TWLL #47: Seeing Past The Size Of The Room You Lead

read time: 5 minutes

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Maybe you lead worship at 50-member church, or maybe you lead at a church of 500 or 5000.  Regardless of the size, those numbers can sometimes negatively impact our perspective as we lead worship.

Today I want to talk through some of the obstacles that room size presents, and how to ultimately see past the room size and into the heart of the issue.

To Be Shared

The gifts God has given you as a worship leader are first for Him and His glory, but He also gave them to you so you can share them with others. 

In other words, your gifts are meant to be shared- which means that your natural desire for reach and impact in your worship leading is a good thing.

To want to lead worship for hundreds or thousands of people- that in and of itself is not a bad thing.

The challenge comes when you lose sight of the main thing because you're pre-occupied with the room size and the numbers.

The Small Room

When you lead worship for a relatively small number of people, and you see a lot more empty chairs than filled, it's easy to start wondering why you're there leading worship.

Here you are putting in the time, energy, and effort to work with your team and then show up on Sunday to lead the room, but there's not much of a room to lead.  So why are you doing this?

But then if you pause, and try to see the small room size from a different angle, you realize it's actually pointing you back to the main thing and the main reason you're leading worship.  Which is Him!  

The reason you're there leading worship is first to honor and give worth to Jesus, and then to lead whoever is with you in that room- even if it's just a few- to honor and worship Him as well.

I've led worship many times for a room of 5 or 10 people, and so many of those times the smallness would actually remind me of why I was ultimately there.  It helped me take my heart and re-direct it back to Jesus in worship, over and over again.

The Big Room

When you lead worship for a large number of people in a jam-packed room, a whole different set of challenges are presented, but they're still pointing you back to the main issue.

Leading for a large room, it's easy to start feeling the pressure to perform.  "How can I keep their attention?  How can I not mess this up?  What song will really blow the room up?" 

In essence, when you start feeling that pressure to perform, the room is really starting to lead you instead of you leading the room.  And just like with the small room scenario, you start to lose sight of the main thing and why you're there leading worship.

When this happens, the key is take the pressure you're starting to feel, and re-direct back to Jesus.  A short simple internal prayer of "Jesus, help me stay focused on You in this big room" will actually help you take the eyes of your heart and put them back on Him.

And when your eyes re-center back on Him, you remember what you're really doing and why you're really doing it.  You remember that you're primarily singing to and singing for Him, and then inviting the room you lead into that same holy space.

Conclusion

No matter the size of room you lead, the size itself will always present potential challenges.  

But if you can see the challenges as a gift, to actually help you re-center on the essence of what you're doing when you lead worship, then it's still a win.

Let your small room, big room, any size room remind you that you're primarily singing to One Man when you lead worship.  And let it remind you that what really matters is you and your room, no matter the size, are stepping into the worship set as a sacred and living moment with Jesus.

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Whenever you're ready, there are 2 ways I can help you: 

1. The Connection-Based Spontaneous Worship Course.  If spontaneous worship has been a struggle, you might want to check out Connection-Based Spontaneous Worship.  It's a self-guided, self-paced course that empowers you to lead spontaneous worship with confidence, enables your musicians to flow with you, and helps your room engage.  

2- Join A Zoom Group.  Every 3 months I host small zoom groups- one focused on worship leading and one on songwriting.  Each group meets once a week for an hour on Zoom over a 12-week period, as we walk through the process of learning to leading worship/write songs out of connection with Jesus.  For more details about the next upcoming zoom group, including schedule & cost, email me at [email protected]