What Leading Worship is All About

It's what we were made to do. It's the secret longing at the bottom of every heart, whether recognized or not. It's what we pursue with our lives...in one fashion or another. And when directed at the one who is worthy of it all, it completely and totally satisifes. Like it's more valuable than breath in our lungs. Like it is the breath of our hearts. 

Worship. 

I've always felt a stirring in my heart (some people might call it a "calling") to lead people into worship. For the longest time, I thought that looked like a guitar in hand and words on a PowerPoint slide. But living here in Africa, God has shown me that leading worship is so much more. 

Leading worship is about bringing worship with you wherever you go...whether you have a guitar in the backseat or not. It's about inviting people to adore and honor God in their lives. It's about causing worship to spring up wherever you are and in whatever circumstance you find yourself. 

In other words, I want people to be inspired to worship God because of something I bring. And if I do it well, people won't even recognize that it was me who brought it because their thoughts and hearts will be fixed on the One who is worthy. 

Sometimes it does involve a little music and singing, like the other night at our annual workers party when we took a few minutes out to sing some songs of worship to the strumming of my guitar. But it wasn't worship because of the guitar, it was worship because people's thoughts and hearts were directed to the Almighty in the middle of an otherwise ordinary party. We led people to worship. 

Most of the time, no instruments are needed, like the other day when we went out to a village to do a Sunday school with over a hundred kids. We taught them the story of God's creation, and we challenged them to think about God when they see their favorite part of creation. We led them to worship. 

 

Immediately after, we went to a special prayer service for an infant who died at less than a week old. We had tried to help this infant last week by sending him to Ouaga for a critical operation, but God decided it would be better for him to skip this life of suffering and just come straight home to heaven. He's already reached the goal that we on earth are still longing for. So we went to the prayer service and shared passages of Scripture from Ecclesiastes 4:2-3, Lamentations 3:19-26, and Job 1. "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." There, in that place of sadness, people began to worship in the midst of their grief. We led them to worship. 

And then today, I heard about a woman with a prolapsed uterus for five years. She came to us seeking financial help to send her to a nearby city for a hysterectomy. We joyfully gave her what she needed and told her to consider it a gift from God. Tears formed in her eyes as hope formed in her heart, and she started to verbally glorify God. We led her to worship. 

That's what the call to lead worship is all about. Not a guitar. Not a microphone. Not a pretty voice. Leading worship is bringing people to the moment of realizing how great God is and then giving him the adoration he deserves. Even when an infant has died, even when health has been taken, even when hope seems to have been lost, may God be glorified and worshipped through the words and actions at we bring with us wherever we go.