How to lead
A House Church
5 tips for leading worship in a small group, church plant or house church
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you would think that leading worship in
a smaller setting would be easier than
leading for a group of hundreds or maybe
thousands of people but I've actually
found the opposite to be true so if you
have the opportunity to lead worship for
10 or 20 people here's 5 tips to help
you out hi i'm dave dolphin at
practicalworshipblog.com sharing ideas
tips and practical advice for the
everyday worship leader and on this
channel we have weekly videos that help
you lead a worship band and be a leader
of people so if you haven't already
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out leading worship in a smaller setting
brings with it its own unique challenges
and differences but it can be a
beautiful and intimate time of worship
if you understand how it differs from
leading a group maybe even of just a
hundred people and making the
appropriate adjustments I have a friend
named Nathan who leads worship for a
small church that meets in a coffee shop
so he's got a lot of advice on this kind
of a thing and I want to give him a few
moments to share his knowledge and
advice so here's Nathan Drake leading
worship for a small group of people can
be intimidating like really intimidating
when I said small group I mean maybe 20
25 people or less it could be a house
church or a church plant or maybe just a
community group or life group or
whatever your church calls those things
in America this would be considered a
tiny Church but in a lot of parts of the
world this is typical so whether you're
a worship leader in a small church or
worship leader in a large Church who may
be asked to lead worship in a smaller
setting or even just someone who got
recruited to lead worship at your
community group today I want to give you
some tips and encouragement about
leading worship in a smaller setting and
how it differs from a larger Church you
would think that leading in front of a
hundred people or a thousand people
would be more intimidating than in front
of ten people but often it's quite the
opposite I think there's several reasons
for this
one is that you can see every pair of
eyes on you when you're in a large group
setting that the people can kind of meld
into like there's a worship II blob kind
of thing but when you're in a small
group you can see every individual
person looking at you but I think one of
the biggest issues with leading worship
in a small
group is that many people are more
hesitant to sing in a small group than
in a large group people who aren't
confident singers can blend into a large
group but when they're in a group of
just 10 or 24 people they'll be afraid
that people can hear them sing and since
they're not competent singing they just
won't sing at all so there are some
issues that are unique to leading
worship in small groups now let's see
how we can address those issues the most
important thing is that you need to be
willing to change things seem to go the
worst when a worship leader comes into a
small group setting and then tries to
lead worship exactly how they would in a
large group it just doesn't work now I
don't tend to do this a lot but I know
some worship leaders like to make the
worship sets like this this nice
polished entity inside of the service so
we'll start with like a countdown and
then the countdown is over I'll play
these four chords like eight times while
this guy reads Psalm gets everybody
pumped up for the first song which is
really fast after the first song
keyboard player I'll transition with
some nice minor chords and a nice pad
and we'll sing a contemplative song sing
that chorus like 38 times or so then
we'll have another transition and I'll
pray that the Holy Spirit is with us and
then we'll hope that the Holy Spirit is
there because I don't like lying when
I'm praying and then well kind of pump
everything back up we'll play a brand
new song new transition drummer those
are drum solo sure they don't know the
song yet but there's like 200 people in
the room so surely somebody'll know it
then when you bring that worship
services into small group you end up
just having 20 people watching you
perform a worship set that isn't for
them so let's talk about the specific
things that may need to change the first
of which is the song keys now I would
always advocate that you choose keys
that are good for your congregation to
sing in but I know sometimes when we're
leading in a larger setting with a
worship band and everything we pick keys
that are maybe good for musicians or
good for our other singers or maybe even
just good for our voice and when you're
in a larger setting at tends to work out
because there will be people in the
group that can sing in that key in a
small group the wrong key will be far
more obvious so you may need to bring
the key of the song down a little bit
up a little bit and maybe a little
uncomfortable for your voice but trust
me if the people can sing out loud you
will feel much better about the song
another interesting thing about a small
group is that if it's one that you
leadership in often you probably know
what your people like to sing like for
instance my current church I was making
the keys so that they could sing melody
but like half of the people in my church
always sing harmony no matter what key
the song is in so I started changing the
keys of the song so it fit their
harmonies better than the melodies once
you get used to the group you're leading
in you may adjust keys based on how they
sing when it comes to arranging the song
itself I would say focus on the vocals
and not the music when you have a full
loud amplified band you can have really
nice like intros that are a couple bars
long and interludes between between
verses that are really long but in a
small group setting when maybe it's just
you on the guitar those four bars in the
beginning can feel like an eternity
people are just staring at you waiting
for the singing to begin so just adjust
those just focus more on the vocal parts
of the song because those are the parts
that the people can participate in the
easiest also be willing to adjust during
the song for instance if you get to the
bridge of a song and you're planning on
playing at 4 or 6 times and when you get
to it that people just stop singing
because maybe they don't know that part
of the song or the keys too high or
something then you don't have to play it
all the time as you planned you can just
play it once or twice and then move back
onto the chorus the parts of the song
you know that people can participate in
be willing to adjust to what's best for
the people something I think is very
important in small group worship is
explaining you can't just rely on the
power of the worship experience to drive
everybody to worship you need to explain
and then explain and then when you're
done explaining explain some more I have
noticed a trend with worship leading
lately that people are encouraging
worship leaders to talk less and to be
more focused on musical transitions and
the flow of worship and I don't think
that's a great idea all of the time I
don't want to go super in-depth on this
right now because that's not what this
video is about if you're interested in
that I do have a video on the my
studio channel that you can watch but
suffice it to say people knowing what
they are singing and why they are
singing it will go much farther in
helping their worship experience then
smooth transitions and a great worship
flow all this to say that small group
worship really is a group activity
you cannot leave people behind in a
large church setting it ends up just
being a few people who plan the worship
and a few people who lead the worship
and that's just kind of the nature of
the beast but in a small church setting
you need to make sure that everyone
feels like they are part of the worship
service I'm not saying everyone needs to
like stand up and give their testimony
or something but all those things we
talked about before like adjusting the
keys and adjusting the song while you're
playing them focusing on the vocals
explaining what you're doing those are
all meant to make the people feel like
they are a genuine part of the worship
of service even though leading worship
in a small group can be challenging and
intimidating you don't need to be
discouraged because the very same reason
that it's intimidating is why it's so
rewarding when you can see every pair of
eyes on you you can also see when every
pair of eyes is on God in many ways
you're more a part of the service than
you are in a larger group sometimes in a
larger church setting we're up on stage
physically separated from people we have
monitor mixes going on we have the band
playing we have display going on and we
kind of end up in our own little world
apart from the rest of the congregation
but when you're sitting in someone's
living room or in a small cafe
worshipping you don't have the option to
be in your own little world you are a
part of the group there's a very toxic
brand of church growth culture going
around that says being small means
you're doing something wrong that is
patently false look at the individual
that person's worship is essential to
their well being and their relationship
with God it doesn't matter that there's
a thousand people there or ten people
there
worship is essential to the Christian
life and being able to lead worship is a
privilege
it doesn't matter how big or small the
group if you want to check out more
videos from Nathan he has a brand new
YouTube channel called - studio and he
does similar videos to what you'd find
here I'm practical worship but he really
caters the content to those that are
leading in small situations and small
churches he's also got a great YouTube
channel where he does acoustic covers of
hymns I'm gonna link all that up in the
description below well here a practical
worship we love sharing ideas and tips
and practical advice for the everyday
worship leader with videos just like
this one so if you haven't already
consider subscribing to the channel I
also want to offer a resource in the
form of a small fee book called 20
things I wish I knew 20 years ago it's
the advice that I've learned over the
last 20 years of doing music ministry
and you can download it right now for
free by going to
practicalworshipblog.com
