About 7 years ago, as I was beginning my worship leading journey, I stumbled on Charlie Hall’s website…he had some worship devotionals on the sight and this one caught my eye.  Here’s what it said “that our only objectives as worship leaders is to connect the hearts of the people with the heart of God.”  If this is true then we must refrain from personal ambitions and musical preferences and lead the people into a environment where they (the people) have the greatest chance in connecting with God.  So many times as musicians we put our worship experience on the scale,  measuring its success by how we feel it went, how much we like the sound, how much we liked the song selection.  If our success is only determined by connection than it is safe to say that what we feel as success is probably not what God feels as success.  God is not limited by our capabilities or by our heart, but He choses to work through us and through the environments we have the ability to create.  What type of worship environments are we creating…ones that we connect with or ones that the people connect with.  So is it possible that sometimes when we lead worship we might not feel successful but indeed we were extremely successful.  Yes.  I have a statement i have been saying for a few weeks now, “Success in worship is not determined by how I feel about the set, but by how the people responded and connected.”  I am not an advocate for boring or carefree worship.  I am not one to lay down and just ride the current. but I do believe we, so many times, equate success only with our experience in worship.  Corporate worship is just that, corporate.  the more people who connect with God in worship will in turn connect with the Word that the pastor brings, in turn will create opportunities for life change, in turn will help in developing relationship with other believers, in turn will create an incredible worship experience every week at our local church’s. Be sensitive in leading, focus on connection, and follow the Holy Spirit.