Worship Leaders Are Not Rock Stars

Last weekend I read a new book in one sitting, because I couldn’t put it down. Fortunately it’s just 125 pages so I wasn’t lost in book-world all weekend long. The book is Worship Leaders, We Are Not Rock Stars by Stephen Miller, Worship Leader at The Journey Church in St. Louis.

Long-time readers at My Song In The Night may remember I interviewed Stephen Miller in 2012 after he’d released his record God & Sinner Reconcile. Since then he’s released two more albums, including a companion piece to Worship Leaders, We Are Not Rock Stars — a 13-song record called All Hail The King. And, if you buy Worship Leaders, We Are Not Rock Stars on Kindle, you can download All Hail The King for free! Here’s how:

When you buy the book, there is a link on the page directly after Darrin Patrick’s foreword. Type that link into your web browser. It will take you to a page that asks (at the bottom of the page), “Already Have the Book?”

Follow those instructions and you will get an email with your free copy.

Stephen wrote Worship Leaders, We Are Not Rock Stars to be an accessible, succinct look at what a worship leader is, and what a worship leader is not. The 9 chapters each focus on a different aspect of the worship leader’s calling — everything from “We Are Pastors & Deacons” to, simply, “We Are Christians.”

The “We Are Storytellers” chapter describes the worship leader as “liturgist.” It takes the mystery out of this technical/scary sounding word, and provides a good template for designing your Sunday liturgy, using Isaiah 6:1-8 as a model.

Songwriters will find plenty to chew on as well, such as this section from Chapter 5: “We Are Theologians”:

“If we are to worship God, we must know who he really is.

“My wife is a petite, green-eyed, blonde-haired, gorgeous woman. She is kind and compassionate, loves our children, and is an incredible mother and wife …

“But what if I were to come to her and say, ‘I wrote this song for you to tell you how much I love you’ — and then went on to sing about how much I love her brunette hair and brown eyes and how I can’t wait to marry her and have kids someday? She would be confused and would maybe wonder if I wrote the song about another woman.

“Or what if that song was actually all about me? A tribute to myself, how she makes me feel, and how I must be so great that she would love me? …

“We do this very thing to God when we blatantly or unintentionally disregard the prominent presence of God’s Word in the songs we sing and are flippant about the words that we sing to Him and about Him.”

I could quote lots of other parts from the book, but why not read it yourself? You can get it on Kindle here, or paperback here. This is a great primer for young or aspiring worship leaders, and a helpful teaching tool for your entire worship team.

One final note:

Moody Publishers is running a special for worship leaders who want to take their whole teams through the book: