Preparing to Serve

As believers, we are all called to be servants. Our first priority is to serve the Lord. For those of us who are worship leaders, it is easy to confuse spiritual preparation with musical preparation. Let me explain what I mean.

As musicians, amateur or professional, we spend tons of time preparing ourselves for the music in which we are going to lead the church. There are notes to be learned, rhythms to work out, words to memorize, and phrasing to be structured. We work on blending. We work on stage presence. We even work on smiling. With all of this "work", it can feel at times that we have prepared ourselves to lead in worship. However, this is where the enemy can get a foothold.

Although there is a lot of work involved in the musical aspect of worship leading, our primary responsibility is to prepare ourselves spiritually. If we look at the life of the apostle Paul, we see him preparing himself spiritually before he poured into others. In Galatians 1, Paul says that he prepared for 3 years. Some theologians believe that the Lord had Paul in the desert training him, just as He did with Moses, Abraham, and David. The fact of the matter is that Paul prepared himself spiritually.

In John 4:23 & 24 Jesus says, "But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." It's not just the spirit; worshiping out of a relationship with passion and emotion. That is extremely important. But, it is also worshiping in truth; from a spiritual preparation of time in God's word, preparing our hearts and minds and aligning everything we do with His word.

It is not "either/or", it's "both/and". As a worshiper, we must worship in spirit AND in truth. Only then will we truly accomplish that which the Lord has called us to as worship leaders.