Hi everybody, I'm John and I'm going to start leading worship at the chapels for Heritage Christian. I am very young for your average worship leader, and I have never done anything like this before, but I played under a great leader named Tyler for 2 years, so he gave me a basic idea of how to prepare people's hearts and how to wait on the Lord. For all the worship leaders out there, how do you prepare for worship services and how do you effectively choose songs and find new ones? Also if you have some great stories pertaining to musical worship please post. Thanks amigos, god bless. -John

Well, I don't have too much advice since I am VERY new to the whole worship leading thing. I've been leading singing at my church for just a few weeks now, and it's only a summer position (though that's not to say that I won't continue to do it sometime in the future). The best thing to prepare for worship services is just to pray, and to think about what your songs are saying. Sometimes you will want to supplement them with Scripture or other relevant comments - other times they stand alone. Sometimes you'll want to allow the congregation to repeat a chorus several times, to the point where it seems overkill. Cause maybe by then they'll stop and think about what they're singing. Sometimes not. I guess you have to know the people you're working with. When I choose songs for the youth group, most of the time I pick songs that I like, cause I'm not much older than the youth and we probably have similar tastes on a lot of things.

I help my dad out along with other praise band members i think the key is prayer. Pray that God will put some songs on your heart. I know i like to pick a variety for people in our church where they arent all OLD!!! but they arent all NEW! either. you need to have a good balance otherwise people feel left out. Our tendencies is to do all the new songs but there are still some wonderful old ones too. If God puts a song on your heart in the middle of a service play it. and skip over the next one or sing that one too. dont worry about if people wont know the words cause most cases in our church they do. Dont let things limit worship with Christ. God bless and I'll be praying that you find the stregnth and help to lead from Christ as you help others fall before the feet of Jesus.

Thats so amazing. I'm in our church ensemble in florida. To help our and other hearts ready for christ we do all you can do.......pray. Well good luck and dont be nervious.Just let God do his majic and allow his shining glory to be released through you. Good Luck!! Hope this helps! Adios!