This is a circular statement that needs engraving in our modern day worship culture.
Sure, sometimes they overlap.
But they are completely different gifting.
Say…Repeat…
Then do what God has called you to do…
Thoughts?
Los

It’s your job to worship God with every facet of your life Monday – Sunday.
When that happens…
All of the above may follow. Or may not.  But you will actually have the credibility to be called a “worship leader”.
Trust me.
Los

Ken Coleman, Brad Lomenick, and Myself discussed on the Catalyst podcast, which released today, Brad’s top ten modern worship songs of all time.
So I thought I would share mine, and you can share yours.
Now I am making this rule, just so we don’t get flooded with your favorite current worship songs.
NO SONGS THAT WERE WRITTEN THE LAST 7 YEARS.
Make sure you download the podcast for what I can only describe as a circus featuring us three clowns.
Drumroll Please….

10.Here I Am To Worship
WORE THIS OUT. WORE THIS OUT. What an amazing bridge. It was in the same vain as Heart of Worship but with a little special sauce added on it.

9. From The Inside Out
This was a tough one. There are so many great songs on this record that we wore out at Sandals Church back in the day. But this was the first one of EPIC nature that I purposely let my guitar player pull a solo out on…

8. Let Everything That Has Breath Before we started playing this song, it was all acoustic guitars and congo drums. OMG. Do you remember that horrific season? Thank God this song got me out of that phase. The only problem was we were playing an electric set at the time. Just as bad if not worse. The song itself was an upbeat song we could come out of the gates with and was a crowd fav. Wore this song out too.

7. One Pure And Holy Passion
Probably the most sung son in the ten years I was at Sandals Church. And for a reason. This song changed lives for real. Sara Delarosa and myself went on what I can only imagine was a 4 month stretch never missing a Sunday singing this song. Sorry church. And I think this was also that album that song America was on. I remember singing it and knowing I would never sing it again. Seemed like a good idea.

6. Light The Fire Again
The reason why this is in my list is because it was the first song I ever led live in front of a group.
Berry College. 1996. Lots of hot chicks in the crowd harmonizing with me. This was when I knew I wanted to use my guitar in church to get chicks, I mean when I knew I wanted to become a worship leader.

5. Shout To The Lord
The key change. The keychange… This is where manna fell from heaven.  Darlene will forever be my favorite worship leader of all time.  Literally every church in the world has probably done this song…  Anointed.

4. Salvation Is Here
The first song that taught me to pump my fist. It was aggressive, has a sick bass line, and worked like a charm at the top of the set. Honestly, I don’t know if there has been a better top of the set worship song since this bad boy.

3. Make A Joyful Noise
Had a heard time not having this #2. Cause honestly, of all the worship leaders out there, Crowder has crafted my view of the music behind the lyric in a worship song more than anyone. This was my Salvation Is Here before Salvation Is Here was…well…here.  And also.  Skip to 13:50 in this video… Tomlin and Lecrae were way behind the times of rapping in worship songs…   That makes me miss Sandals…

2. Heart Of Worship
The chorus all other worship choruses are up against. This song swept the world like wild fire and the story behind the song is even stronger. Hey pastors. How about shutting off the lights and firing the band because you feel your church has lost it’s focus in worship? Yea. I didn’t think so. Amazing anthem.

Drumroll…

1. Better Is One Day
“My heart and flesh cry out, for you the living God, Your spirits water to my soul”
CMON!
This song is my number one for no other reason than it should be.
It changed my view of heaven, earth, worship, and passionate worship.
And I think appropriately enough, Matt Redman crafted the songs my generation was moved by…

Honorable mention…
Shout Unto God, Open The Eyes Of My Heart, Hungry.

That was honestly exhausting.
I started with a completely different list and then moved, deleted, reinserted, and stressed my way through it.
But I think I’m happy.
OK. Time to add your commentary…
What would you add? What is your list? Bring it ragamuffins…
Los

1.  It’s not that they don’t want to be organized, it’s just that they won’t ever have that skill set, because you hired them to do something else. Help them. Don’t grade them.
2. You’re view looking at the back of people’s heads as they worship is only 1/2 the view. Trust what your worship leader sees and he will trust what you see. Both of your perspectives are vital.
3. “Office Hours” need not be primarily in your office. They need to be outside of the offices to be inspired. Let them.
4. If you are going to call them a “worship leader” then let them actually “lead” something else other than songs on a Sunday. Give them leadership opportunities with your staff.
5. If you do 3 and 4 they will play that really bad song you want them to add to the worship set will less of a fight than if you don’t let them do 3 and 4.
6. Let them off at least one Sunday every 8 weeks. And let your preacher off too. There is nothing worse than creating a culture of robotic worship leadership and preaching. It will bring freshness. I promise.
7. When you go to that leadership or church planting conference, and everyone in the room is singing at the top of their lungs, they all work at churches. They aren’t tired mechanics, lonely strippers, and jobless fathers. These people are the ones hopefully filling your buildings. And these people don’t know the harmony to Mighty to Save.
8. You let the pastor preach from notes. Give them a confidence monitor for those new songs.
9. When you find out they are looking at porn, don’t pull them off stage. Let them now lead from a place of brokenness where they can relate to the people in front of them in ways they never could before.
*This is not a cop out for accountability. Hold them tight. But this is a tactic that is for a 7 year old. Instead of killing the spider, you are simply cleaning the cobwebs.
10. Please. For the love of all things John Maxwell, don’t make them read 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. Buy them the new Kanye/Jay-Z or Foster The People Album. It will help them more. I promise.
11. Because I hate lists of 10… Relationship will go much farther than Performance Reviews. If there is no relationship, they will dread and despise anything you say in those review meetings. If there is relationship, they will not only take notes, but grow in their leadership faster than Usain Bolt on his best day. And relationship doesn’t mean having meetings at Starbucks. It means them calling you in the parking lot of the strip club before they walk in because they know you will come get them.

It’s better that way…
Los

I’ve been leading worship as my primary job for almost 15 years.
Crap.
I’m old.
Every once in a while I like to remind myself of a few things.

1. If you lead regularly in front of thousands, lead regularly in front of 10 or less.
2. If you are leading worship at a church for the first time, don’t you dare spend your time in the green room.
3. If you are leading worship at a church for the 100th time, don’t you dare spend your time in the green room
4. When preparing for your Sunday, work just as hard as what you will say between songs as what you sing during them.
5. First timers and new believers actually WANT to be told what to do. Career Christians HATE being told what to do. So…Tell them all what to do.
6. Learn to lead without using an instrument.
7. If one of your pastors tells you that you are too fat to sing on stage, truthfully, you probably need to lose some weight. And you probably need to go to another church where they let fat and skinny people sing on stage.
8. Watch your sets back on video. Every one of them.
9. Just because you are a worship leader does not mean you are a song writer.
10. Just because you are a song writer does not mean you are a worship leader.
11. Ask the people who attend your church what songs they like to sing and sing those songs.
12. Don’t try to be Joel Houston, Chris Tomlin, or Kim Walker. We already have one of them.  We now need one of you.

It’s better that way,
Los

When you walk into my home this chalkboard is the first thing you see.
And scattered across the left side of it is the statement, “Before I die I want to _____________”
It haunts me every time I walk in the door.
Haunts me in a good way.
Because I am forced to look at whether or not I am simply existing, or actually living.
I love watching my girls write things on it and then erase them a few months later because they actually accomplished the “Design a dress then make it, then have someone wear it in a fashion show”
Even if it was only a Barbie that wore it, it’s more than I could have pulled off in a lifetime.
This last weekend was a list crossing off moment.
I’ve always wanted to sing to 10′s of thousands of people and hear them sing my songs back to me louder than my vocal was coming thru the PA.
It didn’t happen last year at CreationFest…
But it did happen this year.

[Pictures by ChristianConcertPhotos]

I can mark that one off the chalkboard now.
If you walked into my house…
What would you write on the chalkboard?
Los

Worship Leading.
It’s a funny thing.
You won’t find it the gifts of the Spirit.
But it is what we label many people who have the microphone for almost half of a Sunday service.
It is what people call me.
It is what I sometimes call myself.
I’d rather people see it as the singing preacher.
Cause I feel like what I am doing is equally as important.
Not just getting people ready to hear the message without melody.
But hearing a message WITH melody.
And there are different ways to do this job.
Different churches do it different ways.

I talk.
I instruct.
I lead.
It rubs some people wrong.
But if I was just singing for 25 minutes a Sunday I would call myself a singer.
And I’m not a singer.
I feel like I have been called to usher people into the presence of God using whatever means I am gifted at. And for me that is art and music.
Now.
That is me.
I’m an instructor and a talker and a jumper. I get hired to lead worship for these qualities.
But some churches don’t want their “worship leader” to talk.
Sing the songs.
Sound amazing.
Get off stage.
[The Following Is Strictly Opinion]
To be honest. I feel like this is a waste of time.
Just play an mp3 and put lyrics on the screen if that is what you want.
And if you don’t trust your worship leader to say something on the mic…
You probably have the wrong worship leader.
And to say that the pastor should preach the worship leader should sing, in my humble opinion, is ultimately shortsighted.
The prophetic word is missing in so many churches today.
And again, if your worship leader is an idiot, don’t let him say a thing…
And get a new one.

I understand there are varying degrees of opinion in this matter.
What’s yours?
Los

Learning from, respecting and submitting to my pastor while thriving in my own sweet spot was not always easy…and sometimes we missed a step or two.

But after awhile Matt Brown and I had that leadership two-step down better than I know the Macarena and that’s really saying something.

In a couple weeks I’ll be with two of my heroes, Scotty Smith and Stan Endicott, at Surviving Leadership as we tag team tackle the subject of “the dance”. It’s going to be rad. You should come.

Pastors, worship leaders…what about you? How do you work out the dance of leadership in your churches?

Then after the service Heather (mi hesposa) introduced me to one of the girls.
I can’t remember her name but I remember her story.
And I remember the humanity in her voice.
And at that moment I realized that it was not just on successful JC’s Girls Sunday morning I had had trouble connecting with my church.
It was every Sunday morning.
You see there is a story behind every person who walks into your service.
And to 99% of them…you are just a guy or girl on a mic with a lot more energy than they have or ever want to have on a Sunday morning.
I remember making a conscious effort beginning the next Sunday to be in the crowd before and after every set.
30 minutes before I got on stage I would walk the aisles of the gym and meet every single person that was sitting there. I heard stories of greatness and sadness. Stories of hope and despair.
When I took the stage 2 things happened.
1. I was more than the hyper bald brown guy on stage. I was Carlos and there was a shrinking of the gap between them and I that I never knew existed. The more Sundays I did this the smaller the gap became.
2. They were more than just the lady who cried during every song, the guy who keeps his hands in his pocket during every song and could care less, the stripper with the WAY too tight clothes on…or off, the couple who makes out during every worship song.
They became the lady whose son died a year before, the guy who tells all his friends how amazing our band is, the girl who is working at Ralphs grocery store in the am and stripping in the pm to feed her 2 kids, and the make out couple…well they just love to make out.

Stories…they make our world spin. And those people in front of you, each and every Sunday, they are full of them. They are waiting for you to hear them so that when they start crying on that bridge of that song each and every week…you will know why.

Get out from in front of the people and get beside them…
You’re worship leadership will explode.
Trust me.
Los