I’m leading worship at my church this week which means that I need to plan out the songs that we’ll be singing, send them in to the church office so they can do their thing (we project the words to the songs onto a big screen, so they need to have all the words along with the order they’ll be sung), connect with the musicians that will be playing on Sunday and hopefully plan a rehearsal so that we can be prepared, and play through the songs enough on my own that I’m feeling competent enough to be the leader.
I really enjoy the part at the end where we play the songs together at church, but I have to admit that the planning and preparing process in the week before is not something I enjoy. The parts where I need to plan things and pass them off to other people is the thing that I enjoy least of all. It causes me some anxiety. If I could just do it on my own, it would be much less anxiety inducing, but then I would be on my own and it’s not generally as good when I’m by myself. I think it would be more tolerable for me to do it myself if I could play the guitar. Voice and ukulele just isn’t as rich and full as a voice and guitar.
But that’s beside the point really. If I am secretly relieved when I have to do it on my own, that doesn’t make it better for everyone else – just me, and that’s not why we do this. I know that very well.
I just don’t like that feeling of being responsible to people. I don’t like being in the position to call the shots and to arrange the rehearsal and to decide how the song goes. I do not like being in charge. I don’t like being in the driver’s seat, at least not when I need to lead a group of people in one direction.
As I write about it here I’m getting a strong feeling that I’m poking my finger into a very sore spot. This is a weak spot with a lot of potential for growth. I’m realizing that putting this into words is very helpful to me – possibly it would be better to do this in a personal journal entry, but, well, here we are – thanks for joining me!
One of the things that I love about leading worship is the idea of creating a narrative – not a strong narrative, but having a goal and moving people towards it – trying to begin in one place and to move forward through the songs to another. I don’t want to just sing a few songs.
But I realized a few months ago that I was often discouraged after leading because I wasn’t getting any sense of how I did. I didn’t know if what I was doing had worked; how people had received it – I also realized that I was the only one who was aware of what it was I was trying to do, and that’s not helpful.
I think that part of what makes me uneasy about leading other people in this – well, it’s the scheduling and all that stuff – but it’s also that I know that I can’t just do my thing – if I really want to do it well on a team, I can’t just have the plan in my own head and keep it there, I need to flesh it out and share it. Maybe that’s it. I enjoy going by feel without actually putting a firm structure to what I’m doing and it’s hard to share that with other people. Keeping it in my own head means that I don’t actually have to assess whether I’ve succeeded or not (but as I’ve discovered this actually leaves me feeling sad). Having other people on my team cramps my style – but it also forces me to see that my style isn’t necessarily a very productive one.
As much as I would rather go by feel, if I can get better at sharing and laying out what it is that I’m trying to do, then I can get better at doing this. I can bring people on board. I can discover that maybe I’m not really doing as much as I feel like I’m doing. I’m sure that there are ways to grow and to improve.
As much as I’m a bit stressed about preparing for worship this week, I pray that I can begin to see this as an opportunity and that my efforts are not an imposition but a chance to grow and to put into action a vague idea I’ve got in my head. It’s always better to get out of my head – even if the results aren’t as spectacular and beautiful as I imagine them, once these ideas are out there they have a chance to grow into something real – something good.
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