Last night, along with millions of others, I watched the BCS national championship and learned a valuable lesson.
First let me catch some of you non football fans up. Early in the first quarter the Longhorns quarterback, Colt McCoy went down with a shoulder injury. He never returned to the game. Colt McCoy had led the team all season. He had the timing down with his receivers, he was comfortable with the Running backs and he knew all the plays. He was Texas’ best hope against a powerful Tide defense. All of the sudden the man in charge on the field was gone, and a true freshman, Garrett Gilbert, had to step in to take his place.
So what happened? First they didn’t panic. They changed some plays, had some other team members step up, the defense kept them close, the team rallied around their new captain and they played football. The result was a second half comeback to within three points at one point, in a game all thought was lost.
Why did a game that could have been a washout stay close? Because when one man went down there was a back up plan. There was a quarterback who had played, knew the routes and was able to step in. It might not have been ideal, but the game went on.
So what did I learn? What does this have to do with worship leading? I had to ask myself what would happen if the same thing happened to me. What about you?
What if I woke up on a Sunday morning and couldn’t sing? What if you were stranded somewhere by weather and couldn’t make it back in time? What if a kid goes in the hospital and you cannot be in on Sunday morning? What is your backup plan? Is your team set up to continue on without you? As I thought five main things came to mind.
1. Don’t build everything around you!-Make sure that you are not indispensable. It’s not about you anyways so just get over it. If everything relies on you to make it happen then when you are gone, everything falls apart.
2. Create backup songlists- go through your songs and identify ones that other members of your group can lead, and that your instrument is not necessary on. They may not be the songs you would ideally use, but a good list can be created and used for that Sunday. I try to set some of those songs aside and not include them in my regular lists, so they are not over done when needed.
3. Develop multiple leaders- This is an extension of number one. You should work to have several worship leaders. One goal I have is to work with each of my vocalists and give them the tools they need to lead an entire worship service. This means being sensitive to flow, signaling the band, speaking, praying, and choosing songlists.
4. Don’t assign specific songs to people- Something I have gotten in a bind with was when I had certain songs only certain people sing. There are some that we still do this way but they are mostly our offertory non worship set type songs. The majority of our worship songs I try to have different people lead. This way if a certain person is gone, we can still use that song if necessary.
5. Schedule time away before an emergency- Try to schedule time when you are not on stage leading but are still around to help and provide confidence. Maybe take a week and, wait for it, sit with your family during the worship service. When is the last time that happened? I have often sat out during the first part of a service, and then led during the second half. This does two things. First you get a perspective on how things sound from the floor and how people are responding that you cannot see from the stage. Secondly it allows others to lead, without you on stage, so that if an emergency makes it necessary, they can lead in your absence.
While football fans will have to wait till next season for the next National Championship run, you can begin now to implement some of these ideas. And these are just my suggestions. What are yours? What do you do to ensure that it all goes on with out you? What fears do you have about being gone? I would love your comments…
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