For most leaders, especially when they're just starting out, their eyes are closed 75% of the time and only opened 25% of the time. Leading with your eyes closed is probably your default. But, there are a ton of advantages to keeping your eyes open when leading - we've covered these at length in multiple posts.
Since we've already covered some positive reasons to keep your eyes open, let's look at some negative things that happen when you don't keep your eyes open.
Here are 3 things that happen when you don't keep your eyes open while leading worship:
1 | You focus on yourself
Closing your eyes is an act of personal reflection. You close your eyes so you aren't distracted by what you see and you can focus only on God. That sounds innocent enough and it is a valuable way to model worship while you lead. However, the problem comes when your eyes are closed for the majority of the time you're leading worship.
Your job as a worship leader is not to just have a personal time of worship while being it front of people. It's to LEAD the people you're in front of. You can't do that if you don't even look at them. Focus on your congregation more than you focus on yourself.
2 | You put up a barrier between the congregation and yourself
There are a ton of barriers that worship leaders have to contend with when they're trying to lead people. The stage, music stands, microphone stands, etc... And on top of all the other things, your EYE LIDS serve as a barrier as well. That's right! That piece of skin that's less than 1mm thick is one of the biggest barriers between you and your church. The good part is, it's easy enough to remove! Just open your eyes!
3 | You lead based on your own intuition and not what is happening in the room
When you can't see what's happening in the room, you can't react to it. You have no idea if people are following along or if they need some encouragement. So, instead of seeing what's happening in the room and making an educated choice on what to do next, you just guess and hope what you did was right. Opening your eyes takes the guesswork out of leading worship!
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