I’ve posted in this community before, and I know some people have looked through my posting history and noticed that I’ve expressed a lot of frustration and resentment toward worship leaders who wouldn’t give me opportunities to lead songs.
I wanted to come back, acknowledge that resentment, explain where it came from, and share something I’ve learned through prayer and reflection. Yesterday, after four years on my most recent worship team, I officially stepped down.

Here’s my story.
I’ve loved singing worship music since I was a little kid. I was always the kid in church singing enthusiastically, and people around me would often encourage me about my voice and passion for worship. Because of those experiences, I grew up believing that God might be calling me to lead worship someday.

I didn’t seriously pursue it until college. I’ll admit that part of my initial motivation was a girl I liked who was also passionate about worship. Not exactly the healthiest motivation, but my desire to sing and lead worship had existed long before I met her. I learned guitar, practiced singing, and began serving on worship teams in campus ministries. At first, I was happy just to be involved, whether on backing vocals or guitar. But I started watching friends, including the girl I liked, receive opportunities to lead songs within weeks or months of joining. I wanted that opportunity too, especially because I’d dreamed about leading worship since childhood. Unfortunately, I was afraid to ask. I worried that I wasn’t good enough and that being told no would confirm my insecurity that my friends were somehow better than me. I wanted someone to recognize my potential and invite me to lead without my having to ask. That didn’t happen, and I began feeling overlooked. Eventually, I even started wondering whether God valued me as much as the people receiving those opportunities.

During college, I served with several ministries and received feedback that my vocals needed improvement. I began watching voice lessons online and working on my technique. Finally, during my senior year, I joined a ministry where the worship leader gave me an opportunity to lead songs. He appreciated my contribution and told me that my vocals were considerably stronger than my guitar playing. That experience helped me realize I wanted to prioritize singing. I was incredibly thankful. I also assumed it was the beginning of many more opportunities.

Then came the difficult years after college.
After COVID and some changes at my church, I joined another church where I auditioned for the worship ministry. The worship pastor connected me with the men’s worship team and also gave me an opportunity to lead in kids’ ministry. I explained to the men’s team leader that singing was my primary strength and aspiration, although I could also play some guitar.
He asked me to prepare a song but ultimately wanted me to focus on guitar because that was the team’s greater need. I understood the staffing consideration, but I was disappointed. When I asked whether I might eventually have an opportunity to sing, he emphasized that serving where you’re needed is more important than serving where you want.
I recognize there’s truth in that principle. Worship ministry isn’t supposed to revolve around our personal preferences. But the way those conversations unfolded left me feeling that expressing my aspirations was something I shouldn’t be doing. I struggled to play guitar consistently with the click track, so I wasn’t able to contribute effectively in that role. Meanwhile, I continued hoping for an opportunity to develop vocally. When I shared that I believed God might be calling me toward worship leadership, I felt they discouraged me rather than guiding me. I wanted someone to help me discern that aspiration and understand what I needed to work on. I don’t claim to know what the leader intended, and looking back, I recognize that I had areas of immaturity and insecurity that needed attention. But the experience left me reluctant to discuss my goals with worship leaders afterward.
Eventually, after prayer and consideration, I moved to another church.

At my next church, I joined the worship team on backing vocals. My first director knew about my desire to grow toward leading worship and was encouraging about it. Unfortunately, that director later left, and I served under several different leaders over the following years. Because of my previous experience, I was afraid to bring up my aspirations again. I had started believing that wanting to serve in a particular capacity was inherently selfish and that expressing that desire would get me in trouble.
It took about two years before I finally felt comfortable enough with my director to have an honest conversation. She listened, gave me specific things to work on, and encouraged my development. I started taking professional voice lessons, continued working on my skills, and eventually was invited to become a vocal coach myself at the voice studio I took lessons at. I’m grateful for that progress and for the feedback my director gave me. But I continued watching other vocalists move into leading roles while I remained on backing vocals. Some had been on the team much less time than I had. And although I knew I still had things to improve, I struggled tremendously with the comparison. I began wondering why I wasn’t progressing as quickly as others. My disappointment turned into resentment, and once again I found myself feeling forgotten—not just by my leaders, but sometimes even by God.

Here’s what I’ve had to admit about myself.
For years, I had made leading worship about more than serving God. I wanted recognition. I wanted to impress people. I wanted to prove that I was just as talented and capable as the people around me.
And when other people received opportunities I wanted, I sometimes interpreted that as evidence that they were more valuable than I was. Eventually, I even began treating a worship director’s decision about my readiness as though it were a verdict on how much God loved me. That’s not a healthy way to approach worship ministry, and I take responsibility for allowing those attitudes to develop. I also recognize now that believing God has called me to something doesn’t mean I get to decide when, where, or how that calling will unfold. And it doesn’t mean every leader who says I’m not ready is standing in God’s way.

That’s a big part of why I stepped down yesterday.
After four years on this team, I realized I needed a season away from serving on a worship platform.
I want to return to the basics of my relationship with God. I want to learn to worship Him without making a ministry position part of my identity. I want to stop measuring my worth against other singers and learn to celebrate their opportunities without feeling diminished. I still love singing. I still hope to help lead worship someday. But I don’t want that desire to control my relationship with God anymore.
And I want to emphasize that I left my most recent team on good terms. My director has shown genuine care for me, and I’m grateful for the ways she’s helped me grow, even though I didn’t reach every goal I had hoped to reach.

Finally, I’d like to share one encouragement with the worship leaders and pastors here.
If someone on your team expresses a desire to grow into a different role or greater responsibility, please consider taking time to hear them out. You don’t have to promise them a position. You don’t have to promote someone before they’re ready. And you absolutely should give honest feedback about areas where they need to grow. But if possible, help them understand what development might look like. Ask about their aspirations, explain your assessment, and offer guidance where you reasonably can. Sometimes a team member who seems overly focused on an opportunity is struggling with insecurity, discouragement, or a feeling that nobody believes in them. That doesn’t excuse unhealthy behavior, but compassionate mentorship can make a tremendous difference. I know firsthand how discouraging it can feel when you don’t know whether your leaders see any potential in you. I also know how much easier it is to receive difficult feedback when you trust that your leader genuinely cares. I hope that if I ever have the opportunity to mentor aspiring worship leaders, I can offer them that kind of honesty and encouragement.
I’m not sharing this to attack my former leaders or suggest that every decision they made was wrong. I’m sharing it because I want to take responsibility for my own attitudes while also offering a perspective that might help someone else. To those who have challenged me in this community before, I appreciate the opportunity to reflect on some things I wasn’t ready to acknowledge at the time. And to the worship leaders and pastors here, I know your responsibilities aren’t easy. Thank you for the work you do, and I hope this perspective is helpful.
God bless all of you.

This is the atmosphere we need.

I don't want to tread over old ground but after dragging it on for too long we as a leadership have felt with conviction the need to remove songs from Bethel and Hillsong from our Sunday worship. There are a number of reasons but 2 big ones I'm happy to discuss but not the main point of this thread.

Prepping for this coming Sunday I came to realize just how many songs that were coming to top of mind that matched the theme and heart of where I was going were from these 2 sources. I don't spend a ton of time listening to worship music at home so I'm sometimes oblivious as to who the original source may have been for many of the songs I've played over the last 30 years.

Searching for new music I don't want to rely on algorithms or any of the more popular go to spots that promote the same big artists. I'm not saying popular automatically equals bad but I know there is a deep an rich world of worship music out there that isn't hitting the from page of insert-streaming-service-here .

So I'm hoping some fellow worship leaders can help broaden our song catalogue as we move into a new season.

All that to ask:

Where are you hearing new songs?
Are there any writers/churches that you are excited about at the moment?
Are there any songs ( new or old ) that you feel worth sharing at the moment?

Here's one from 2013 you may or may not know: https://youtu.be/YgqDY1whzoc?si=UqVOoLhxemZDet8K

thank you for any input you may have.

Hey guys. My church is looking to start looking into a commercial license for legality reasons to have music playing in between services in the same way that it would be if you started playing Spotify or something like that in the background. We were looking into Spotify for business which is now called soundtrack however I'm almost positive that the emails I've sent inquiring about things and questions have been responded to by AI bots because meetings that I've scheduled for me to talk to somebody about it and get questions answered continue to be overlooked and I'm not hearing from them. Also the emails have responses that sound eerily like AI responses.

So what are you guys use and are you aware of any better alternatives than soundtrack

Hi everybody!

I would just like to ask what appreciation gift I could give to our Worship Leader this coming Christmas.

She’s a hardworking, selfless and very generous leader and I appreciate her! That’s why, I would like to give her gift to recognize her hard work all throughout this year.

Thank you in advance for your suggestions God bless!

I tried the Mercury 7 last week, and this week I tried Big Sky. Big Sky Cloud is wonderful. i decide pay for cloudburst. In PA, things like pitch-shift or diffusion, which are more common in reverb modes like Shimmer, Big Guy, or Coral, seem to make the reverb more audible. The Mercury 7 is really good, so I plan to keep using it, and since it’s based on Lexicon, it’s quite clean

My friend just got hired as a keyboardist at a small church. Now it’s only a keyboard and a drum as instruments.
I said I would help but they put me as a worship leader. I am an alto singer, I can’t go high while I am singing, it sounds screaming and I lose my voice so easily.

I like worship but some days I feel like an imposter when I’m looking how other churches sound good, how high notes in worship can change everything.
The people at church never miss an opportunity to thank me for being with them. I attached a recording of me singing so you can hear.

I pray God to help so I can feel more confident in doing His work.

Any advice or recommendations please?
Thank you in advance.

(Please don’t pay attention to my typos, I’m not a native)

Hi I'm looking to see how many people are using the iridium the stomp/hx series or another modeler. Comment below which one you or your guitarist uses!

POLL (this is a desktop post):

Strymon iridium

hx series amp modeler

Neural amp modeler

*THIS IS NOT A COMPETITION TO SEE WHICH ONE IS BEST: Simply gathering info on which one is used/bought the most

Edit:edit: This post has really been a great topic of discussion and thank you all for your thoughts and stories! I feel like i should open up a whole other thread of discussion. It seems there's much more to talk about across the board!

Ill also preface and follow up on all the comments. I have a varied religious background, including atheism, but I now have a tremendous love for God, Jesus, and scripture. The deeper I get, the further I see the world has gotten away from His idea of the world. But His patience and mercy will continue until His promise of Judgement Day comes. In the mean time, I strive to follow His call on my life through music, ministry, and opportunity. I dont completely agree with any particular denomination, but consider myself a layman, just a "mere christian".

Edit: I may have misled the context by the title. It is more targeted at "Controversial Church Music Production" not songs in general.

Let me say this then. I loved playing the songs, and the worship atmosphere that they presented. They are "theologically sound", well written, easy to sing, and easy to play. That is where in lies the problem. This songs are manufactured to be like this.

As for the royalties, I would explain it like this: Music is an offering. In Jesus day, He walked in to a temple where doves were being sold to use for offerings. To me, we pay royalties to this heretical churches, then turn around and offer these songs that arent ours, that we just paid to use, and turn around of offer that up to God. Kinda rough when I look at it that way...

Original Post:

I have been in church music for over 10 years, and a part of the praise team at this church for 6 years. Some long time ago we had a discussion about the big 4 charismatic churches and the music they produced. "If the lyrics are theologically sound, we can play them". This was our verdict and it seemed to make sense. We also pay royalties for the use of these songs, though I didnt know this at the time or understood it.

In the past few recent months I felt a strange weight troubling me about this music. I felt like it wasn't right. Not very long after this, I discovered the controversies involved with the big 4, and brought it up to our music lead. I was told, "If the lyrics are theologically sound, we can play them." However, this time around i felt very unsettled. I was also told at one point that I was just thinking about it all wrong.

Our lead has been out for weeks and I couldn't handle the conviction anymore. He made it back for a big practice, and I brought up my concern again. "I have a heavy conviction weighing me down about performing this praise songs". We got deep in to a conversation that ended right back to where I started. Out of 8 members, I was the only one that felt this conviction, however I told them, under this conviction, I cannot play these songs and wont be able to play these songs.

I thanked everyone for thier opinion and hoped them well, then I let myself out.

I respect alot of the opinions of people have here at reddit and want to put myself in the firing line to really see if im going completely crazy or if im really feeling the Holy Spirit convicting me of something bigger going on. What do you think?

Hello. I am unpaid volunteer. (Play piano) we use multitracks.

We have 2 staff music directors at church. The younger had me do MD for the past weeks with the youth and this Sunday I do the main service music directing.

He, the young one, had me do this thing where I count for example:

Chorus..1 2 3 4

While you hear multitracks in the background also say for example (chorus, all in)

So its like:

MD: Chorus 1 2 3 4

Mult: (chorus, all in)

I have a notepad in front of me with the song sections exactly like multitracks says it along with how many measures long each section is.

The other music director, the older one he is like "i have the philosophy you don't need to say everything all the time, it depends on the team, sometimes directions are not needed, and vice versa"

And the young one says "its better to over MD than to not give a direction and it messes stuff up. Serve your team and remove distractions"

We are having rehearsal today, and the main service team has had both Music Directors styles before and we are singing 2 new songs.

I want to know if this way of MD would be distracting or helpful or what advice would you give? How does MD work in your church? Thank you for your time. 🙏

Hello and blessings. I’d like some help choosing my next keyboard. I want to know which ones are most commonly used in churches or get recommendations on what to buy. I play a lot of worship music and want a keyboard suited for that—so I’m curious what your church uses to see if I might get the same one. I don't currently play in a church; I mostly just do covers and things like that. Thanks a lot, and blessings. (I have a budget of around $6,000.)(the images are just examples 😅)

Hi, I'm a Korean who joined Reddit to try out my first reverb. I'm not good at English, so I'm using a translator to write this. I saw there was a lot of information on Reddit, so I decided to sign up.

I'm serving at a church as an engineer, and I'm trying out a lot of different things.

I tried using the Mercury 7 this week, but it didn't perform as well as I expected with the PA. Still, I’m having a lot of fun these days, researching one or two worship sounds at a time. I'll be trying Big Sky soon too, so I'm looking forward to it. hahaha

Context: we have a traditional liturgical service updated each week with lots of call and response text and prayers read together, and there always seems to be SO much room for human error. It’s about 50/50 whether everything gets put in 100% accurate. We use propresenter . We have one person who puts in all of the spoken liturgy and scripture readings, and I am responsible for going in later and checking that the music arrangements match our sheet music. I sit and read through the music exactly how we will do it word for word, and have someone else click through slides and tell me if it doesn’t match what they see. Then we stop and change that part and keep going. It seems terribly inefficient.

At your church, who’s in charge of what with the slideshow? Does someone do the entire thing? Are there different folks with different responsibilities? How do you make sure your exact arrangement of the music will match? How is it actually supposed to work on a professional level?

Hey!

I am a young (24F) music teacher that has three years experience teaching grades K-8 instrumental and vocal music. I have been serving in worship ministry in some capacity since I was 11 years old. I was a student leader on the youth band and have experience with training, Planning Center, planning sets and devotionals, and leading prayer. I am mainly a keys player but got more vocal training in college. I have never lead vocally on a Sunday morning mainly because the church I come from had so many vocal volunteers and I was not "professionally trained" so I remained on keys.

I am now in a new area at a new church, and I wanted to get into music ministry but there weren't any opportunities so I took a local teaching job. Now more than ever, I feel like while teaching is a calling in my life, it will not be compatible with my life for much longer. I was praying and thinking about alternative careers, finding more ways to serve more, etc. Then, our church announced they were searching for a new worship leader. Several people in my family/friend circle have encouraged me to apply, I just feel kind of lost. I don't want to pass up the opportunity to apply, but I am worried it will be pointless because I have no experience with ProPresenter, stage design, or knowing how to operate certain tech things like soundboards, plug-ins, etc.

I feel confident I could learn things like that on the job, but am not sure if they would be willing to train me.

Should I do the best I can, put my application out there and just see what happens? I just got onboarded to the worship team as a volunteer (since we have only been at this church 3 months and are now members).

If you were in my position and wanted to learn more about ProPresenter/tech things, what are some good and preferably free resources to do so? Also, the position is open to any age/demographic so it won't matter that I am a woman. I also think some important context is, when I was graduating from high school, I wanted to go in to Church Music. But my family kind of convinced me to go into education because it is more "stable". I wish I could go back and do more coursework related to Church music, and I am upset because now I feel lost more so than ever.

*How to lay down the law but not in a lay-down-the-law type way?

For the past few months, I've been leading a volunteer team who for years and years prior to my arrival, have had basically no rules whatsoever. Think of a rule for how to worship ministry—they didn't have it. People would show up late to rehearsal, some volunteers were known for sometimes showing up and sometimes not at all, song introductions were completely uninhibited, rotating worship leaders had drastically different, completely non-overlapping song selections, nobody practiced, few were above the skill threshold, the list goes on.

Now that I'm functionally transitioned into the team and culture, as the leader, I want to tighten the knot and lay down some expectations for success. I have expectations for how things need to be run, but I'm having trouble coping with the idea of saying to people to their face "You didn't practice, I can tell, you need to practice," or "You missed my email? Turn on Planning Center notifications now."

Any thoughts?

Comment on this post to share music you've made, your church's livestream, or just what music you're into right now!

Hey all, full-time worship leader-turned-lead pastor here. I need recommendations on sound libraries / apps to virtualize sounds on Windows. Back in the day, I used Mainstage via USB for keys + synth pads. Now I need to find something similar to run on a Windows laptop.

More specifically, what are you guys & gals using for synth pads in 2026? I can find great piano VST's no problem, but synth is a whole other world. Bonus points if the app/player is user-friendly and has a good GUI, since we'll have some awesome volunteers using it who aren't incredibly tech-savvy.

"Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wondrous works!” Psalm 105:2

The Repeating Pattern of 7 in Creation from the Beginning

What is the biblical significance of the number seven/7? | GotQuestions.org “In all, the number 7 is used in the Bible more than seven hundred times. If we also include the words related to seven(terms like sevenfold or seventy or seven hundred), the count is higher. The first use of the number 7 in the Bible relates to the creation week in Genesis 1. God spends six days creating the heavens and the earth, and then rests on the seventh day. This is our template for the seven-day week, observed around the world to this day.” “Thus, right at the start of the Bible, the number 7 is identified with something being “finished” or “complete.” From then on, that association continues, as 7 is often found in contexts involving completeness or divine perfection.”

7 foundational notes of music: C-D-E-F-G-A-B

What Does the Bible Say About Music? (lifehopeandtruth.com) "The reason music is such a wonderful blessing is because God Himself designed music. It seems there is a spiritual version of music that exists apart from and transcending our physical universe. The Bible describes glorious music in God’s very throne room in heaven (Revelation 15:1-4).” “In Colossians 3:16 Paul wrote, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”

Amazing Grace Lyrics, Hymn Meaning, and Story - John Newton, pub.1779

When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’d first begun.

I’ve been serving as the worship leader going on almost 8 years. The position is volunteer/ unpaid as is the members of the band, sound booth and production team.

For the most part, everyone appreciates the work that I do. However, there is one elders wife, who every Sunday tells me something that I could do to improve or something that I need to change. She never has words encouragement and honestly, it’s starting to weigh on me.

I’m trying to decide how to handle this. Do I send her an email or try to talk to her in person on Sunday morning?

A few Sundays ago, I almost handed her the keys to the Church, my laptop, the iPad, and all the passwords and told her have at it You can do it from now on.

Ugh, why does ministry have to suck sometimes. It’s almost getting to the point. It doesn’t bring me joy anymore.

Thoughts?

Kalau lagi ngulik/nyiapin pelayanan, bagaimana kalian latihan lagu gereja dari link youtube? Ada ga ya material atau tools kayak apa yang paling bergunaa?

Misalnya chord progression, nada dasar, ketukan, song map, referensi sound, video latihan, atau aplikasi tertentu

Thank you!!