Confidence at Conference: Leading (Part 2)

You may have read last week, over the years I’ve sung and worship led at a number of conferences, as well as hosting them. Having been under different styles of leadership and learning from my own experience I thought I’d offer you my top 10 tips to overseeing a worship team at a conference (part 1 – over here) and today we’ll look at how to best worship lead in a conference (part 2).

How can we best lead people in worship at a conference? Here are my top 10 tips:

1. Be in relationship:
   • Make it your first priority to be in the presence of God before, during and after your prep for conference.
   • Connect with your team members beyond music and the conference, check in with them – especially if they aren’t normally apart of your team or might be new to your world.
   • Make room for getting to know the people you are leading at the conference. It’s amazing how a simple conversation can open up trust off the platform and create trust to lead them from the platform.
2. Be organised:
   • Ahead of time have an idea of where you are going: depending on the length of your conference pick songs to make set lists for: 1-3 day conference try picking 10-15 songs. 3-5 day conference anywhere from 15-25 songs. And send those out to your team members so they know what to expect and can practice ahead of time.
   • If you’re not the facilitator for the worship team connect with your facilitator and offer any help required.
3. Pick songs majority of the people attending will be familiar with:
   • Be sensitive to who might be attending – if your attendee’s are intergenerational include songs that will include them in the journey.
   • If it’s your church – pick what they’re familiar with stick to the songs you might already do or want to revisit or perhaps even introduce. If it’s multi-church – pick what the majority know, and throwing in something people may not have sung in a while can be really unifying. It might even be worth hitting up a few of the senior pastors of the churches attending and find out what they are singing in their community to get a better idea of what is current for them. What is current for you might not be for them.
4. Lead from your overflow:
   • Seek God out continually.
   • Remember: Worship leading is a 3 way conversation (to God, to the team, to the people), it’s no different in a conference setting.
   • Be engaged with what God is doing, communicate well with your team where you are going with hand signals and verbal cues, and connect with your congregation: Avoid keeping your eyes closed the majority of the time you sing, make eye contact with your people, smile, engage and lead people to a deeper encounter with Jesus.
5. Get up early to warm-up vocally:
   • Waking up earlier will help you transition to your rehearsal easier.
   • Have a track you can warm-up to in your car. I will often go for a sunrise drive and warm-up on the way, have a devotional time and then warm-up again on return drive.
   • Eat breaky with your team and encourage them/update them with any changes that have arisen.
6. Prepare segues:
   • Transitions between songs in a conference settings aren’t too different from worship leading on a Sunday, however I have found it helpful to conceptualise or pre-prepare:
     • Bible passages that facilitate the theme/key takeaways
     • Prayer or if it’s your church’s thing: liturgy e.g. the Apostles Creed or the Lords Prayer.
     • Conceptualise what you might say in welcoming people to the session, between songs if it’s necessary or wrap ups.
7. Communicate well in your rehearsal space:
   • Explain any transitions you are hoping to do or if you are trying anything new.
   • Work through tempos, songs and segues.
   • Also walk through when to be on and off stage and any videos or other elements that are happening so they’re aware and not distracted when it happens.
8. Encourage exaltation in musical interludes or instrumentals:
   • Conferences are a great space to try something new with your people or extend on free worship opportunities.
   • Utilise space in your songs by adding extra turnarounds or extending instrumentals. Invite your congregation to sing their own song, or begin singing your own which encourages your people the freedom to explore theirs.
9. Make space to decompress at conference:
   • It’s important to decompress and really seek God out what He is doing across the conference, making sure the sets you’ve picked are still appropriate for where you are heading.
   • Have key people you can go to for prayer or down time.
   • It’s also important to not over extend yourself, no one wants or expects you to crash and burn by giving 110% for the whole time!
10. Thank everyone involved:
    • Honour people’s service thank them verbally on the day and send follow up thank you’s either team wide or individually afterwards. Value their sacrifice genuinely.

Leading at conference is much like a Sunday – just on a much larger scale. It requires a lot more preparation and also a lot more of you on the day(s). Keep Jesus the center and always point people back to Him, then you’re setting everyone up for a win. Bless you lots!

Until next time… xox