Since we completed our “Worship Practices Explained” series last Friday, I thought we’d launch a new weekly series.  I’ve noticed that many people in blogs, message boards and other avenues share their “worship leader pet peeves.”  Not long ago, worship leader Carlos Whittaker invited people to complete the phrase “I hate it when my worship leader ____” and hundreds responded.

Kent Shaffer of churchrelevance.com compiled the responses into a rough sketch of the top ten complaints.  Since different blogs and websites each have different audiences (at least somewhat) and different areas and degrees of focus (not to mention opinions, which never seem to run dry when you give us writers a pen or a keyboard) I thought we’d examine each one of these complaints in turn.

I’ve invited worship leader Lorie King to collaborate on these articles with me by sharing her thoughts.  Lorie has been leading worship since her teens in a variety of settings in the U.S. and around the world, including eight years at Sojourn.  She also has a Masters in Worship from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.  So basically, she’ll be the brains of this operation and I’ll provide the good looks.

Read One Church’s Report Of How Sojourn’s Lorie King Worked With Them To Revitalize Their Worship Ministry

We’ll begin this series next Friday the 17th, talking about Pet Peeve #1: When worship leaders ask the congregation to do things like raise and clap their hands or greet those near by, and when they try to pump the congregation with words like “Come on and make some noise!”  Should some or all of these things be done, and if so, under what context and in what way?  Come back next Friday to learn about how these kinds of things are handled at Sojourn.

Also in the next seven days, we’ll have our regular Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs feature, an inside look at our new Isaac Watts worship CD project - including some sound samples, part two of the “Christ for President” video series, an exciting announcement and more.

photo above taken by Dan Canales

• description: Describes the launch of a new weekly blog article series looking at pet peeves people have against worship leaders, written from a worship leader perspective
• keywords: why do worship leaders, Sojourn Lorie King, worship leader pet peeves
• title: New Series Coming: \"Why Do Worship Leaders ____\"

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