Pastor to Pastor
Worship Beyond Words: Spiritual and Practical Insights with Guest Pastor Cedric Cobb Pt2
In this 2nd of 2 episodes of Pastor to Pastor, Pastors Jason and Seth unlock the secrets to becoming an impactful worship leader with insights from Pastor Cedric Cobb of Surface Church in Apex, North Carolina. Discover the essential qualities that make a worship leader effective, from having a genuine heart in pursuit of God to mastering the necessary skills and techniques. We discuss the importance of prayerfulness, effective communication, and the emotional and mental health journeys reflected in the Psalms. Pastor Cedric also shares the benefits of worship leaders being able to play instruments, enhancing leadership dynamics within worship teams.
Planning and executing worship setlists can be a complex task, but Pastor Cedric Cobb offers practical advice to make it easier. Learn the importance of advance scheduling, spiritual guidance, and understanding your congregation’s preferences. We explore the balance between familiar and new songs, and how to consider the skill levels of musicians when planning setlists. Additionally, Pastor Cedric provides tips for aligning with the pastor's vision, fostering unity within the worship team, and upgrading the worship ministry for a more engaging experience. Tune in for valuable insights that will help create meaningful worship experiences for your church community.
In this 2nd of 2 episodes of Pastor to Pastor, Pastors Jason and Seth unlock the secrets to becoming an impactful worship leader with insights from Pastor Cedric Cobb of Surface Church in Apex, North Carolina. Discover the essential qualities that make a worship leader effective, from having a genuine heart in pursuit of God to mastering the necessary skills and techniques. We discuss the importance of prayerfulness, effective communication, and the emotional and mental health journeys reflected in the Psalms. Pastor Cedric also shares the benefits of worship leaders being able to play instruments, enhancing leadership dynamics within worship teams.
Planning and executing worship setlists can be a complex task, but Pastor Cedric Cobb offers practical advice to make it easier. Learn the importance of advance scheduling, spiritual guidance, and understanding your congregation’s preferences. We explore the balance between familiar and new songs, and how to consider the skill levels of musicians when planning setlists. Additionally, Pastor Cedric provides tips for aligning with the pastor's vision, fostering unity within the worship team, and upgrading the worship ministry for a more engaging experience. Tune in for valuable insights that will help create meaningful worship experiences for your church community.
Hey, we're here with episode two of Pastor to Pastor on the topic of worship. I'm Pastor Jason, I'm Pastor Seth and we got with us, from the first episode, pastor Cedric Kyle from Surface Church in Apex, north Carolina.
Speaker 2:Pastor, how are you doing? I'm feeling great, man, I'm so excited. I'm ready to get this thing rolling yeah we're ready.
Speaker 1:We've been talking about we talked in the last episode. If you haven't heard it, make sure you go and listen to it. Super important. We talked about just some general questions about worship and we talked about worship culture. It was really in-depth, really good. Make sure you like, share, subscribe all those good things so you can keep up with what we're talking about. But go back and listen to that episode as well, pastor, as we get ready to head into this next episode or the next topic. We're talking about leading worship, yeah, and so the first question really is what are the key qualities of an effective worship leader?
Speaker 2:Oh man, I love that, I love that.
Speaker 3:And don't just name everything about yourself. Okay, all right, no, no, I love that. I love that.
Speaker 2:That's, that's a, and I'll just name everything about yourself. Ok, no, no, no, no, no, no. I love that. Key qualities of an effective worship leader. I would say, first and foremost, a a heart that is genuine. The Bible says David was a man after God's own heart.
Speaker 3:It doesn't say he had God's heart?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it said he was in pursuit of it. God's own heart? It doesn't say he had God's heart. It said he was in pursuit of it. I think when you build your life around pursuing God, getting to know him the Bible says the children of Israel knew his acts, moses knew his ways I think there's a transcendence that comes when your heart is in pursuit of the one that you love. Paul says I don't claim to have apprehended that which has apprehended me, but this is the one thing I do. There has to be a pursuit involved. So I think an effective worship leader is one who lives a life of pursuit, not because they don't have the Lord, but because they know that if angels can look at him and cry holy because they're seeing something new, that there is something more to discover and to uncover. God's greatness is unsearchable, I would say.
Speaker 2:Another effective quality of a worship leader, or key qualities of an effective worship leader, would obviously be, I would say, skill and technique. You don't have to be perfect, but the Bible says that David was cunning on a harp. He was skillful, which means that he was intentional. He was intentional with his capacity. He was intentional with his alone time. He was intentional with his practice. You don't practice on Sunday, you operate on Sundays, you function on Sundays, you put your best foot forward. I would say another key quality is prayerfulness. You can sing phenomenal songs, but do you know how to talk with the Lord and genuinely have reached a place that, like David, when you read Psalms it doesn't all feel like songs. Even though it's called the book of Psalms, it's like it's like no, some of this was prayer.
Speaker 3:Some of this was communication. And so.
Speaker 2:I think an effective worship leader is an effective communicator. They don't just communicate in song, but they know how to navigate the room and navigate their own mind, their own thoughts. And so we see, I actually look at the book of Psalms as very much so a mental health, emotional type of book that allows us to explore the mind of a worshiper, someone who is after the Lord, and we see his highs, his lows, his ebbs, his flows, when he felt pressed on every side, when he felt like his enemies were after him, when he was exposing his own failure in Psalm 51, when he was talking about let everything that have breath. Praise the Lord. You can see the journey that happens through that.
Speaker 3:When he wrote that he wasn't getting no backup you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2:Nobody was backing him up.
Speaker 3:Nobody was helping him. Let me ask you this this is not on here, but I just thought about this when you think about an effective worship leader leading in a healthy, growing church I'm not talking about like a more traditional church, but a more modern growing church Do you feel like?
Speaker 2:not only do they need to be able to sing, but they have some type of gifting of playing an instrument. I would say it doesn't have to be necessary, but I do think it aids in that I have a few friends that do not play. I would say, prime example, Todd Galbraith. Todd Galbraith is from Rayford, North Carolina, but you've never seen him play a guitar, You've never seen him play a piano. But the man of God knows how to lead people. Um, he's never been somewhere where he had to do it. I think in our cultural context, in our current structure of church, a lot of times when you're building, especially as a church planter, being a church planter, it's a plus to have somebody that knows how to play an instrument, because that's just one less thing to worry about.
Speaker 2:But oftentimes you'll find people that are just gifted in singing and have a leadership type of administrative gift and so they're able to encourage people. I like to look at leadership or even leading worship as some type of pastoral format, because you're watching over souls and and things of that nature. I mean, david's tabernacle, I mean, was just crazy. That's so many singers, he brought on so many people, he hired so many people, he had prophetic families, he had people that took notes. I mean he was administrative just as much as he was a, a singer, as and or as a heart player or a writer, that's right we want that Levite anointing on the house.
Speaker 3:Hey, you threw out a name that there and Jason's favorite people is like casting crowns on these people. Do you know who Todd Galbraith is? They ain't dropping.
Speaker 1:You know, I got buttons over here. I will mute you.
Speaker 2:Listen, I praise you in this book yeah come on.
Speaker 1:See, I couldn't hear you no more. There he goes Easy.
Speaker 3:Hey we're going to sweet seats in a second oh man, y'all know we like to have a good time here on this podcast, but hey, let's continue. And, as Pastor said, took a few more questions and he's a little more skilled and equipped to answer than we are.
Speaker 2:How do you prepare spiritually and practically for leading worship? Yeah, yeah, I like to tell. I mean, we live in a, a, uh, a confidence monitor culture. Now where, when I was growing up as a little boy, who?
Speaker 3:don't get me started on the confidence.
Speaker 2:Listen I grew as a little boy, I heard the hymn so much we didn't have to open the book, right, I would say. For me a practical thing, one of my personal pet peeves I talk about this even at our church is like if you don't know the song, then you can't lead it, and one of the reasons for that is that means that song has not penetrated your heart well enough to where you're able to know where you're going next.
Speaker 2:Worship leaders aren't just necessarily trying to telegraph a room, they're trying to flow with the Spirit. But if you're so consumed about where you're going next, then you haven't reached a point where, mentally, you prepared on that song. If it's a new song, that's one thing, but a lot of times what ends up happening is if you're going to be the leader, then the director. You have to know where you're going or you have to know how to make tough decisions. My dad was military. You didn't have, you didn't have but split seconds on the field to make decisions. And if your mind is so bogged down with what is the next word, what's the next part? If we're not careful and I'm guilty of it you'll miss that, you'll miss the change waiting on somebody else to change the slide when you should know where you're going so I tell.
Speaker 2:A lot of our team leads to like hey, I know you like to listen to other music on the road to work and other things, but every day, because you know that set list or that song is coming, you should be filling your heart, your spirit with that playing that song over and over.
Speaker 2:The bible says that david meditated on his word day and night which means he was in a repetitive rehearsing regurgitative state, and so we have to do the same thing when preparing for sundays and you get on the risk of being mechanical yeah, absolutely, because if and again I mean either you end up sounding like a cd player or a close version to it yeah because you're not willing to go off course, but when you've developed a skill set in worship, not only are you knowing where you're going, you're able to take us even further than where the song originally went.
Speaker 2:So I try to make sure that, even in this confident monitor confidence monitor that we know enough of the song, that we're not bound to waiting on the person back there who may get it wrong, who may not have listened to the song as much as you did, some of the people back there that are running those slides. They may not even know the songs. They're just there filling a role or filling a gap and they didn't listen to the songs. We even tell our pro-presenter people at our church, like, hey, listen before you get to church on sunday, so you can even know where the songs.
Speaker 2:That's right, and so I would say that's like a huge, huge thing, um, another big thing for me that I would say when it comes down to um, um, just navigating that side of it would even be outside of preparation for like the songs and preparing spiritually. I would say, if you, if you're the type of person that likes entertainment, you like tv shows or you like you know there's some great hulu shows or netflix or certain things that you like to see or just do, um, to start dialing back on those things, start to center your heart. The closer you get to the weekend, um, it doesn't mean you can't have fun, but sometimes we have. I tell our team, like, guard your gates. Obviously, we live in a culture where you know, we see things, some things you can't even avoid. If you're, if you live on social media, if you've been on social media, some things just pop up.
Speaker 2:You know, I would say, just guarding your eyes, guarding your ears and guarding your mouth, guarding your mind. Spending time in prayer is a big thing, um, even when I have an hour and a half drive coming from fuquay, where I live, um to even be in in laurenberg, and so what I like to do, even on my drive, is I'll just pray, I'll worship, I'll spend time with the lord um. But throughout the week you should be rehearsing, throughout the week you should be in communication, um, I would say even outside of that, communicating with the team, trying to be intentional, right team communication, making sure they're good.
Speaker 2:One of the things I try to do when we have rehearsals, even here at laurenberg, is pour into them. I'll share some type of message. I'm like, hey, you can't hide behind these singers. You're gonna grow, you're gonna this, and I speak well over them and I encourage them and I tell them that they're gifted, I tell them that they've got the capacity and so I think practically.
Speaker 2:You have to instill confidence in your team. You have to let them know that they're capable of doing this, that they're more than able, just like the Bible says we're more than conquerors. I'm reminding our team you can do this. You can sing this song. Don't be worried about the people. God is pleased with you. You're singing to the audience of him. Even though you're leading people, you are genuinely not here just to be there for the people. Obviously, we want to be engaged with the people out there, but we need to be intentional to make sure that it doesn't become entertainment. It becomes intentionality, leading people to the next place. Those are a few practical things. Using platforms like Church Track or Planning Center there's different ones that exist to make sure that your teams kind of know where you're going. I try to schedule everything a month in advance. So I try to. Once I get to the end of the month, I put the next month up as far as I can, and then, um, I inform the team.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and this is not on here either, but this is. This is a question I've ran into several, several times. Give it to me selecting a set list. Oh jesus yeah. Tell me your process.
Speaker 3:I got questions too.
Speaker 1:Oh, you got questions, he got answers.
Speaker 3:Let me make a two-part question on that. Okay, Okay, go ahead. How soon do you do a song you just did? What's the template of bringing that back in another Sunday? Oh yeah, Is it three weeks? Is it four weeks? What does that look like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for me, if I'm ever calling an audible, one of the things I like to do even coming into Lauren Berg, I told Pastor Jason, I'm like I'm here to facilitate your vision. I may be a visionary, I may carry capacity, but my job is not to see as much as it's to follow what he's doing. And so what I did was I looked at the current songbook that they had and I said okay, what are some songs that you guys really love here?
Speaker 3:Which was the hymnal. No, I'm just kidding. Turn to page 113.
Speaker 2:No, no, so like, for example, this house particularly loves Gratitude, it's a phenomenal song. We love Lion. Here there's certain songs that are just really really cool and so like, yeah, all this stuff right. And so it's so funny because, like, once, even worthy of it all, or just certain songs once we started singing. I Speak Jesus is another one that we've done. I'm actually very, I'd at least say five, six times since I've been here.
Speaker 2:I like to say if there is something particularly that's resting on the song or resting in the room, I have no problem with bringing that song back the next week because sometimes that can be a sign that God's doing something in a house or in a room. If you've ever been to conferences, sometimes there'll be songs that'll stick and they'll be like we need to do that song again because it was really stirring the waters. I speak Jesus because I've seen what happens in this particular house when we sing that song shout Jesus from the mountains, jesus is the street right. And so the same thing with Lion prepare the way, prepare the way of the Lord. Whenever you hit certain songs or certain things, you'll find that there are streams that stick.
Speaker 2:Redundancy does not mean that it is something that should be dishonored. I think we actually get bored too quickly when the angels see God all the time and they're still crying holy. You're complaining because we're still singing I thank God, and it's like I do thank him and whether you feel like it's because the melody is redundant, doesn't give you room to just begin to dishonor the song because you're sick of hearing it. They sing the same song in heaven according to Revelations, and so you have that mentality of like that.
Speaker 1:But I think there's also a difference between singing it out of comfort and singing it out, because that's what god's doing in the moment, and I agree with that one million percent.
Speaker 2:I would say there there has to be a difference. Um, and just doing it in the moment. I do think you need to spread songs out over time because people are creatures of habit and they can get bored. You want to mix things up. I don't have a particular template.
Speaker 2:When I used to be on staff in south carolina, we would try to do a new song at least twice in the same month and we would try to do them back to back. If we're presenting a new song, I want to make sure we do it at least two, sometimes three times. Here's why I need to know if the song lands or not. If the song we do it the first time and it doesn't land, it doesn't mean that you don't do the song again. You do the song again to see if, all right, we're beating a dead horse, let's move on, right. That's. That's where you can kind of take those moments and say all right, we feel like this song will speak to the house.
Speaker 2:Picking a set list, you have to pick based on your skill set. If you don't have great musicians, you can't pick a difficult song musically, because it's going to frustrate the people that are trying to learn it. It's going to create stress in those transitions. So I'd say picking a set list has to not just be preferential or skill set based, but also spiritual. I pray before I ever pick a song. I pray like Lord. What is it that you want to hear this month? Is there a particular song that you're leading us to? I talk with our team. I also pick songs based on voices and developing voices.
Speaker 2:Some churches are not massively, you know, grown in that area. If we're not Hillsong, we're not going to be Hillsong in the sense of like, oh, they have all these skilled musicians. Sometimes you're in a ministry and you're developing people. So, guess what? We're not going to go out here trying to be perfect. We're going to go out here with the intent and the aim of making sure that people are getting the opportunity to continue to grow in their leadership. Everybody preached one time and had to keep growing. Everybody starts somewhere. And so with our song leaders in Laurenburg, I'm like hey, you're going to keep singing, we're going to keep giving you parts, we're going to keep giving you opportunities because your repetition will grow you. And we repeat it in rehearsal and we affirm them in rehearsal and we're very intentional about making sure that that happens. So set list also should be about development. Um, because not every church is at the same place at the same pace. Um jordan has done. For example, at our church there's a girl named jordan and um she's done, what a beautiful name and she's crushed it. Um, there, you know, uh casey, um recently did greater you.
Speaker 2:So we have different people that were giving songs and guess what? We'll spin the block, if you will, and go back to those songs and say, hey, you remember when you did that, we're going to do that again. I want you to sing it again because it builds confidence. Sometimes you don't want to go so far left where you're always doing new songs, because it doesn't cultivate confidence in a team. One of the things I'm a big I say advocate of is making sure that you don't go so far out venturing that you put yourself in deep water because you wanted to do three new songs and nobody in the church knows it. Nobody even understands them. What does it mean? They didn't catch the melody. You didn't get the congregation involved.
Speaker 3:Don't overly present too many new songs at one time Then we got to come up to preach and it's drier than cracker juice up in there.
Speaker 2:Listen, it's nothing but salt, salt licks. Oh man, I love that, bro, I love it.
Speaker 3:Look, I watched a video. Y'all might have saw it. It's kind of with our next question here and it's about how do you handle unexpected challenges during a worship service, like technical issues and things. I saw this video and I think this woman did a phenomenal job. The sound screeched real loud and then it went dead. And while the sound was going crazy, she turned around to her band and to them it was like keep playing, don't give up, don't stop. And then when the music just completely stopped, she went right in and continued to worship and she used it as a time to exhort and say look, we don't worship just because the sound's on and because the mics are on and because you know that kind of stuff, and she handled it very well. I love that, just based off of kind of your experiences, because we know everybody blames the devil when the sound. Blame the devil and the sound man when there's a squeak and it's really probably just a little loose cable.
Speaker 3:But, in your experiences? How do you find the best way to navigate the church in those moments where sound just ain't where it needs to be? I would say number one honesty and vulnerability.
Speaker 2:I think sometimes we can have this mentality that when it hits a specific time, or if we start at 11 o'clock, no mistakes, no failure, no, this Like we're all human. And not only are we all human, we all know that technology can fail us and make mistakes, we know that power surges can happen, and so sometimes we're trying to sustain a momentum we think we have, when really sometimes the momentum is found in our authenticity and our honesty. It's like, hey, we just had a brief technical difficulty. Come on, why don't you lift your hands in this room? Let's just begin to acknowledge the Lord. We're not here for a song, we're here for him. Come on, he's worthy. Why don't you give him praise? We're about to go back in blah, blah, blah. Like you can, you can steward the room well, I think, to your point. She helped the room understand what was happening and that is the sign of a good worship leader, that if something is technically difficult, that's one thing up here. Obviously, when you said, like emotional moments and things of that nature, we oftentimes assume that the room knows what's happening, knows what's going on, especially if you grew up, like we did, in a traditional environment where church like.
Speaker 2:I lived in church. My address was the church Like. So for me to come up knowing that there's a generation of people who are biblically illiterate, to know that there are people. I remember being in a church, literally. This is no joke. Their hands were lifted and people were like why are people hailing hitler right now?
Speaker 2:they thought they were doing the, not like yeah, because they saw that I was like, yo, you really think that's what the context was. But because they did not have the same frame of mind, right the same cultural experience, that we had a frame of reference yeah, a frame of reference.
Speaker 2:Then it seemed odd to them, and so I would say we have to navigate those issues by providing language and not assuming everybody in the room understands that language. One thing that I admire there's a guy in our community in Apex, by the name of Mike Santiago, and they actually do this thing in worship. That I used to think was kind of like quirky. I was like that's kind of weird. I'm so used to people just going straight into the flow, but they'll do one song and they'll take, they'll break and they'll explain to people what's happening in the room. Like, hey, if it's your first time here, we're in worship. This is nothing more than the way that we adore and love on the Lord. And so you may see people's hands lifted in the room and they begin to define for the non-believer, for the unbeliever and for all the people that may come into that room.
Speaker 2:This is what's happening, because a lot of times in our tradition and our upbringing, hey, god's presence is gonna drop on you and you better get ready, get ready and it's like not everybody has that same context, and it's not that they won't get that context, but information and impartation affect our expression towards the lord and so, um, I would say that's a huge part of it. Emotional issues it depends on if it's from the team or if it's from the congregation. Sometimes you can feel heaviness in a room. I told our team here at Laurenburg. I said the Bible says this where two or three are gathered, he'll be in the midst. So if you're more consumed about what's out there and believing it has more authority than what's happening up here on this stage, then you're missing it. God's presence is so tangible that in our agreement he shows up so don't worry about what they're agreeing on out there.
Speaker 2:They might have had an argument before they came in, but that argument's not greater than jesus. That, that, that frustration, that stress, that's not bigger than jesus. And letting people know. The bible says cast your cares on him, for he cares, so don't bring your cares on the stage, bring them to the altar and then get on the stage I'm about to take up an offering on this podcast.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's the plate around we have to.
Speaker 2:We have to understand that david allowed. David never allowed his emotions to get in the way of him. The bible says david commanded his soul. There's a scripture in songs where he's like soul, why are you cast down? He's talking to it, yeah. Why are you disquieted? In me, hope in god. He says things like I would have fainted but I believed to see the goodness of the lord. Like he talks about what he was feeling in his soul, but then he talks about oh nah, but what my soul is not about to do is have jurisdiction over my praise and my adoration. And so he say things like seven times a day I praise you because your judgments are right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1:Yep, pastor Jay. So let's talk a little bit about leading worship.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I think we've kind of hit on some of that. But what is? How do you handle? We talked about unexpected things. Let's move to the future of worship, I'm sorry. So what trends do you see emerging in worship music and worship leading?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say one of the biggest things I've seen is a lot more, I'd say a lot less uniformity, like one of the things I've noticed is like when you go to you know concerts or gatherings or worship nights back in the day, like you'd see, you know churches, they were all wearing red.
Speaker 3:We're all wearing blue jeans.
Speaker 2:We're all coming in choir robes, like it's this thing where everybody's coming uniquely in their expression to the Lord and they're taking come as you are and applying it to a dress code as well, not just a heart posture. I think you're seeing a new wave of people saying, hey, you don't have to look like a Pharisee to get to God, and so I think that there's positives sometimes challenges in that, because we want people to come to Jesus and be prepared to know that they're not supposed to wear that dress that way, operate that way, but at the same time, we can't allow that to also rob us from saying, hey, how about maybe being a little more modest?
Speaker 2:Let's make sure we're intentional on articulating that God should have an approach. He talks about how you approach him. He's like if you want to come to me, you must first believe that I am. I'm a rewarder of those who diligently seek me. If you want to come to me, you must first believe that I am. I'm a rewarder of those who diligently seek me. So I would say that's one of the first trends I've noticed is that people are dressing how they want. They're coming in beanies and skullies. They're coming in skinny jeans and ripped jeans, which I think is super dope. I love fashion, but I would also say in that same sense, we're also seeing a lot of people be more congregational.
Speaker 2:Like a lot of our songs today are very anthemish. The goal is for them to be singable and not difficult. Um, I can't tell you how many songs are built by four chords right in our culture. Like back in the day, like I grew up listening to israel houghton he's one of my favorite inspirations. I learned how to play guitar because of him and I loved, you know, aaron lindsey and the in the complexity of the songs. Marvin sapp, like it's like music was way more complex. It required a lot more, but now I can play four chords and sing about 12 different songs and then transition into 12 other songs and then land a plane on one other song that could take me 12 more places. So I think there's a lot more simplicity and not as much complexity as well for sure.
Speaker 3:Here we are again. Marvin sap is there? Is there a whole? No, are you sure you know who those are? He knows away, away what's the deep track? He's got huh, what's the deep?
Speaker 2:track. You're so silly hey.
Speaker 3:So the next question we got. No, I love that man. I think that's in in. In the previous uh episode we hit on a little bit of what we're seeing when we talk about worship culture moving a little bit. So if you want to dive a little deeper in that Pastor Cedric kind of expounds a little more as far as what we're seeing worship in a dangerous way can become if we don't get that culture right where it becomes the entertainment culture we talked about that.
Speaker 3:So let's look at just a practical advice for some worship leaders. What advice would you give to aspiring worship leaders looking to make a meaningful impact in their churches? Right now at Reliant Church we have a worship leader she is 22, I think 22 years old first time ever leading worship as one of staff member but also leading teams. Ever leading worship as one a staff member but also leading teams and just keep that kind of frame of mind people stepping into that worship leader role. What kind of advice would you give those?
Speaker 3:And people that are looking into actually stepping into that role, that calling yeah.
Speaker 2:I would say one of the biggest things for me personally. I've always wanted to come alongside the vision of the pastor. Oftentimes when you come into an environment, the pastor has kind of been to that mountain. The Bible says like write the vision, make it plain so those that read it can run with it. So for me, a lot of the churches I've gone to, I've never gone in there with my own plan. I've always asked them what's in your heart? What did the Lord show you? Did you see diversity? Did you see this? How can I help facilitate that?
Speaker 2:I think a lot of times worship leaders feel at odds with their pastors and so sometimes it's like, oh, we don't get to sing more than 15 minutes or we don't get to this. Then really they just not had a conversation. Are you okay with spontaneous songs? Are you wanting historical songs? Are you wanting to hear the Apostles' Creed? One church I was at they loved the Apostles' Creed and they wanted to do it at least once a quarter. It was a thing for them. I was like I completely understand that, so we'll make it happen. And so sometimes there are churches you'll go to and that vision is not just upon the weight of that worship leader. I would say making sure that that worship leader doesn't believe that their only job is to sing. You should be covering your team, you should be covering them in prayer, you should be checking on them, you should be asking them how life is going. If you can't make a phone call, then before service, before worship, before rehearsals, hey, how's things going? Tell me what's going on in your world, and I think that allows unity and bonding to begin to happen.
Speaker 2:A lot of people are just glorified project managers and they're not genuinely getting to know the heart of their people. I wanted to know our entire team by name. I wanted to know what was going on in their world. So here at Laurenburg, from Mama Audrey to Pam to Casey I mean there's nobody here that I don't know and that I've not heard something about their life, like me and Miss Pam, we're talking about her yard and how big it is and how she's got all these animals and she's like do you want a cat? Do you want a dog? She's so sweet, miss Audrey. She told me about her testimony, her story and her family and just her journey and just what she's gone through. I mean, I've gotten to know so many people here, and so if you think your only job in leading is leading a song, that you're missing it. You're leading people, you're leading. You're leading people who are broken, who go through warfare, who go through challenges, and so accepting a responsibility of also being communal in nature, making sure you get to know people like I love my guy Jody here. He helps in the back, you know. I mean, there's just so many people that I could personally mention that I've talked to or gotten to spend time with. Spend time with your team, encourage them, pray for them. That's a big, big thing.
Speaker 2:Another practical thing would be like always look at how you could take the ministry to the next level. If that is, we're going to start running some tracks or we want to upgrade our sound system. Sometimes we don't know always how to get there, but if we say, hey, pastor, here's what I think we could do over the next few years, or how long do you think it would take for us to be able to get to something like this? I was looking at our sound, presenting it as an opportunity for expansion, not just here's what I want and here's how I think we should do it. And when that partnership happens.
Speaker 2:The Bible says in unity God commands a blessing, and so I think any worship leader that's not pursuing unity is pursuing division, and that's not just within the team, but that's if you're not even concerned about what's on the heart of the leadership in that house.
Speaker 2:You have to know the vision, you have to know it. If you don't understand where they're going, you can't help them get there. And I think that's a big big thing for me is I see a lot of people who are like man, I just want somebody to pay me so I can sing. No, do you want to see God do something in a room with people? Do you care what's happening in the city? Do you know what God's doing? It's cool for me because I remember going to Scotland High with Seth and us and it was like me, this guy by the name of Pastor Chris Dillard. We did a youth night there. We all worshiped together. It's so funny to me, in full circle, that Miss Pam who was on our choir remembers me coming in one Sunday to sing and she was getting baptized that day.
Speaker 2:And the moment I came back here she said I knew you were coming here. The Lord showed me and I remember when you were here you were singing when I got baptized, and there are certain things that move my heart, that make me realize that you thought you were singing a song, but you were announcing a shift for some people. You thought you were singing the song, but you were marking a moment for people, and there are people who remember me not even just by my name, but because the sound that I was releasing wasn't one of pride, it was one of adoration to the Lord, and I think the best worship leaders don't just know how to leave an impact in the room, but an impact on the heart, and they want, they cause people to want to burn for the Lord, and so I would say those are very, very practical things for me. The Bible says guard your heart with all diligence. If you're always emotionally vacillating, you're not going to be a healthy leader. You have to help other people be grounded by finding your own sense of stability in the Lord as well. You're only going to be able to take people to places that you have either uncovered or are being guided to by the Lord.
Speaker 2:I don't always like to tell people that you can't take somebody where they've never been, because look where Moses was going Moses had never been to the promised land. He was leading a group of people that somewhere he had never been. He had only been to Mount Hebron. He had not been to the promised land. So sometimes leadership looks like I don't know fully where we're going, but I know who's leading us and I know what we're following, and so staying in a place where you're hearing clearly and staying in a place where you're connected, and so that's a big deal for me. Yeah, it's good, yeah.
Speaker 1:Jay, I'm good sir, unless you got anything you want to add or any questions.
Speaker 3:No, I think it's great. I want to encourage you if you're listening and you know some worship leaders or people who have been praying and feel called into the worship ministry, send us to them and reach out. If you have any more questions, we can get you in contact with Pastor Cedric and he'd be happy to serve the kingdom in this capacity, because I know his heart and we're here to help and to serve people the best way we can.
Speaker 3:That's what this platform is for Jay, for us to one be a light, but also to encourage others and to help people as we continue to grow as ourselves. So I want to bless you with the Numbers blessing and then we'll get you right out of here. Numbers chapter 6 says May the Lord bless you and protect you. May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord show you his favor and give you peace. We just want to say thank you so much for listening and watching Pastor to Pastor Share it with somebody. We just want to say thank you so much for listening and watching Pastor to Pastor.
Speaker 3:Share it with somebody We'll see you here next time Later. Guys, Be good God bless.
Speaker 1:Catch you next time. Y'all come back now, you hear.