I am conquering my fear of leading worship

When I first found my church, I was struck by the worship – it was easy to follow and it called to me. Not long after I was baptised, I volunteered to help on the worship team. As time has gone on, I have gone from being an enthusiastic backing singer, to occasionally leading a song, to leading a whole set, to leading worship when my worship pastor is not present.

This still comes as a surprise to me. Until I went to church, my experience of singing was limited to school, some plays I performed in, and my home. I cannot read music and don’t know what the key of G sounds like. I can tell when I go off, but I sometimes can’t pick out the intro in a guitar riff – which has led to me closing my eyes in a spiritual-looking way while I try to work out where I am in the song!

And now our wonderful worship pastor is moving on to a bigger church with greater responsibilities. He is a friend and I am really happy for him, but I am also anxious. While we find a new pastor there is a vacuum which I and a few others are expected to fill. My friend has been mentoring me for a year, introducing me to the idea of the journey a service can take and how each song can signify a different sort of interaction with God: praise, submission, encounter, conviction. He has helped me to choose songs and to adapt to the needs of the congregation on the day. He has encouraged me to introduce new songs.

This has been a wonderful experience and a time of growth for me, but I in no way wanted to take on the mantle. I just wanted to be an enthusiastic sidekick. After all, until he left, I was still singing the beginning of a song into a voicemail message so he could transpose the key! …

Commitment-Phobe is a new Christian

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This is an extract from an article that was published in the May 2018 edition of  Reform

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