Common Clichés Worship Leaders Should Stop Using.
At the risk of getting into some serious trouble… And at the slight joy of stirring the pot… I put out a question on Instagram a couple of weeks ago: ‘What is one thing you wish worship leaders would stop doing or saying?’ Oh man… The responses were fiery to say the least; some of them had me in stitches, some of them had me convicted and some of them brought out some deeper conversation and thought. So would I say that this poll was a thoroughly conducted, relatively anonymous and extensively reviewed as a study to bring about a cross-section of worship leaders around the world? Well, no… But, I do think there’s some good food for thought here.
Simply put, my heart behind this post is, ‘y’all, we can do better.’ I’ve definitely been guilty of doing all of these at one point or another in my worship leading journey. We’re all growing and maturing. A sign of that growth is intentionality with our language, especially when we’re leading. Words are important.
“Cultures are built and broken upon the values that are expressed in vernacular. Trust is given and authenticity is gauged based on word choice. Ultimately, as we lead people in their articulation of faith we need to be intentional.”
In my opinion, we rarely say things out of a malicious desire to mislead people. But speaking without purposeful thought commonly reveals deeper inconsistencies in our personal or cultural expression of faith. I did think about closing the comments for this one but the most important part of this blog is the conversation that comes from challenging and thoughtful posts. Do you agree? Do you disagree? Were you encouraged? Challenged? Vindicated? Infuriated? Drop a comment and let’s keep that convo going.
The ‘Come On’ Counters…
I dare you to try it… Count the number of times a worship leader says ‘come on’ during a set. I did it with a friend’s church recently and it was 57 in an 18 minute worship set. My favourite is when you catch two worship leaders do it at the same time… Ok ok, do it to me the next time I’m leading worship somewhere coz’ I know that I do it. Maybe I’ve gotten better at it in the last couple of years but I was definitely a regular offender.
I think what we’re trying to achieve is a general encouragement for people to join in with us in worship. Synonymously, ‘let’s sing together' would probably fit. Is it inherently bad or wrong? I don’t think so. The crime here is in the frequency. Do we think that saying it in between each verse and chorus section is going to get the job done? Maybe we’ll try singing it instead of saying it next time for varieties sake? Perhaps we feel like we need to fill the 2 bar space between that up-chorus and down-bridge so that it’s not just singing songs but it’s leading worship? I think, for most of us, it’s a default phrase that we use as a crutch when we’re nervous. If it’s not ‘come on’ then it’s probably something else; we’ve all got at least one in our back pocket.
In my opinion, your best shot at not being found guilty of breaking into double-digits on every song is to grab a thesaurus and intentionally develop better language for taking your set from singing songs to leading worship.
‘Just’ Between You and Me…
Part pet peeve, part theological inference on this one. If you’re tired of counting the number of times a worship leader says ‘come on’ in their set you can start a secondary count of how many times someone says ‘just’ when they pray. God, we’re just praying today that you would just move; we just need more of You… Again, this isn’t really a heart posture commentary — those will come later. This is more of an awareness thing for leaders as we communicate.
On a theological note, the word ‘just’ has multiple definitions based on context and inference. As an adjective, it can mean ‘fair or morally true’ (‘i.e. our God is a just God’). In this instance, I’m referring to it being used as an adverb; a qualifier that means ‘simply, only or no more than.’ Personally, beyond the frequency of this word’s usage in corporate prayer being frustrating, I find it’s inference troublesome. For example, I don’t want God to ‘just speak’, I want Him to speak clearly and continually, to move in power in my life and in the lives of those I’m praying for. I don’t want Him to ‘just heal’, I want Him to completely heal me in body, mind and soul. I find this akin to saying, ‘if it’s Your will’ when we pray as though we can’t discern the perfect, pleasing will of God from both His general and specific revelation as found in Scripture and through Holy Spirit. If that got too ‘deep-divey’ for you, go read Romans 12:1-2, it’ll change your life.
On a communications note, we would never tolerate someone repeating the same word so much in any other instance besides prayer. Slow your pace down and put more thought into what you’re saying before you say it. We have been granted the gift of speaking with and praying in the authority of Jesus’ name and we can do so with clarity and purpose.
The ‘Sing It Like You Mean It’ Conundrum…
Ok ok… I get the passion behind this one. And if you asked people to raise their hand if they’ve ever used it, I would definitely be the first person to acknowledge it. It sounds soooooooo cooooool! And hey, we’re a generation of worship leaders that grew up watching sold out arena tours on YouTube — whether it was Coldplay and U2 or Hillsong United and Jesus Culture, we’ve all probably heard a frontman tell a crowd of 40,000 people to affectively sing a song louder to convey conviction. First things first… You are not Joel Houston and your church is not the Hollywood Bowl.
Secondly, here’s my concern. Run that phrase through your mind in a less than hype, personal moment and think on the implications of what you’re saying. For those people in the congregation who have been participating you’re basically saying that they’ve been offering a half-hearted expression and for those people who have yet to engage in corporate expression — for whatever reason — you’re shaming them. In saying this, YOU are the only person who feels semi-good because you’ve convinced yourself that you’re leading worship well but in reality you’re guilty of using poor and negative motivators. In my experience, those never serve people, moments or cultures.
If you DO feel that people genuinely need encouragement to more passionately engage in worship — and they probably do — I think it’s worth taking a few more seconds to express yourself more clearly. The reality is, most people will probably just move past it quickly; no harm, no foul. It’ll sound cool and they might engage with a little more conviction. But is that they way we want to lead? For me, no. I want to lead with intentionality, to care for the people who are there enough to push beyond an easy one-liner and into a place of mature leadership.
The ‘It Doesn’t Matter What You’re Going Through’ Heresy…
Oh man… We are going there. If you’re already feeling convicted as a worship leader who got their start in the 00’s, just wait. I especially find this to be the case with young worship leaders. In fairness, their heart is commonly pure, but using this clichéd phrase to try to encourage people in their expression of worship goes beyond weak — it’s just plain wrong.
It doesn’t matter what you’re going through, let’s lift our hands and worship God. It sounds really sleek and powerful… Most heresy is, in fact, rooted in truth so ya, it sounds ‘right’. But take a moment to actually breakdown what you’ve said. Aha, I think you’re seeing what I’m seeing. In all truth, it does really matter what they’re going through. We know a God who is incredibly concerned and involved with our daily lives; a relational God who loves His creation and has intentional and beautiful desires for us. I’m not saying life is filled with fields of daisies and The Sound of Music tracks playing in the background… He promises that hardships and troubles will come. But He never says that it ‘doesn’t matter what we’re going through.’
I think what we’re trying to say is, ‘let’s place God above our fears… worries… pain… anxieties…’. So, just a thought, let’s say that.
Moreover, if you’re going to say something like this you’ve gotta have a level of trust, ideally in the relational equity department, for it to be genuinely impactful. I remember coaching a young worship leader who said this phrase at 18 years old during a Sunday morning worship set in a congregation that was generationally pretty diverse. I find that young leaders can be quick to mimic things that they see in other environments before genuinely evaluating whether or not they are appropriate, or even correct, to be used in theirs. I sat him down later and said, ‘hey, did you know that couple in second row on stage left this morning just filed for bankruptcy last week? They had to close the business that they invested everything in and are selling their dream home and moving in with their parents because they can’t put food on the table right now, that’s how much debt they have.’ Obviously, he didn’t know that. ‘You know so-and-so right? He serves every second weekend on team. His daughter just told him that she was a lesbian last month and he didn’t respond super graciously so now she’s not speaking to him. And them-and-them just got diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer that is 99% terminal on Friday.’ Look, there is no way in a large room of people that you can know what everyone is going through in their personal lives but it’s pretty safe to assume that there’s some hard stuff. Even if you’ve seen your fair share of life, you can’t relate to everything or everyone; that’s actually the beauty of the diversity of the body of Christ. But imagine looking at that individual square in the eyes and telling them that ‘it doesn’t matter what’s going on in their lives right now, they just need to lift their hands and worship.’ That’s not just a poor pastoral methodology… That’s not Jesus heart posture towards them.
“Some of the most beautiful worship is done in spite of what an individual is walking through in that moment. In the relationship of the local church — a caring and loving community — we can see people make wilful decisions to worship God in the midst of hardship and trust in His goodness and His sovereignty.”
Banning Liebscher, Founding Pastor of Jesus Culture in Sacramento, CA, once remarked that the angels watch as we worship and are amazed as humanity returns praise and worship to the LORD in the middle of hardships and suffering. People’s pain is real and God’s heart for people is that we would choose to trust in Him, to offering Him a sacrifice that costs us something and see Him move powerfully in our lives as a result. Lean into that.
The ‘Daddy God’ Debate…
Oh GLAWRY… Here’s where we go off. I had some great DM convo’s with people on this one. This was probably the number one suggested thing on social media and probably for good reason. It’s a polarizing conversation, so I’ll do my best to address it in grace and with understanding. At the end of the day, I’ll warn you where I land: I don’t think it’s worth being said in a corporate setting.
Listen, I get it… Many church environments, especially in more conservative or mainline traditional contexts, have done an absolutely terrible job of cultivating a wholistic and healthy understanding of God the Father. They have focused, almost purely, on His wrath, ‘barely propitiated by Jesus sacrifice’ OR perhaps on His holiness and inability to be a part of anything sinful. To paint with a wide brush, these churches are also probably relatively legalistic and most charismatically persuaded Christians would be ‘triggered’ in their annual business meetings.
Let me ask a question of my charismatic friends — a group to whom I belong — who are most likely the chief users of ‘Daddy God’… Are we really using this phrase to help people focus on God’s loving and fatherly nature? And, if so, do we think we’re achieving that result by inserting a ‘Daddy God’ into our corporate prayers? Odds are, we’re doing it to poke at people who have a religious or traditional spirit — I get it, it’s a really fun game — but we have to be careful to examine our own heart postures when we play it.
For the sake of illustration, let me share a personal story that has nothing to do ‘Daddy God’ and everything to do with poking at traditional spirts. I once worked in a church environment where a hotly contested debate was whether or not pastors, or anyone serving on stage for that matter, should where a hat. Toque, baseball hat, fedora — any hat in general. The pastor and I enjoyed wearing hats and, in full transparency, enjoyed poking at religious and traditional spirits that still existed in the congregation. One night, before a time of worship, I walked past an older saint who was on the church’s elder board while wearing a flat cap. She made a quick, and passive aggressive — as that generation is famous for — remark about how I was ‘wearing a hat again’. I smiled and quickly replied with a, ‘bad hair day,’ before continuing to walk to the back of the room for a cable. However, in my heart I could hear myself saying, ‘Ya… I am wearing a hat… And you know what… Worship’s gonna go off tonight… It’s gonna be fire and you’re gonna have to sit there and watch while I lead it with my hat on and get super offended and then convicted and then…’. Ya, pretty ugly. Minutes later, worship starts and as I go to sing the first line of the first verse the brim of my hat hits the mic, the hat falls off of my head and rolls to the back of the stage. Shallow as that stage was, it was still probably a solid 15 foot roll. In any other scenario, I’d be pretty impressed. End of song 1, a host pops up to open up the night and I walk to the back of the stage to collect my hat and put it on. As soon I leaned over to grab I heard the voice of the LORD in fully clarity say, ‘you have lost the right to wear that hat tonight. You’ll be leading worship without it.’ One of the more sobering and one-sided conversations I’ve ever had with the LORD. It wasn’t that wearing that hat was wrong but my heart posture in doing so sucked and God was less concerned with my fashion choices or bad hair day as He was with the purity of my heart towards the people that I was leading…
The ‘If You’re Comfortable’ Crowd…
What a journey. If you’re still with me, thanks! This is our last cliché and, I think, one of the more significant phrases that has snuck its way into our worship leading vernacular. It’s the use of ‘if you’re comfortable’ when encouraging a participative response from a congregation. Probably, this is most commonly used in relationship to physical postures of worship such as the raising of the hands. We have the attractional church movement to thank for it and it’s a dangerous slope to slide down.
I understand the tension. You probably feel strongly convicted to invite people into a participative moment but you don’t want to come across as aggressive to uninviting. While people’s comfort shouldn’t be our primary focus when leading worship we’re also filling the role of a pastor and making our environments accessible to people at varying stages of their faith journeys. It’s a very real tension that I’ve existed in many times. Odds are, you’re not leading worship in a context like Bethel Church in Redding, CA where there is a critical mass and previously established worship culture to enjoy leading in. You’re leading in a local church filled with non-believers and believers; immature and mature. There’s probably some people in your context with varying opinions of what you’re about to ask them to do as well.
Remember this… The Biblical model of worship as illustrated and prescribed in Scriptures includes participative, physical expressions of praise and worship. You can check out my post ‘7 Hebrew Words to Describe Praise’ right here for more on that.
“Culture that is built on people’s comfort levels and feelings is commonly weak and easily shaken.”
In fact, our chief concern in leading and pastoring people isn’t their comfort. At least, that’s not how God operates. Look in Scripture and tell me one time that He placed someone’s comfort over their calling or their character. Hear this: lead with humble confidence and gracious intentionality. If you feel like you need to encourage people to engage in a way that may make some of them uncomfortable trust your discernment and the leading of Holy Spirit and lean into it. If you feel like you may not get the kind of engagement that you’re hoping for why not pair the invitation with a short teaching on the value of physical postures in worship.
Agree? Disagree? The conversation is the most important part. Bringing intentionality to our language that we use when leading worship is important. If this was encouraging, challenging or both drop a like, comment and share and lets keep the convo going.
