A Faithful Worship Leader

In recent years worship has hit the big time. Ten of the top fifty Christian albums are worship projects. Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, Paul Baloche, TimHughes, and other worship artists have become household names. The successful marketing of worship music inside and outside the walls of the church has changed what the church sings and how we understand worship.

Of course, in God's eyes true worship has always been big-time. But the growing prominence and commercialization of worship music, with all its benefits, has some drawbacks. 

For me, it brings unique temptations to worship leaders in the local church.We read about well-known worship artists and their CD sales, concert tours,and media interviews, and we wonder if we're doing something wrong. We start to think we'd be more effective if we looked, sounded, and acted like the worship leaders everyone knows.

But the worship industry isn't the standard God has given us to determineour effectiveness. His Word is. And if we don't understand that distinction we could miss God's unique plan for our lives. We'll be tempted to surrender to discouragement. And we'll fail to see that God hasn't called us to be successful or popular—he's called us to be faithful.