TWLL #58: How To Evaluate Your Worship Sets

read time: 3 minutes

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Sometimes evaluating your worship set can feel like one of the trickiest things.  And for some of us, we’d probably prefer to avoid it altogether.  

But there really is value in looking back at your worship sets- you just need to do it from the right perspective.

The Fog

Because you’re the worship leader, you’re naturally going to notice more about your set from a technical standpoint than the room will, and maybe even the majority of your team.

So those wrong notes, missed cues, and choppy transitions are going to stand out to you more, and potentially bother you more.  

And then there's the aspect of room engagement.  Maybe a good chunk of the room was mostly staring up at the stage, and it felt like they weren't really “with” you.

Or the spiritual aspect, where the set just felt dry, and it was hard to connect with Jesus.  Maybe for a lot of the set, it felt like you were swimming upstream and you couldn’t get in the flow.

There are other dynamics to the set as well, like last-minute musician changes or sound challenges, but I think the point is clear.  There are so many things that can go wrong or be challenging when you lead a worship set, and when they do go wrong it can totally affect our outlook.  It can be so easy to look back at the set and mostly see the negative.

And while it's completely understandable to to see it that way, the key is to remember that God sees your worship set differently.

Perspective

It's not that He doesn't notice the imperfections and challenges, but He's looking at things we might miss because we're mostly seeing the challenges.

He sees that despite the difficulties, you and your team are still lifting up the name of Jesus.  He sees that through the songs you're still declaring the worth of Jesus and still singing to Him.

He also sees the impact that the worship set is having on the hearts of the people in the room.  He sees the woman on row seven who's being strengthened to keep fighting for her marriage.  He sees the man in the back of the room, who wandered in off the street and stayed because he felt the love of God.

No matter how challenging the set was for you (and He cares about those challenges), it's key to remember that there was more going on than what you could see.  And it's key to let that bigger reality impact the way you view your worship set.

Conclusion

When Sunday afternoon or Monday morning rolls around, and you start reviewing how the set went- yes, notice the challenges and make adjustments and changes where needed. 

But don't forget to internally hit the "zoom out" button and lean into the Lord's heart for the bigger picture perspective.

As hard as the set may have been for you, there were many good things happening at the exact same time.

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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]