The State of Worship Leading in America

There has to be more to leading worship than what I have been doing.

That nagging thought kept running through my soul for years.

I have been involved in planning and leading worship for over forty-five years. Like most worship leaders, I learned how worship-leading worked by observing others. I grew up in a Lutheran Church following the liturgy every week, but later I plugged into non-denominational churches with a contemporary style I define as “free church” worship.

Around year thirty of my worship-leading life, that nagging thought hit me as I was planning a worship service: There has to be more to leading worship than what I have been doing. More than asking the pastor what the weekly theme is and planning songs to coordinate with it. More than throwing in a Scripture verse or two to introduce a song. More than singing three songs followed by a sermon and a closing song. I considered how much people actually participated during the worship gathering. In most services I led, their only real action was to stand and sing a few songs, and for everything else, they just sat and listened.

There is one thing common to all the churches in which I served: the lead pastor delegated the worship leading to a worship pastor (A.K.A. worship leader or music director). In no church did the pastor actually lead the worship, whether in a church of fifty or a thousand. The pastor preached, and the musicians led the music. In every church, however, the pastor exercised the authority to oversee and guide the worship ministry. This caused me to consider the relationship between pastors and worship leaders, what special training or education in worship each brought to their position, and how these factors affected how their churches engaged with the God they claimed to worship.

The Pastor’s Dilemma

The senior pastor is considered the “under-shepherd” of the congregation under the headship of Jesus Christ. Most pastors will exercise that authority as they give guidance to the worship planners and leaders. We might ask, though, what guides their decisions and direction? What preparation do pastors have that equips them to bring godly wisdom to this crucial area of the church?

I researched the MDiv curriculum in fourteen of the top seminaries in the U.S. and was surprised to discover that only six required one course in the biblical or theological foundations of worship and worship practices.[i] As worship theologian Ron Man discovered in his doctoral research at Dallas Seminary, even pastors who did take a course on worship realized it was inadequate to help them in the real world of worship planning and instruction of their congregations.^[ii] Almost every pastor guides the worship life of the church according to what they experienced growing up or in seminary, or observed at a pastor’s conference.

The Worship Leader’s Dilemma

One of the great blessings of the twenty-first century church is the presence of several Christian schools offering degrees in worship and church music. Students graduate with a good education in foundations of worship, leadership, musical skills, and worship technology. However, the vast majority of worship planners and leaders in thousands of churches do not have this formal education. Like me, they learned how to lead by watching others lead. They are entrusted with leading worship because they are good musicians with nice voices, or they have a strong stage presence. Hopefully they love God and are gifted to lead worship, but they still lack a solid foundation in what God desires in the worship they lead.

One problem is that this “apprenticeship” model perpetuates a worship style that may not be well thought-out. We just do things the way [fill in the name of the latest big-name worship leader on YouTube®] does them without deeper contemplation of why we do things that way. It is important for all worship planners to ask questions and make deliberate choices about worship.

• Why do we do what we currently do in worship? What is our history?
• What is the purpose of the corporate worship service?
• Are we achieving that purpose with our current liturgy? How do we know? Do we evaluate the service beyond surface issues of technology and flow?
• In what ways do worshipers actively participate in our worship service? Is it just by singing songs?
• Bottom line: Are people transformed by an authentic encounter with God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? How do we know?

Now What?

Steve was a fellow student in my first doctoral-level course at the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies. I guess I assumed everyone at the school would be worship leaders, but Steve was a senior pastor. I was fascinated that a senior pastor, of all the advanced education options he could have pursued, was seeking a doctoral degree in worship. When I asked him why, his answer was simple: “Worship is the core of what we do as a church, and since I am the one humanly responsible for overseeing the ministries of my church, I have to have a solid understanding of worship.” Steve is still a hero to me to this day.

While not all pastors are called to pursue a doctoral degree in worship, I do encourage pastors to take seriously your role as the shepherds of this most important seventy-five minutes in the week of your church. Consider the questions above and how you can partner with your worship planners to answer them. Don’t confine your reading material to books on church leadership, renewal, or growth. Expand into the amazing resources (books, podcasts, videos) that consider the biblical and theological foundations of worship. Worship is a challenging area of every church in which questions of substance and style will arise from every quarter. Be prepared.

For you worship planners and leaders, consider how you got into your role. Most leaders I’ve spoken to had some church leader come up and ask them to lead worship because they had musical skills and were comfortable in front of a microphone. That’s how I got into this role! We watched others leading, watched a few popular worship videos, and away we went.

I urge you to expand your universe. As I encouraged pastors above, find the best books/podcasts/teaching videos on the biblical and theological foundations of worship. When you attend a worship conference, go beyond the breakouts on technology, songwriting, and improving your instrument. Those are important, but dig deeper to help you answer the more profound questions of worship like those listed above. You are responsible for “setting the table” of worship. Putting out fast-food is easy. Setting out a well-balanced, appealing yet nutritious, potentially life-transforming meeting with the Savior takes more intentionality and depth.

Pastors and worship leaders should attend a worship conference together and discuss what you’ve learned. Talk to other pastors and worship leaders, especially those (like me) that have been in the “worship world” for decades. We’ve learned a lot from our successes and our failures.

Worship connects our faith community to its Source of life. In our corporate worship experiences, we discover what it means for us branches to abide in the Vine. If you’re feeling like there must be more to worship than what you’ve done so far, then you’re ready to grow.

Excerpted from Worship Primer for Pastors and Planners: What You Wish You Learned in School, by William Kirkwood used with permission. © 2023, Covenant Books/Webber Institute Books.

[i] See Appendix A here.

[ii] Ronald Edward Man, “Dallas Seminary Worship Education for Future Pastors” (D.Min. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 2009), 83–85, accessed September 27, 2021, https://app.box.com /s /851l8ysts5j66i2kyk6u. Man’s research revealed that “once [pastors] are out serving churches in pastoral roles, they suddenly find that they no longer have the luxury of taking a neutral stance on worship matters. They are often expected to demonstrate a principled mind, a stout heart, and a steady hand in guiding their churches through troubled worship waters…. [However,] even among those who had the required worship course, the great majority stated that they did not feel adequately prepared by their seminary training for facing worship issues in their pastoral ministries.”

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