Who Is Responsible For Worship?

The following article was originally posted by Rob Rash, a worship pastor from the great state of Missouri. If you are a worship leader this is a "must read". Enjoy!

Stop Beating Yourself Up

Have you ever felt like something is missing in your worship? Like your people just aren’t ‘getting’ it? Could it be your song choices? Possibly. Could it be your style? Maybe. Could it be your lack of connection with your church folks? Certainly.


Here’s a piece of advice to encourage you and hopefully increase your confidence: You are not responsible for whether or not people worship.

You Are Responsible to Provide the Opportunity for Your People to Worship

Many times, we as worship leaders, rise and fall on the response of worship from our church. We gauge it by participation, loud singing when the band drops out, and hands raised to heaven. But this can be very deceiving because we all worship differently.


Not everyone likes to sing. Not everyone raises their hands. In fact, some folks worship the best by not singing but by taking in the words of the songs on the screen. Some people like to keep their hands in the pockets while maintaining that serious look on their faces. And that’s okay. All that Jesus requires for us to worship, is that we would worship in spirit and truth (John 4:23-24). That’s it. He does not command us to raise our hands, close our eyes, and sing at the top of our lungs. Although that is such an amazing experience when that does happen.


As men and women called to lead the church in worship, what we are responsible for, is to be faithful in providing the opportunity for our people to worship. Take a moment to re-read that. You are not responsible for whether or not your people worship. Your biggest role is in creating and providing a place and moment for your people to worship. And that’s all you can do.


You need to find comfort, rest, and peace in knowing that. You still have to work hard and do the preparations necessary but don’t place too much weight on what you cannot control.