Question:
When you are leading a congregation in worship, is there any specific way that you lead? Like if you want to go to different sections in the song, do you motion the band to go, or do you practice the song and do it exactly the way you practiced, with no alterations? and what's your motivation behind the way you lead.
When i lead, I like to have tons of practice under our belt, so that we know the music like the back of our hand, and then use our structure to let the Holy Spirit move in it. I believe that structure is fantastic, and without order you have disorder, but thats the reason for knowing the music so much that if you feel the Holy Spirit is leading you somewhere you are able to do it with ease. Spirit led, pretty much.
God Bless, Jim
Answer:
My style of leading is like yours pretty much. I am a firm believer that the Holy Spirit is the true worship leader and that worship leaders must be sensitive to the Spirit and be lead.
We usually structure a song in practice but in worship we may do things totally different. My team and I have been playing together for so long that I hardly ever have to give hand motions because they basically know the way i want to run the song. But when hand motions are necessary i usually this this:
"C" with the hand for chorus
Thumb and pinkie extended for bridge
Index finger means back to first verse
Point up means back to the top
Twirling the index finger means repeat whatever we are on
Answer:
When I'm leading, it's my job to follow the spirit and everyone else tries to keep up!!
we ageree before the service who's leading, and everyone else watches & follows.
there are some songs that usually go the same way, but last week we were doing Jesus be the centre with acoustic bass & bodrhan and it just felt right to do something we had never practiced. I stopped playing & the bass & bodrhan kept going through the last chorus. It was like a heartbeat and it really took us (and the congregation) to another level of worship
we'll always have had a run through of the songs we're playing, so it's more a repeat of the chorus or something rather than a new song that some of the band don't know.......
as for the hand sigs, that's fine if you'r playing keys, and you can spare a hand while playing with the other, but I've never managed it on guitar!!
Answer:
I generally don't think the Holy Spirit really cares whether you go to the bridge or the chorus next.
Dangit, why can't I just let things go?

Answer:
Whatever you do, please give the band some sort of signal cos it can be very difficult trying to read the leaders mind about where he wants you to build!!
Answer:
I'd say that 98% of the time, we do a song just like we've practiced it. Another 1% of the time, I'll tell the crew "Look, when we get to this point of the song, I'm going to give an indication (with my voice/with my guitar playing/with a hand signal) of where we're going next. Yet another 1% of the time (actually, maybe more than that), I just mess up and lead the song "wrong," which is to say not like we did it in practice.
Nate
Answer:
lol. well I like to lead worship in a more energized way most of the time to get the congregation into the worship, and let the congregation sing a lot to help them get really into the worship. Through out this I obviously let the holy spirit guide the worship though, but more in the slower songs. Im basically the only intsrument in the group right now, so its easy to go into different things very easily.