (do they make sense to you?) and whether what they say is true to the gospel. Biblical worship is a response to truth so what we sing really matters.
When we lead worship in “truth” we are using the opportunity before us to teach the attributes of God. We also can teach healthy responses to the love of God. Since we can use worship to teach, we have the responsibility to make sure of the truth of what we’re leading.
When we lead worship in “spirit”, we’re just declaring and believing that as we worship God, it’s like a conversation where he speaks to our souls. Since God chooses to inhabit the praise of his people, then we have the responsibility to create the atmosphere where people can respond to the “spirit” of worship.

Singing to a different tune
It is tempting when you are up front to allow the focus of attention gradually to shift onto you and away from God. In our culture we’re used to worshipping human personalities and it is vital that we don't let this happen in Christian worship. Model leadership that is clear and Biblical but humble and self-effacing, with the focus firmly on God and not on you or the brilliance of the musicians. It is a great challenge but also a great opportunity for service to the Great Servant (Jesus) who was unconcerned about his personal status but who's character was second to none.