Worship Leader Strategies: Outward Expression

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This series on worship leader strategies gives systems and suggestions on how to better organize worship ministries as it pertains to planning, training, and practically leading congregations in musical worship. Like most strategy-oriented discussion in ministry, there are no fix-all solutions, but these strategies are suggestions that should help others organize their ministries to better serve their leaders, volunteers, and general congregations.
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When I was a high school student serving on my youth worship band, my buddy Caleb was the primary worship leader. I remember there was another guy from our school who came to the student services. I’m going to change his name here and call him Ryan. I remember one Sunday morning right after leading worship for our fellow students Caleb came down off the platform with me visibly frustrated. “Did you see Ryan out there? He was just staring at me the whole time. Just a blank-faced stare.” In the moment I was frustrated with my friend, but after taking a step back I realized- of course he was looking at you, he was waiting for you to lead him.

Fast forward maybe a year and I remember telling Caleb how funny that story ended up being to me. Of course he was staring at him! Other than the screens, where else would someone look? He was the worship leader! I think this experience is a great reminder, though, that sometimes expression is simply attention. Those who have never been led in musical worship or around the environment never really know what they are supposed to do, so it is up to us as worship leaders to teach them.

Now, I could spend quite a long amount of time defining expression and reaching into the Scriptures about why we should do it, but here I’m going to simply share how to teach expression to your congregation or audience. I’m working from the assumptions that you as a worship leader:

1. Have your own convictions of what outward expression should look like
2. You have an understanding of why outward expression is important for the everyday Christian, and
3. You know what your congregational norms currently are and which ones need to be changed and influenced to something different

The absolute very first thing I need to point out is that we as worship leaders are not to manipulate or coerce people to go through the motions but to teach and resource them so that when the Holy Spirit inspires them they can respond confidently using the tools that God has described in His Word. Some of the thoughts here may seem manipulative, and if you don’t feel comfortable using them then I encourage you to ignore those practices. Rest assured, none of these practices are to force a fake response. In fact, when it comes to encouraging outward expression we as worship leaders need to ask ourselves a few important questions:

1. Do people feel like they have “permission” to respond?
2. Does the environment around them encourage or discourage response?
3. Do we as worship leaders have too small of a view of what “response” even is?

“Am I allowed?”

Even the most charismatic worshipers are usually aware enough to realize when they are the only person in the room raising their hands. Sometimes it’s a “denominational” thing, sometimes it’s age, other times it’s just simply a lack of teaching and understanding what it means to express. Many people in our churches and crowds have witnessed unrestrained worship, but they tend to think “it’s fine that they do it, but it would be weird if I did”. There’s an element of giving people permission to worship God as expressively as they desire. It doesn’t matter how many times we tell them that King David worshiped God as a fool because it was worth looking like a fool to praise God, because they don’t see themselves as free as David was in that moment. Have we taught them that they are free to celebrate as if their favorite football team just scored a touchdown? Have they been told that we gather not as an observational experience but an interactive one?

How is our environment during musical worship? I’m not talking about dimming the house lights or uncovered windows to let sunlight in, though those things do make a difference depending on the demographic and “churchedness” of the group. I’m talking about the environment surrounding them. Are other people engaged in musical worship? Is the worship team engaged beyond just executing their instrument?

One thing I encourage my worship teams with is to sing as much as they are able. Whether they’re playing drums, guitar, have a mic or not, everybody on the platform should sing. After all, we don’t gather and just listen to music- we gather and sing corporately! Obviously sometimes the electric guitarist is playing a more intricate riff or the drummer is trying to count a difficult measure and singing isn’t an option, but whenever they are able I always encourage my team to engage in singing with the congregation. It’s a great way to utilize as much leadership on the platform as possible while at the same time encouraging my musicians to engage God in worship and not just focus on the musical execution. Even my vocalists who have a mic aren’t always singing on the mic, so I encourage them when they aren’t singing a “part” that they can step back and just worship God off-mic. What power comes when leaders simply worship God!

Similarly, I also encourage my worship teams (and occasionally depending on the event/congregation I’ll encourage the crowd as well) to allow their outward expression to match their inward emotions. Don’t force fake expression, but if you have joy in the Lord, then let yourself show that you have joy in the Lord! If you are being overwhelmed by God’s graciousness, then let yourself be overwhelmed! If you are in awe and reverence of God in a moment, then let yourself withdraw in reverence by taking a step back. Simply match your outward expression to what the Holy Spirit is already stirring inside of you, and be surprised how freeing it is.

Take it slow

Now, you may be in a more reserved congregation. If this weekend you started jumping around onstage, shouting exhortations between lines of songs, and weeping in the middle of “Lord, I Need You” you might just freak people out. We still need to be aware of our shepherding and leadership of our congregations and take it slow when teaching expression. Show them in scripture what it means to lift holy hands, where we are commanded to sing unto the Lord (and how Jesus himself sang praises with the disciples!), postures of worship, whatever your congregation needs, take the time to teach one thing over the course of a few weeks before moving onto the next practice of spiritual formation and expression. Remind them the why and the how, and then you be an example and encourage your team to also be examples whether you are on the platform or not on any given week. We don’t just lead worship when we are the “lead vocalist” or when we are on the platform, we lead worship at all times in our lives. We just have a built-in practice time when we sing together. For some congregations, the first step in learning expression is to participate in singing in the first place!

This brings me to that last question: is our view of expression too small? Do we really only think someone is being expressive if they raise their hands or drop to their knees? My friend Mike grew up old-school German Lutheran, and he’s expressed to me that he loves how our church worships God expressively, but he simply is not one to go over the top. Nodding his head and singing confidently is already a great step of expression for him. Let’s give our congregants (and ourselves) a little bit of a break: true worship is not gauged by God with physical posture but by the posture of the heart. The Gospel should invoke some sort of an emotional reaction, but that reaction for some people is running around in circles while for others it is observing and processing. Not that we shouldn’t teach outward expression, but that our gauge of what is “success” in teaching it would be tempered by the reminder that God made each person unique, so why would we expect outward expression to be uniform across the entirety of a congregation?

Finally, we need to meet somewhere in the middle: are people growing in their expression? Is someone who before wasn’t singing at all now singing praises and lifting up these truths with us? Is another person who before stood still lifting their hands halfway up? Is another person who before was dancing now reeling it back to where they are able to focus more clearly on the truths of the songs we sing? Let us remember that we are shepherding people not toward a sort of uniformity and conformity but toward growth in the Gospel, and teaching them that these sort of outward expressions as described in the Bible are good for our growth as followers of Christ. May we all grow as more expressive while also being more honest in our worship to Jesus!

Did this help you as a worship leader? I’d love your feedback! Feel free to comment below with your thoughts or how you and your church organizes your songs! Have a question you’d like me to tackle for “Worship Leader Strategies”? Comment with those below as well, or shoot me an email!

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Kevin McClure has been leading worship in the local church for over 10 years in different capacities of student and adult ministries. As a songwriter, musical artist, and worship leader he has had the honor of touring the United States both as a performer and worship leader over the better part of the last decade. With a heart to see believers learn how to take the act of worship beyond the setting of a group gathering, Kevin is incredibly intentional with his time on and offstage to help teach the practice of worship as a lifestyle. Kevin lives in Omaha, Nebraska with his bride Hailey and his two daughters, Everleigh (8) and Eliska (2). His favorite food is coffee (lifesource), loves bonfires, and is convinced that Jesus is a Chicago Cubs fan.