Episode 104: The Pastor and the Worship Leader: 5 Battles

In this episode we take you to a conversation between Pastor Brady and Pastor Jon Egan at our recent Essential Church Learning Community on the relationship between the senior pastor and the worship leader.

Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel and follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to stay connected with us throughout the week!

I firmly believe that this is one of the most vulnerable relationships in the church… it’s an area where the enemy attacks… the key for Pastor Brady and I is understanding that we have different personalities…

If you do not like conflict, you can’t lead… leadership requires conflict… conflict is where the best ideas come from…

I believe that there is an ordained leader to lead the church and that it is not the worship leader… I think the senior pastor is the worship pastor of the church… deciding that early makes things a lot simpler…

Most of the major conflict in the church is just the accumulation of minor aggravations that went unsaid… but if you’ll speak out on the minor issues, you’ll have very few major issues…

One of the things that’s helpful is that you want your worship pastors to feel like they have ownership over the process of choosing songs, but they have to be willing to submit it…

Another battle is the battle for the clock… we shouldn’t go long just because we haven’t prepared… a lot of worship can happen if everyone comes ready…

I grew up in a tradition where 20-minute worship sets felt like a joke… it was a great lesson to realize that every minute, every breath, can truly count…

A lot of the wasted time in worship is not the songs, but the transitional moments that aren’t prepared… if you’re not prepared, you’ll start rambling…

All of us need words of affirmation, but we all need to wrestle with whether we need inordinate amounts of affirmation in order to do our job… how much of the spotlight do any of us really need? 

People are coming to church when their whole world is being turned upside down… people need to know that church is predictable, stable, and safe… and sound and lights can help with that…

This is a highly relational environment, and there needs to be as much relationship as possible between the senior pastor and the worship leader… I don’t just see Jon as a gifted musician and singer… the first thing I see is a remarkable person who I enjoy as my friend and who happens to be my worship leader…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *