“Ten Tips For Worship Leaders” from Sojourn’s Lorie King at Theworshipcommunity.com

Sojourn worship leader Lorie King recently wrote “Ten Tips For Worship Leaders: How To Enhance Stage Presence” for theworshipcommunity.com, a new site that features insights, advice, encouragement and information-sharing among worship leaders, pastors, songwriters, tech support personnel and liturgical artists across the globe from many churches and traditions.

Read the full article at theworshipcommunity.   To whet your appetite, here are Lorie’s first two tips:

1) Watch what you do. Be (or become) aware of your body language and gestures. If you can, have someone take a video of you leading worship so that you can observe yourself and see what you might be doing, consciously or unconsciously, that is awkward, distracting or helpful. Our body language and gestures should be natural, relaxed and appropriate. Remember that you are seeking to invite and enable the congregation as a whole to engage and participate in what is going on, not to be the poster child for how a person “should” look when worshipping. Carefully consider whether what you would normally do in private worship or as a participant in the congregation-or even what you do naturally when you hear music-will be more helpful or distracting when leading from the stage.

2) Keep your eyes open. Watch the congregation. Shocking, I know. In order to lead well, however, you need to know what’s going on around you. You may notice that people aren’t singing along, but rather look confused or perplexed (or bored). Hmm…maybe they don’t know the song? Maybe they don’t know they’re supposed to be singing? You can invite them to sing with a statement like, “Now that you know it, let’s sing that again together,” or simply “Let’s sing that truth/prayer together again.” You have not only let them know that participation is encouraged and expected, but you’ve pointed them to the content and substance of what is going on.

Following these tips, Lorie expounds on:

3. Sing it like you mean it.

4. Cut down on “down time”.

5. Use readings and transitions wisely.

6. Show and tell.

7. Get engaged.

8. Listen to your mom.

9. Embrace imperfection.

10. Pray.

To read what Lorie has to say about each of these tips, read the full article in the Worship Leadership section of theworshipcommunity.com.  You can access this site any time from our Helpful Links section here at sojournmusic.com.  Other current articles include “Confessions of a Tech Director,” “Worship Leaders of the Bible, pt. 1: John the Baptist,” “Web 2.0 Ministry: Facebook,” and a review of David Peterson’s “Engaging With God: A Biblical Theology of Worship.”