I will make you fishers of my men?.. or His men?

Hello fellow worshippers,


I've started these train of thoughts and have decided to start writing them on here. I'd love to dialogue with anyone who is interested in the subject. 


"I will make you fishers of (my) men..."


Interesting, right? Have you ever noticed when you enter into a church service everyone is sitting down just waiting around till someone gets onto a microphone and starts taking charge? Did it ever occur to you that people come to church expecting to be led? Even though every week they should know that we have come to church to worship God, right? But there is unwritten law that everyone obliges to the fact that they want to be led. 


So it begs the question, how are we as worship leaders serving those around us?

Maybe a key in servant leadership is this idea of releasing others. If you look at our culture today, many if not most want to have any responsibility lifted off their shoulders. We rather have others make the decision, to tell us what to do with our lives - we can then get on and live it out. Sound familiar?

And so whenever we place all our hope in man, we will end up disappointed and hurt. God has blessed us with leaders to inspire, encourage, train, equip and mentor – but often we forget our ultimate master, leader and King is Jesus. He alone is enough. That's right He alone is enough.

We see this demonstrated powerfully with the people of Israel in the book of 1 Samuel 8. God’s chosen people, with whom he had made a unique covenant, start moaning and calling out for the prophet Samuel to appoint a king in Israel who will rule and reign over them. They've seen the other nations with dynamic and powerful kings, and now they want theirs. Someone to look to. Someone to take responsibility. They didn’t want to be a people of faith, who learnt to trust and obey. They wanted something instant and obvious.

What they didn't realize is that in doing so, they were rejecting God. He had been their King, but now for the people of Israel this wasn’t enough, they wanted an earthly king to lead them. This rejection of God had huge consequences for the Israelites.

So what does this mean for us as worship leaders? Firstly we mustn’t make the same mistake and look to others, before we look to the leading of God. We are a people of faith.

Secondly we should always be looking to release new leaders. Not just consolidating our own position of leadership but taking risks on investing and equipping young leaders. This takes time and energy, but for the sake of God’s Kingdom is vital. This is how we can sow into the Kingdom.

We also need to release people to take responsibility for their own worship. A danger in our consumer culture is that people can attend church with the attitude of ‘what am I going to get out of the service tonight?’ A bit like the people of Israel they turn up saying, ‘we want a king.’ ‘We want someone who will play the songs we like and give us a great time.’ We then exhaust ourselves trying to meet these expectations and demands.

Great worship leaders will find ways of gently encouraging a congregation to bring their own offering of worship. To come with a heart that will give. They cultivate congregations that will participate rather than become spectators. This can be done through teaching, through modeling, but perhaps ultimately by acting as servants. When we see our roles as that of serving and releasing others to engage in worship, then we will see God’s people empowered and that is one exciting prospect!


How exciting right!?