TWLL #9: Growing In Confidence As A Worship Leader

read time: 5 minutes

As worship leaders, I think confidence is something we all struggle with to some extent, and therefore is something we want to be intentional about growing in.

When it comes to growth in general, we’re often told that if we just keep doing the thing we’re trying to grow in, our confidence will eventually get there.

While the experience we gain through repetition can be good and helpful in becoming more confident as worship leaders, I see it as only one of a few areas that need our attention if we really want to grow.

Today I want to walk us through four specific areas to focus on, in order to become more confident worship leaders.

Musical Confidence

Jesus is the focus, the reason, and the goal when we lead worship- but the medium or platform we use to lift up Jesus is music. 

Which means that you want to be investing your time and energy into developing your musical skill.  It’s not about performance- it’s about you being comfortable in the musical space, which ultimately leads to musical confidence. 

I think the biggest musical areas to focus on growing in would be 1) your vocal, 2) the instrument you lead from, and then 3) learning and getting comfortable with the different key signatures, the chord options within those keys, and the Nashville number system (a basic google search will get you started if you’re not familiar with the Nashville number system).

Practically, there are a variety of ways to grow musically - private instruction for voice and keys/guitar, online classes or YouTube instruction for basic music knowledge, and then basic music theory books.  I’ve listed a handful of resources to point you in the right direction at the end of this newsletter.

Biblical Confidence

The foundation for everything you sing when you lead worship- from the songs to spontaneous moments- is the Word of God.  Which means you want to be consistently spending time digging deeper into the Word, so that your biblical confidence is getting stronger.

Best ways to do this, in my opinion?  

1- Read the Word: Literally read through the New Testament like you’d read through any book.  When something jumps out at you, write it down.  When you get to the end of Revelation, start over again in Matthew.  Eventually start doing the same thing with the Old Testament.  It takes time- but it’s so worth it.

2- Pray the Word: Take a passage of Scripture and break it up phrase by phrase.  Then go back and pray each phrase to God in the form of thanks.  Psalm 23 for example- “God, I thank you that You’re my Shepherd”.  Pause, then repeat the phrase.  “God I thank you that I shall not want”.  Pause, repeat the phrase.  Literally going through a passage like this will get it into your heart in a deeper way.

3- Sing the Bible: Pick a passage of Scripture to sing through.  Then break it up phrase by phrase and pray through it like I just described above.  

Then start to cross-reference each phrase- which means pulling in other passages of Scripture from the Old and New Testament that have the same theme as the phrase you’re praying.  

Then sing through the passage- or get a group of friends together, and sing the passage together.  Honestly, singing the Bible has been one of the most powerful ways I’ve become more familiar with Scripture.

Relational Confidence

Think of the Bible as a doorway into God’s heart.  It shows us SO much about Who God is, and what He’s like.  When we dig into the Word, we start to see the way He interacts with individuals and with nations in the Scripture, and we learn a ton about His character, His nature, His values, and His ways.  

If you pray the Bible and sing the Bible back to Him, you absolutely are getting to know Him better, and building relational history with Him.  And the better you know Him, the more confident you are when you sing to Him as you lead worship.

Confidence Through Repetition (Experience)

I’m mentioning this area last, because I think you really want to be focusing on the previous three areas while you gain experience by leading worship week after week.

 For sure you’ll gain a measure of confidence simply by leading worship consistently- but there is so much more value in the repetition when you’re intentionally growing in confidence in the other three areas.  

Because when the music, the Word, and your relationship connection with Jesus are a regular focus, each of those areas gets stronger.  And it’s the combination of growing musically, biblically, and relationally with Jesus, that causes you to become a more confident worship leader.

That’s it for today.  See ya’ll next week.

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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]