Confessions of a Worship Leader

We don’t always feel like singing.  

Sometimes we don’t feel worthy, qualified, or good enough to be your worship leader. But we still show up.  We know in our weakness He is strong. We know God uses imperfect people who seek His heart and point others to do the same.

We don’t love every song.

But we know that someone needs to hear it.  Maybe it fits perfectly with the message or the season we’re in as a church.  

We don’t just show up and play a couple songs.

There’s actually a lot of admin work, set up, rehearsal and team dynamics that are happening behind the scenes, not to mention years of training and practice. But we’re thankful when it all comes together and appears seamless.

We are not morning people.

Getting up and ready for church is hard for us too and we’ve been there for hours before the doors open. But we have coffee.  Lots of coffee. And *usually* by the time you arrive, we appear awake and functional enough to kick off the service with an energetic, “Good morning!”

Someone always cancels last minute and/or something goes wrong.

But we’ve gotten pretty good at rolling with it. We are thankful for our team of volunteers and how they are using and developing their gifts and talents.  

We drag our kids to hours of rehearsals, services and events.

We pray they don’t grow up hating church or resenting us because of it. But we hope we are demonstrating faithfulness and service to our children.  We love the friendships they have made with other kids stuck at church, too.  We love that they know EVERY lyric to the songs even if they are sick of them or pretend not to like them. We know they have heard truth and we love hearing them sing it.

We are completely exhausted after leading worship.  

Sunday seriously wipes us out. But we have couches. We have Sunday afternoon naps.  What we have poured out, God always refills. And when we’re recharged we’re ready to do it all over again.

To all the worship leaders out there.  We see you. You’re not alone. You’re not the only one.  What you’re doing matters and we’re cheering you on.
 

Writer

Lani Crump

Worship Leader, Songwriter, Momma and Wife