Pastoring And Leading A Room In Worship

Point 1 - "Worship takes everything, Leadership requires so much." (Time: 1:23- 2:05)

• "The greatest leader in history is Jesus. He is the goal and the one we set our eyes on as leaders." 
• John 5: 1:19
• "Great leaders in the kingdom are great followers in the presence of God." 

 

Point 2 - Father, what are you doing? (Time: 2:16 - 3:33)

• The greatest key that Johnathan has to offer in leadership is this question: "Father, what are you doing?" 
• "That's the beautiful place of dependance that Jesus lived on." 
• "Romans 8:18. This life you received from God is not a timid life." 
• "You haven't received a spirit of fear but the spirit of adoption and were living in this relationship going "What's next Papa? What's next Father?""

 

Point 3 - You have an Inheritance to lead like Jesus. (Time: 3:33 - 4:02)

• "God's Spirit touches our Spirit and confirms who we really are." 
• "We know who our father is and we know who we really are." 
• "He's the Father, we're the children, and we are going to get what's coming to us; an unbelievable inheritance."
• "You have an Inheritance to lead like Jesus." 
• "You've been born again as a Son and Daughter, and your inheritance is to lead like Jesus." 

 

Point 4 - "What does this look like leading like Jesus when we're leading worship?" (Time: 4:03 - 5:50)   

• "First of all, Jesus modeled leadership by being a servant." 
• "His last night with his disciples, the King of kings takes a towel and a basin washes the filthy feet of fishermen." 
• "Kingdom leadership is being a servant." 
• "A better phrase than worship leaders is we are worship servants in the sense that we've come to serve his beautiful bride, serve his family, and serve his body." 
• "If you go into it with 'I'm going to be served by being on this stage' you've missed the whole point." 
• "We're here to serve like Jesus did and wash the feet of his bride with our songs." 
• "We serve with the heart of a king, and we rule with the heart of a servant" - Bill Johnson, quoted by Johnathan Helser  

 

Point 5 - Leading with invitation (Time: 5:50 - 6:36) 

• "Jesus always leads with invitation. 
• "The enemy drives us with pressure and fear, but Jesus leads with freedom and invitation." 
• "Worship is not worship unless there's a choice. Love is not love unless there's a choice." 

 

 

Point 6 - Kingdom Leadership leading with love (Time: 6:37 - 7:37)  

• Whatever is birthed with pressure and fear, it takes pressure and fear. 
• You birth a setlist out of pressure and fear, and it will take fear to get through that set. 
• A set that is birthed out of joy and faith takes joy and faith to maintain. 
• Forced worship is not worship. Don't force people to worship. Lead but don't force. 
• Invite like Jesus did. 

 

 

Point 7 - A Creative Leader (Time: 7:38 - 9:28)    

•  A worship leader is a mixed combination of leaders and creatives. 
• Some lean more on the leadership side of things, others lean more on the creative side of things. 
• It is when both come together, the strength and weaknesses, that there is a great worship leader.  
• "You are on a journey of learning how to marry your strength with your weakness." 

 

Point 8 - True Spontaneity is a Reward (Time: 9:29 - 15:22)

• Jonathan and Melisa are doing their first album recording at a live conference. Jonathan is mostly focused on doing spontaneous worship and not doing worship sets. Gram Cook was over the conference and a father with them. The first night was free flow and was good. But Gram told Jonathan, "Ture Spontaneity is the reward for preparation."  
• Since then, Jonathan and Melisa have been cultivating that concept of spontaneity as the reward for preparation. 
• Making a plan with the Father, but being willing and open to the spontaneous moments in the process. 
• The Israelites are bringing the ark to Israel on an ox cart, and a wheel comes off, and one of David's sons tries to catch the ark and hold up the glory with his own strength. 
• David learns to not get in the way of the glory and hold it up with human strength. 
• Within that plan, don't try to hold up the glory with human strength.     

 

Point 9 - Working Ourselves out of a Job (Time: 16:09 - 19:23)

• Jonathan loves it when, in situations like what happened in Like a Flood, the congregation takes over worship. 
• Those are the best moments when people don't need the worship leader on stage. You've worked yourselves out of a job. 
• "Those are my favorite moments as a worship leader." When the song is not the song on the screen but the song in people's hearts. 
• With Enoch, if you had seen him walking with God on that day when God took him, you would have just seen him disappear. 
• At the end you should not see us anymore, you should see Jesus on the stage. 
• As worship leaders, we are supposed to do the same thing. 
• "We are the opening act for the main act." 
• "We are the opening act for the glory and when the glory steps on the stage we back away and 'What do you want to do now, Father?'" 
• This is modeled in 1 Kings 8:11. "The Priest could not continue their service because of the cloud." 
• "They worked themselves out of a job." 
• A great leader is the one who builds a place of trust where God's glory can take over.  

 

Point 10 - Worship Leaders are Tour Guides (Time: 19:37 - 23:00)

•  I want to be leading out of a private life down well-worn paths that I have traveled many times. 
• Worship leaders are tour guides to the presence.
• "Just as a tour guide can lead you through a trail, he's taken many times, and he knows by heart. His goal as a leader is to get you to a destination where you behold beauty and stand astonished with wonder at the sight of your destination." 
• We must ask ourselves as worship leaders is, "Are we leading them to ourselves, or are we leading them to the presence?" 
• Study the paths to the heart of God so that you can lead people down those paths. 
• Jonathan's Dad tried leading worship one night, and it was a disaster. He was a performer but not a tour guide into the presence. An old man came up to him and shared, "You can't give what you ain't got, no more than you can come back from someplace you ain't never been." 
• You want to create a well-worn path in your heart to the Father so that when you get to where you are leading worship, you will be able to go there easily. 

 

Point 11 - Marriage between what God wants, and the people want. (Time: 23:00 - 24:55)

• Worship leading is a beautiful fulfillment of the first commandment. 
• "Love the Lord with all your heart, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself."
• Worship leading is a fulfillment of learning how to love God with everything and love the people. 
• It's not enough to love God while leading worship, but we need to have God's love for the people were leading. 
• We have to learn how to do both and not leave out one or the other. 

 

Point 12 - Currency of Trust through Love (Time: 24:55 - 25:29)

• When you know someone loves you, you trust them. 
• One of the greatest currencies we can have as leaders is for people to trust us. 
• Jonathan has worship leaders that he knows he can trust their motives and agenda. 
• That currency of trust is built through loving the people you are leading. 

 

Point 13 - Leading with excellence (Time: 25:30 - 26:28) 

• Worship is better when the worship is good. 
• The difference between excellence and perfection: Excellence is lead by joy, perfectionism is led by fear. 
• Learning how to cultivate excellence through joy, not fear. 
• "If worship leaders spent more time worshiping God for themselves instead of trying so hard to get the people to worship - the people would worship more." 
• "So, we spend more time doing it and walk on the stage, bleeding it." 

 

Point 14 - What do you want to do next God? (Time 26:28 - 30:29)  

• If there is one thing Johnathan wants people to get out of this message, it's this: What do you want to do next God? 
• "Begin to cultivate this phrase with God: What do you want to do next God?"  
• With that phrase, life will move from boredom to an adventure." 
• Jonathan once asked the Father, "What do you want to do tonight God?" while on tour in Holland. Then, in that moment, a man came up and shared his testimony with him about how God had set him free form a Heroin Addiction a year ago, and he was celebrating that night. Later, Jonathan called out for him during worship and had him led a roar, and everyone else in the auditorium let out a roar behind him. 
• "Ask the Father what He wants to do. He has more than you could ask or imagine." 

 

Prayer - (Time 30:37 - 31:52)  

"Father, thank you for the gift of leadership. We hold it with the joy, and we hold it with deep reverence. I just want you guys to all picture a sword in your hand. Not a timid, not a small, sword. Like Aragorn's sword. A big sword. A giant slaying sword in your hand. Just open up your hands like this; like the sword is literally laying in your hands. Leadership is a sword. That you can free generations with. You can free nations with. But also a sword can hurt the very people your fighting beside. And I ask Father that you would give us wisdom to serve your bride, with the sword. To set generations free by leading like you lead Jesus. I ask that you would impart a reverence and a joy in our leadership. And teach us to serve you, bride Jesus. I bless the leaders in their room, and I bless the artist in this room. In Jesus name, Amen."