In the past, I’ve posted about ways to pray for your pastor on a given weekend. Here are some ways to pray for the ones who will lead the worship music at your church this weekend. Take 15 minutes today and lift them up to God.
- Pray they will be pure as they lead. Ability to play an instrument and sing a song is not enough to qualify to lead the church to worship through music. Godliness is essential.
- Pray the worship team will genuinely be a team as they lead. Some of the biggest struggles leaders face is not from outsiders; it’s from members of the same team. Pray for supernatural team unity.
- Pray they will lead solely in God’s power. As a communicator, I can fall into the trap of speaking in my own ability. I assume that temptation is equally true for worship music leaders who are gifted, trained, experienced, and often the best in the room at what they do.
- Pray God will grant them focus. It’s easy to get distracted when facing an entire congregation of people for much of the service (it’s that way for me as a speaker sometimes). Even one person who’s not singing can catch a worship team’s attention.
- Pray for peace for those who might silently be bearing their own burdens. Everyone sees the leaders on the stage, and those leaders want to show God’s joy as they lead. That’s hard to do when your own life is filled with heartache.
- Pray that any potential complainers will (a) pray first and (b) express concerns only appropriately, and not on the day of worship. Worship leaders frequently receive more complaints than warranted, often because worship style preferences are so subjective. Ask God to guard them from complainers this weekend.
- Pray they themselves will worship as they lead others to do so. Sometimes those who lead are so focused on the details that they miss God in their own lives. Pray that won’t happen to your church’s worship team.
- Pray the enemy will not lure them into pride. The line between giving your absolute all to God in worship and appearing to be performing can be razor thin. Pray the Lord’s protection around those who lead.
- Pray the sung word will set the table for the spoken word. These tasks are not exclusive; they are complementary. Both matter.
- Pray someone will say “thanks” to the worship leaders this weekend. Pray this prayer, and then you be the first one to express gratitude.
Worship leaders, what would you add to this list?
Learned this from Louie Giglio and Passion City Church Band–pray your worship team leads FROM a place of love and acceptance, not FOR love and acceptance. And pray your team leads with love–for both our Savior and our people. Great, helpful post Chuck!
Good thoughts, Rod. Thanks.
Wonderful prayer. Needed
Blessings. Anne.
Wow, important points right there. …had never thought of no 10…..wangari from Kenya
Thanks for writing.
Thank you. I never thought to pray for the worship leader, just the pastor!!
Great list of prayers. Thank you!
After leading 4 years I rarely got any acknowledgement.. and that’s not why I did it, but it is nice to be appreciated by those you serve. It can be discouraging to feel like no one cares.
I would add prayer that God would guide the song choices, I guess that is #9. Sometimes it seems we just have a rotation of songs. I can sit there thinking of a song that would have gone well with the message. When we pray for that guidance God will supply it. I’ve see it happen even when I had no idea what scripture was being covered.