Giving Up Control
As worship leaders we all want control. Control is the thing that keeps the band tight, the thing that keeps everyone on task. We strive for it and some of us are even chasing after it. When you have control how do you get to a point when you can give it away?
The past 6 months have been some of the craziest but most rewarding days of my life. My family and I have been in multiple places and I have led worship at serval different churches, youth groups and camps as well as doing some recording with my band In all things Love. In the beginning of July I moved my family to Wichita Kansas to become an associate worship pastor at Newspring Church. It has been a crazy journey to get here but I am extremely grateful to be at an amazing church and to see how God brought us here. Hopefully the worship leaders reading this post can resonate with where I am at since a lot of you have been in similar transitions or are currently transitioning.
When I started working at Newspring I had to give up control of triggering loops. I did not give up control because I had to but because it was what I needed to do to help focus my energy in other areas of our worship experience. This has allowed me as a leader to focus on engaging the people in our church and intentionally leading them in worship. This has given me a great perspective as a worship leader to think through transitions and become more of a producer of all the elements coming together. I cannot lie, it is something that was hard for me to let go of and it still kills me everytime it takes to long for whoever is controlling the click/loop to kill it or go on to the next song.
This has caused me to over communicate the direction of the song. One of the biggest lessons I am learning is about transitions between the elements in your services. Communication with your worship team is huge. If you can learn to communicate with each other it makes for a very smooth experience for everyone serving on your team.
I was able to give up control of this area of our worship experience because I took the time to teach someone else how it works and clearly communicate the transitions of the service. Maybe this is your week to teach someone else how to trigger your loops/click.
Join the conversation.
About the Author:
Jake Stemo is a worship leader from Wichita, Kansas. Go check out his band In All Things Love
