The Asbury Outpouring: What We As Worship Leaders Can Learn

WHAT WE AS WORSHIP LEADERS CAN LEARN FROM THE ASBURY OUTPOURING
Dan Wilt

After a week bearing personal witness to what God is doing at Asbury, I woke up with the awareness that there are a few important things we can learn right now.

Humbly offered, and only to serve our growth, I put my reflections below and in a longer form video for us.

1. Worship leadership is not learned on a stage; it is learned in the secret place, and in small settings, where responsiveness to God is cultivated and there is no one to impress. Music is the other skillset we need—though it is secondary to a vibrant secret place life of worship. The GenZ worship leaders get it. We need to get it.

2. The primary goal of a worship leader is to create a space of encounter with God through a song—not just to sing it or play it. That can happen through one song, in 5 minutes, or more songs over 30 minutes plus. It’s about the heart, and the intention, of the worship leader. Our focus becomes the community’s focus.

3. Engagement is real or it’s not. We must focus on modeling (and occasionally teaching) our congregations that “songs are a place we go,” a place of encounter. Don’t expect osmosis to help them “get it.” Desire may lead, but it’s also learned.

4. Tech serves worship; it must never be allowed to lead our energies, focus, and interest when it comes to the encounter of worship that is in community, among the singing saints. Keep the level of the instruments just above the voices, is my personal recommendation.

5. Simplicity matters in worship. These GenZ worship leaders are leading with a piano, guitar, a cajon, and voices. God is meeting people. Let’s reset, friends. Complex is not bad in any way, but simplicity can get us back to majoring in the majors when it comes to corporate worship.

6. Proximity matters when it comes to people being close enough to one another to rise in worship together, with the level of the music just a little above the human voices to give energy and clarity to the dynamic. Being able to see one another’s faces is also to be desired. Circles, semi-circles, u-shapes, side balconies, all can help.

7. Well-known saints are good—making them celebrities is bad. We need well-known and influential saints. We have a nasty habit (our culture reinforces) of making them into celebrities for all the wrong reasons. That’s on us. This is a refreshing stage fragrant with humility where most people are not well-known and don’t need to be.

Here is the link to the YouTube video version.

Great love,

Dan

::

Join my worship leader encouragement email list here.

AVAILABLE NOW

Sheltering Mercy and Endless Grace help us rediscover the rich treasures of the Psalms—through free-verse prayer renderings of their poems and hymns—as a guide to personal devotion and meditation. Sheltering Mercy helps the reader pray Psalms 1-75; Endless Grace leads in prayer through Psalms 76-150.

The church has always used the Psalms as part of its prayer life, and they have inspired countless other prayers. Each book contains 75 prayers drawn from the Book of Psalms, providing lyrical sketches of what authors Ryan Smith and Dan Wilt have seen, heard, and felt while sojourning there. Each prayer is a response to the Psalms written in harmony with Scripture. These prayers help us quiet our hearts before God and welcome us into a safe place amid the storms of life.

These artful, poetic, and classic devotional books are a perfect gift, and feature compelling stunning illustrations and hardcover binding, offering a fresh way to reflect on and pray the Psalms. Co-written with Ryan Whitaker Smith, Brazos Publishing.

Pre-Order below, and join my email list, to get author notes and updates about the book and events around it. 

Get free eBooks and updates

Enter your email address to receive free ebooks, encouragements, updates, and news about events.
I'll only email you occasionally, and I always seek to send something that encourages you.