The Journey of a
Worship Leader
Terry Butler
Around the age of four while on the swing-set in my backyard, I remember singing away and having tears come to my eyes. If anyone had been around, I’d have been embarrassed. Instead, I felt warm inside and peaceful. On the swings is where I spent my alone time thinking and singing. This particular evening I began to realize that I was singing to God. Looking back on it, I can see that He was already pursuing me at age four and was calling my heart to His.
And He hasn’t stopped.
For worship leaders there is great value in looking back at the journey God has taken us on. For one thing, it reminds us that God carries out His plan for our lives in unexpected, unusual, serious and humorous ways. For me, learning how to lead people in worship has been an incredible, awesome, and hard ride!
If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to share a little about my journey. Maybe you’ll see some similarities in your story and mine.
Beginnings
I grew up in the Midwest as a “preacher’s kid” in an evangelical denomination. My mom played the piano most Sundays, and we sang hymns and a few choruses. The song leader up front waved his or her arms encouraging us along as we sang.
Once in a while we’d sing a hymn that would make me sit up and take notice. “Holy, Holy, Holy” was one of these. I’d be transported to a new place when I’d sing those verses. I felt the divine mystery of words like “Cherubim and Seraphim falling down before Thee.” I didn’t know Cherubim from a Cheerio, but I knew they were doing a very awesome, reverent, spiritual thing as they bowed down to the Almighty.
My father had a great voice. Although he mostly preached he would occasionally sing a “special number” like “How Great Thou Art.” That same feeling of God’s presence would come over me. Sometimes my eyes would moisten, and I’d pretend I had played the piano for my dad. Later on, that’s exactly what I did.
I loved the piano and was always trying to pluck out melodies I heard from somewhere. My mom started giving me lessons when I was six or seven. She tried her best to get me to actually play what was in those piano books but before long I was creating my own melodies. Thank God she didn’t mind me “going off the page.”
I’m so grateful my parents gave us kids an outlet to play and sing at church. My first “gig” as a song leader was when I was twelve and they needed somebody to lead the children at Vacation Bible School. I knew three songs - those kids probably really hated them by the end of the week.
My younger brother Randy and I started to write tunes (“ditties” is the right term, I believe) together and tried to emulate the songs we were hearing on the radio, on records or TV. My brothers and my sister and I were way into the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and other groups. Amazingly, my parents weren’t afraid of “rock and roll” and realized that our musical expression would need to be current, be our own. Randy and I shared the piano at the house but he says I finally took over and just slid him off the piano bench. Yeah, I admit it, I did. As a result, he and all the family saved green stamps (ask somebody older) and he got this plastic acoustic guitar and learned how to play it very quickly. Do you see God’s plan here? God used me to “help” Randy discover the instrument God intended for him!
We had our debut at church one Sunday night singing (with Randy on acoustic) “Turn, Turn, Turn” made famous by The Byrds. You may recall that the lyrics at the end of the song include the line “a time for peace, I swear it’s not too late.” My dad had us change the lyric to “I pray it’s not too late.” This was the late sixties in a Midwestern church and my dad needed to keep his job!
We moved out to California just about the time the Jesus Movement got started. I kept banging away on the piano and eventually my mom and dad thought I was ready to accompany once in awhile in the Sunday morning service. Man, I was ecstatic. The other thing that happened is that Randy and I started a band, wrote lots of songs and started seeing kids our age come to Christ. The group grew from four members to six with my older brother Floyd and one of his friends joining us. All six of us are still very close including our families.
Now, you need to know something about my dad. He used to belt out a song every so often right in the middle or just before the conclusion of his sermon. My father is one who was in love with God and never got over what God did for Him. The scary thing is that after I started playing in church regularly he would ask me to come up to play. He’d start to sing before I reached the stage. I would try to find the key he was in and try to hang in there with him. Sometimes it would be a song I’d never heard before. Very scary! I tell you, it helped me learn some weird keys (like D#). God shapes and grows us in mysterious ways, you agree?
I started reading the Living Bible paraphrase. When I would read the Psalms or 1 and 2 Samuel, I felt this deep resonance with David. I was hooked. This was the summer of 1974. I think it was the most pivotal summer of my life. Later that year I wrote my first worship song. God came over me one day at the piano and I must have cried for an hour while writing the song. I didn’t know much of anything about leading others in worship but I started learning that God wanted my life and my music to be all about Him.
God was pursuing me… He was shaping me…
Song leading vs. worship leading
By 1980 I had played the piano in church for quite some time and had been in the band for almost a decade. I had become the song leader and was leading from the piano. I knew something about how to get people to sing, but I knew so little about worship. I’d have them stand up at the beginning of the service. After the first song I’d have them sit down. Sometimes I’d have them stand, sit, then stand again on the same song (no kidding, ask one of my brothers). If a particular song wasn’t working, I’d go to a “sure fire - everybody likes it” song. I felt good after church if the people sang with gusto.
Once in awhile we’d sing a song that would stir emotion… I would lead “Great is Thy Faithfulness,” one of my favorite hymns. and an awe would come upon us. We would sing a Maranatha! song like “In Moments Like These” and tears would start to flow in some of the folks. Still, I thought those were just special Sundays; I figured we shouldn’t expect that to happen very often. I just didn’t connect the dots. God wanted us to do more than show up at church. He wanted to be there.
I hadn’t really understood the correlation of how God had touched me as a young child, spoken to me through the David story and the Psalms and given me the parents I had with the role I was now carrying out in the church. Still, He was patient and pursuing!
Change in my thinking
Some things began to change. I had already known that leading worship was not a performance. I knew God wasn’t into pretense and performance. I learned that from mom and dad. They didn’t put on a “show” at church; they were great models to us kids of what an authentic Christian was…they were the same people at home and at church. God used them immensely because they had real relationship with God, were still in love with Him and were still pursuing Him. As time marched on, I very slowly started putting some of the dots together.
As I read and re-read First and Second Samuel, I began to get the message. David was really into God. God liked him and accepted his worship even though David was messed up at times and did some awful stuff. David was raw and honest. David was called to help others see God big! Although I tried not to “perform” as I led songs, I found myself in ruts, singing, doing and saying the things I thought were safe and appropriate in front of the congregation. Still, I felt like I knew David like a friend and I think that helped get me hungry for his earthy, robust and authentic life-style of worship.
Folks started handing me books on worship. I began to get hungry for more of God, more of Jesus. I knew change was needed. A good kind of desperation began to develop in me. I was a hyper-responsible, “trying to prove myself” associate pastor who loved God but one who struggled to receive His love. I also needed people’s approval way too much (something God has had to work on in me all my life).
A guest speaker came to the church around late ’83 and prayed over me. He spoke about my having a heart like David’s. When he prayed I felt like the wind was knocked out of me, it was so powerful. He spoke about songs coming in the night. He said that the Lord saw me differently than I saw myself. I was touched but didn’t know exactly what to make of it all. Can you relate to the thing about God’s view of you, versus your view of who you are? God used some guy that I never saw again. So cool.
I meet the Vineyard Movement
I had my first encounter with the Vineyard Movement in ’84 at a Signs & Wonders and Church Growth conference. What stands out in my memory was the worship. No flash, no stand up-sit down, or wave your arms type stuff. The simplicity made me take notice. The songs were different. As Carol Wimber has pointed out so many times, the songs were almost all directed to God, not just about Him.
When the worship leader knelt down on the stage with tears in his eyes as he was leading I said under my breath, “Get up! You’re the worship leader. You can’t leave the people in the crowd hanging out to dry. This is highly unprofessional!” Bam! I was caught. My perceptions of whom and what a worship leader was had to change. In each session I was scared and eager for more all at the same time.
I was between two worlds. God was squeezing old religious stuff out of me and putting His stuff in. Echoing John Wimber’s story, I was hearing God say, “You’ve shown me your ministry, let Me show you Mine.” Humbling? Yes. It was God’s “holy sandpaper” all over me! It was painful but releasing and freeing all at the same time. Here was simple, no hype worship that was accessible to everyone.
I bought the worship cassette called “You are Here.” I wore it out and had to get another one pretty quickly.
These lyrics melted me…
You are here, and I behold Your beauty
Your glory fills this place
Calm my heart to hear You
Cause my eyes to see You
Your presence here is the answer
To the longing of my heart
God started filling the hunger in me. I started letting go of the way I had led songs in the past. I started asking Him to show me what He wanted to do in a particular service. Meanwhile my hyper-responsibility in ministry (and life) was sapping me big time. I came to Randy one day and asked Him to lead Sunday morning worship for a month or two. I still played the piano while He led and I’d just weep during the songs. God was showing me mercy and I was desperate that I let it in more than I ever had.
Things were changing at church too. On many Sundays people couldn’t stop crying during worship. We were undone. The manifest presence of God was so thick at times, people couldn’t get up out of their chairs and leave. It was incredible! We were learning about worship by being all messed up, needing lots of Kleenex and getting more real with Him and each other. We were letting Him take the stage and do His thing.
I am so thankful to God that He pursued me. I’m so glad He didn’t leave me to do “church” any more. I’m so glad He frees us to be real in our worship of Him. Does all this resonate with you? Have you allowed God to pummel you so that He shines in worship even as He ministers to your brokenness? He still comes and messes up my carefully planned worship sets, causing me to hit the floor with my nose running while He takes center stage. Oh well!
Invitation to intimacy
It is cool to see how God has used the Vineyard to touch many other denominations and movements around the world. I love what God gave to us. He chose to use us in a special way to remind many in the greater church how He feels about His bride. We in turn, have been the recipient of what He has done through those other streams.
The Father invites His people to be intimate (up close) with Him. He is not shocked or put off by our brokenness and failures. That is still a revelation and a relief to me. Yes, we should approach Him in reverence and awe; we must know the fear of the Lord. But He also wants to be our “Papa.”
Scott Underwood said it so well in his song “Greater Grace…”
Forgiveness…
Acceptance…
Adoption…
Is Your Grace
And I fall on my face
And I yield to You
Life Verse
In the next few years during God’s melting and shaping and as I began to understand worship from His perspective, He gave me a life verse. Psalm 34:3 encapsulates what He made me all about: “Glorify the Lord with me. Let us exalt His Name together.”
Wow! When He spoke that in my ear and it leapt off the page of my Bible, it was a major spiritual adrenaline rush!!! It confirmed my calling all the more. He summed up my reason for living in this verse and I marvel that He always had it in mind for me.
If you are a seasoned veteran you may have noticed that certain songs grip you the most. They revolve around a particular theme like God’s holiness, the cross, God as our Father, unity among His people or intimacy with God. Mine has been God’s glory (see life verse). Of course, worship leaders need to be well rounded in what songs they choose (covering the many aspects of who God is and His story) but I also think that the Lord really wants that particular theme and passion to rise up within us as we lead others in worship.
Sometimes I just throw my head back as we sing the chorus of “How Great is Our God” or sing the words… “Awesome God, holy God, I worship You in Wonder.” At times I can hardly keep playing or singing. Have you ever stopped to notice what kinds of songs/themes stir your passion for Him the most?
Magnificent obsession
I’ve never seen a job description for a worship leader position like this one…
Our church seeks a worship leader who loves Jesus and can weep, laugh, dance, sit, stand, mourn, rejoice, shout, lay prostrate, get a messy nose, bow, proclaim, confess, revel in God, be silent, oh… and by the way, play an instrument, sing mostly on key and lead a worship band.
The above job description is what God turned me into. He became my magnificent obsession. It became all about His presence and His Kingdom, not my personality and persuasiveness and my little kingdom (although God still has to bust me when I start gathering up materials to start building mine again). Mostly, he showed me what I was made for and called to do. Lead others in and then get out of the way.
Leaders with a limp
I have been to the mountain top and I have spent time in the valley of pain. Several years ago I went through what felt like hell on earth suffering a breakdown and depression. John Wimber spoke about not trusting a leader who doesn’t have a limp (He wrote an article called “Leaders with a Limp”). I thought I already had that limp before all this happened and maybe I had a little one. After this painful and scary time I have a greater understanding of what John was talking about. I have everyone I am mentoring read that article. We have to come to the end of ourselves to do this worship leader gig. We must want Him and His presence over everything else!
He wants leaders who are quick to agree with His assessment of who they are. He wants honesty. I get jealous attacks from time to time. Oh… it sneaks up on you too, huh? All of the sudden I’m tempted to either hate Matt Redman or be Matt Redman! In my honest confession of jealousy, greed, and ungratefulness, God pulls me back into what matters. Him! He’s what matters. He trumps everything else. He is an all consuming fire! (Deut. 4:24, Heb. 12:29).
I’m sure glad God is patient and I’m extremely thankful He forgives arrogance and jealousy and that He chooses to use us worship leaders in spite of our “artist/musician temperaments” and our musical snobbery (“Oh God I repent!”). I wrote a song long ago called “Over and Over Again.” The second verse and chorus express my gratefulness as the journey continues…
You’ve been so kind and patient with me
Over and over again
And when I have strayed,
You’ve shown me the way
Over and over again
All I can say is I love You
All I can say is I need You
All I can say is I thank You Lord
For all that You’ve done in my life
Look back
Worship leader, take time to look back and revisit the touch points of God’s hand upon you. Remember His call on your life – stop and think about how He did his radical surgery on your heart and soul leading you to this sacred trust called worship leading. Thank Him for not giving you what you deserved but instead showed you mercy and lots of patience. Ask Him what’s next and expect Him to answer. It’s not over till it’s over, right! – there’s always more and God is pleased and delighted to give it. Someone said so eloquently, “God waits to be wanted.” I like that. By stopping and looking back at your story, maybe you will parts of it with new glasses, gaining a greater perspective of where what He’s doing now. Maybe you will want to go thank someone for their part in your story.
See your uniqueness and bless Him for making your voice sound like it does (I know that’s hard for some of us!)Thank him for giving you your temperament. Praise Him for all the people He has used to shape and encourage you, even the ones who drove (or still drive) you crazy. Thank Him that you have been called to lead people before the great audience of One.
And as you continue this journey, remember that the most important title ever given to you was by God Himself. He calls you “child.”
© Terry Butler/Terrytunz
