Whether you're leading at home or out on the road there can be a real pressure to 'perform'. If the last time you lead worship was an amazing time - how do you live up to the expectations to repeat those results? There can be very real pressure to attain or re-create the scenario again and again. Or if you're on the road and you're leading people only once, maybe you have a reputation to uphold or CDs to sell… Unfortunately there's a consumer culture we've built around what we know as worship music these days - and it's so not what our worship is intended to be.
Perhaps we've mistakenly associated God with the feelings of elation we feel during high points in music? If we don't feel those did we not meet with God? How can we 'conjure' up the right feelings each time? Is there a formula of things we can say or sing to make the manifest presence of God 'show up'? God is not manipulated by magic words and He's not subject to systems; yet sometimes as worship leaders we're only perceived to be as good as the last set of feelings we served up. It's this pressure to perform in our consumer churches that leads to worship leaders and pastors using tactics of manipulation to achieve the good results we all want to see and be a part of. Its cyclical.
As a worship leader, even with this understanding of what worship is and isn't, you're still living and ministering in a context that may not quite get that - or even serving a pastor who's distracted or pressured themself into forgetting. So your worship leading abilities are being judged and compared. There are worship CDs and DVDs to live up to and all the Randys, Paulas and Simons out there are filling out their score cards. Do you measure up?
How do YOU deal with the pressure to perform in your ministry?
