Follow the Leader

There is something special about coming together with other people to worship God. You can worship God any time and anywhere on our own, but when we come into the corporate space, we don’t want to waste this opportunity to go on a journey with others by falling back into our individual worship.

I don’t believe the worship leader is there to show people the tune or to create some music that people can sing along to, but I believe they are there to lead us and take us on a journey.

That means, what is required from the worshippers in that space, is to choose to follow the worship leader on that journey.

Let’s look at Miriam in the book of Exodus: ‘Then Miriam the prophet, Aaron’s sister, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women followed her, with timbrels and dancing.’ (Exodus 15:20)

Miriam had a song, sound and movement to release. She made a decision in that moment that these particular words and this particular dance was the way to lead people in praise. The other women could have just watched, or they could have released a different song, but instead they trusted her leadership and followed her.

If you’ve got a good worship leader, they will be listening to God and they will have a journey that they want to take people on. So as the worshippers, we’ve got to trust their leading and choose to go on the journey with them. Even if it’s not our particular preference of style or song, there is power in moving together as a body of worshippers. We can only do that if we collectively choose to take the lead from the worship leader, who is hopefully following the Holy Spirit.