Few ministry servants have it as difficult as worship leaders in Asian American churches. They are often underappreciated and overworked while receiving little affirmation. They are accused of being narcissistic when on stage, while being endlessly criticized for how they sing or play. At the same time, worship leaders are some of the hardest working members of our churches. They pour in hours of unseen personal practice time, weekly band rehearsals, and long hours of setup and teardown, as well as leading for however many services the church might have.
The result is that worship team leaders and members tend to burn out at alarming rates. Our churches need healthy and vibrant worship leaders that inspire and lead our congregations to sing the gospel. Here are four suggestions on how to build and sustain a healthy worship ministry in an Asian American church.
1. Appreciate Your Worship Leaders Financially
Worship leaders devote time and energy to lead Sunday worship and also care for and guide their teams. They are busy scheduling members, organizing setlists, leading rehearsals, managing budgets, researching/purchasing and maintaining equipment. If you value worship at your church, you must value your worship leader. We encourage bringing them on as a staff member and showing your appreciation by paying them.
Additionally, for many Asian American churches, the worship budget is one of the last places your finances may go towards. However, consider the fact that your Sunday worship leader and the praise team is on stage for almost half of the duration of your service. They are often equally as visible as the pastor who is preaching the sermon. By increasing your worship budget, you allow your worship leader to better care for their team while giving the worship team opportunities to utilize the latest equipment and technologies to enhance and improve upon the Sunday worship experience.
2. Empower Your Worship Leaders
Churches can also empower worship leaders by financing further training. Whether that’s acquiring seminary education or attending conferences, these opportunities will aid them in choosing songs and ministering and leading their worship teams. Conferences are also a great opportunity for the worship team to go together as a group. We believe that the more you laugh and become closer as a team, the more the music will improve.
More importantly, however, the worship leader’s own private worship life must take priority. Worship leaders are an interesting species. The running joke about musicians is that they can often be very temperamental, sensitive, and emotional, but that’s also what makes for good music. The same can be said for worship leaders. Worship leaders need to develop a rhythm of rest or else burnout is bound to happen. Rest comes when worship leaders prioritize their own personal worship. Instead of letting Sunday worship drive us to personal worship, personal worship must drive us to Sunday worship. Encourage and allow your worship leaders to have a vibrant private worship life.
3. The Senior Pastor Must Be the Worship Leader’s Greatest Advocate and Cheerleader
One of the most recurring topics that come up at worship conferences is the conflict between worship leaders and their senior pastors. For the worship leader to succeed in ministry, the relationship they have with their senior pastor must be healthy. Senior pastors must invest in their relationships with their worship leaders. Dream together about the kind of worship you long to see at your church. Protect them from criticism. Encourage them to get training and rest.
Senior pastors must also be the congregation’s greatest worshipers. They must allow themselves to be led into worship and encourage the worship leader by being the loudest, most expressive worshiper. Worship leaders don’t mind if pastors can’t carry a tune. Just sing your hearts out and don’t forget to turn off your microphone or you will end up somewhere on #worshipfails.
4. Don’t Impose Your Worship Preferences on the Worship Team
Worship leaders can’t meet everyone’s stylistic preferences nor should they seek to. No matter what they do, they’ll receive criticism from both sides – those who prefer hymns and those who prefer contemporary worship. The danger comes when we place our preferences over loving one another. If you can’t worship God because of your preferences, then the god you worship is your preference.
Just like mature Christians can appreciate boring sermons, mature worshippers can appreciate worship songs of all genres, even when it doesn’t fit their preferences. Of course, we should all want to sing gospel-centered music and we must always carefully examine the lyrics of every song. However, if the song, regardless of the genre, is biblical and doctrinally sound, then all that is left is really preference. Christ-like love is being able to lay down your preference for another. To put it another way, if a worship leader is equally and lovingly offending both sides of the worship wars, then they’re probably at the right place.
In the end, the heart of worship is one’s heart. Worship isn’t the noise we make. It’s the heart that makes the noise. Therefore, out of a joyful and grateful heart, Psalm 100 extols us to “make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into His presence with singing!” Building a healthy and lasting worship ministry begins and is sustained by a joyful and grateful heart. Make your hearts glad in Christ and fill yourself up with the beauty of the gospel.
Addendum: Suggestions for Leading Worship During COVID-19
During this unprecedented period of universal virtual worship, it’s important to remember to keep it simple while being creative. Submitting to state government mandates to keep gatherings to no more than ten people in a room means our worship teams have at most three people serving on-stage during live streaming services (not including sound, video, and media technicians).
However your worship team may look or sound, the reality is that live and in-person worship looks and feels dramatically different from a live stream worship service. Yet, as in the last point, we must continue to remind our respective congregations of the heart of worship over our preference for worship. We must encourage them to keep singing with a joyful heart despite the challenges of our current circumstances. We must continue to remind them to long for the day when we can sing with our church families once more, a longing that will ultimately be fulfilled when we enter into glory.