At the beginning of a brand new year, I always like to remind myself and ‘take stock’ of the basics, and re-focus on what really matters in every area of my life … my walk with God, family life, relationships, health, etc.  And of course, the basics in my role as one of our team’s worship pastors.

SEE ALSO: 4 WAYS TO CARE FOR YOUR WORSHIP TEAM

At the start of a new year, I re-focus myself on the things that really matter! I always find it a helpful exercise, so I thought I’d share some of them with you!

5 THINGS THAT SHOULD MATTER TO A WORSHIP PASTOR

1. Jesus is leading us

We are responsible for leading people into the presence of Jesus… to do this, we need to know how to enter His presence and be very comfortable there… I can’t get past Exodus 33:14 where Moses’ authentic cry to God was that He would lead him! And Moses would not move unless the presence of God went before him! This is how we should approach every day.

2. We are about fulfilling our Senior Pastor’s vision (not our own)

It is so important that as amazing as our creative ideas might be, if they don’t ultimately line up with what our Senior Pastor and leaders want, then we happily put them aside.

The church doesn’t exist to build our worship teams… our worship teams exist to build the Church!!

3. It’s an honour to serve

We are servants first… it’s not about what we do! So that means if we have to do things that we don’t want to do, then it’s not a big deal because the truth is that it’s not about us anyways!!

4. We need to get better

Yes, Jesus loves us and yes, we have His grace when we hit the wrong note in a song… BUT with a little old-fashioned hard work and commitment we can get better and minimise our mistakes! It’s not about being perfect but getting better!

The goal is not to play a SONGLIST perfectly, but eliminate as many distractions so that people can connect with the meaning of the songs and encounter Jesus. This is otherwise known as an expectation of excellence! (Read more about Excellence)

Mistakes are allowed but making the same mistake twice… now that should be addressed… (In love) there’s always room to improve!

5. It’s not WHAT you do but WHOSE you are that matters

What we do is very important! And doing it to the best of our ability is also important. On top of these, we must seek our value as WHOSE we are rather than what we do! And we are sons and daughters of the living God that created EVERYTHING… who knows and loves us. When we understand this, it becomes the fuel to do what we do and also means that we don’t make it about what we do, but rather the ‘what’ becomes secondary to the ‘why’!!

These definitely aren’t the only things that should matter to us as worship pastors, but they’re a great place to start!

JD