Growing as a Leader

Bill Johnson

Growing as a Leader 

While we say it’s all about God, He says it’s all about us.

- How authentic and real our love for God is can sometimes only be measured in how we love others.

- The woman who poured the perfume all over Jesus' feet left the room smelling like Him.

- The Lord will not share His glory with anyone. But you are not “anyone”.

- Love the Lord your God with all of you, but love your neighbor as yourself - you can’t have one without the other.

- There is individual anointing, and there is corporate anointing. The greater the personal anointing the greater the tendency to ignore the corporate anointing.

Prophetic song:
- That which the Lord sings over us
- That which we sing back to the Lord

If the musicians break out into a jam-session but don’t take the corporate church with them, it is not honoring the corporate anointing.

You need to earn the right to lead a prophetic song. A leader starts where the people are, not where they personally are.

Worship leading means you need to spend plenty of time alone with the Lord so that you can afford to lead with one eye on the Lord and one on the congregation.

You do not need to project who you are, nobody comes to see who you are. You express that in your own time with the Lord.

Gifts of the Spirit:
- God’s artistic expression that enhances and encourages the life of the believer.

In creativity, we learn to take what others are developing and put our own expression to it. If you want to go up the mountain of unique creativity, you will always go alone.

Congregational worship:
- Its a journey, take the people with you.
- It should enhance their expression.
- If you start with a prophetic song, you won't take the congregational with you, they will be left behind.
- You create a line between “us” and “them” - you draw a line between those who were ready for it and those who weren’t. That’s not good leadership.
- When you lead you to need to start where the people are
- Be used of the Lord to create the environment that invites them to bring their own expression of worship to the Lord
- Together, there is a corporate anointing - the merging together to one exponential encounter. You won't have a corporate anointing without agreement.
- Don’t lead with a new song no one has heard before.
- The only exception to this is in a conference, where there is momentum built. The faith of the people has been together, on a journey, for days.- enhance the affection of people for the God they love.

The corporate anointing is many times greater than individual anointing.

- The corporate anointing is when the hearts of all pick it up and add layers to it. No one is seeking for their own agenda or the right for their own expression.

- Jesus gave up everything to become a man, pay the price for man, and he paid the price for a field - it was worth everything to Him.

He’s not afraid of you leaving a room smelling like Him. Your worship expression should leave you “smelling” like Him.

The whole focus of art, creativity, music, worship, is supposed to be to disappear. Paul said “follow me until you see Him”, meaning “you can’t see Him, so follow me until you can, then I will disappear”.

- The convictions we have for what an ideal set look like are ok, but when we come before the Lord, all our agendas have to be put aside.

Excellence - the Lord is really moving on this right now. Excellence is an expression of wisdom. There are also times when you have to be willing to compromise your love for excellence.

- You have to decide now what you would be willing to take a bullet for.

- Preserve Presence, and honor the people.

- We need one another to complete what we carry.

Approach every day like the woman with the priceless ointment. She did not care how anyone else saw her. She took a year’s worth of income in oil, broke the lid, and “wasted” it on the Lord.

- Jesus is returning for a bride whose body is in equal proportion to her head.