Have you ever felt disconnected from your church when leading worship?
Here are 3 ways you might be disconnecting from your church:
1 | Closing your eyes
Closing your eyes puts up a physical barrier between you and the people you're leading. It literally cuts you off from seeing them. That's why it's so important to keep your eyes open when you lead worship! Opening your eyes allows you to connect with people and gauge the room.
Not only does it provide a physical barrier, it also presents body language that says "I'm taking a moment for me right now." Now, that isn't always a bad thing. It IS important to model worship for your church. But your aim should be to have your eyes open 75% of the time and only closed 25% of the time. It's easy to get that ratio backwards.
2 | Focusing too much on your personal worship
There seems to be an element of corporate worship that is absent from the mind of worshipers today. That is: the church is called to worship TOGETHER. Not just in the physical space they're in but actually with each other.
The worship leader can even fall into this mindset and it can take many different forms: closing your eyes, picking songs that you prefer over what the church needs to sing, song key selection, etc. The reinvigoration of corporate worship will best take place when worship leaders make the conscious decision to lead their church as ONE body.
3 | Staring at your music stand
When you aren't properly prepared musically, you won't be able to lead your church well. If you don't know your music, you'll exert more focus on how to play a song than how to lead your church. So try ditching your music stand!
In addition, a music stand adds yet another physical barrier between you and the people you're leading (and I hate to say it but iPads, although smaller in form factor, do no different). If you don't feel comfortable completely giving up your music, at least take the appropriate amount of time to learn it well enough that you don't have to constantly stare at it.
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