Secondly, a lot of her post has to do with the difference between encouragement and manipulation. Manipulation backfires (either immediately or in the long-term), but encouragement is great when done right—the trick is differentiating between the two. Motivation is probably the key measurement—why am I encouraging them to do this? ie. Because I feel like no one is responding to my leadership? Because the people aren’t doing things the way I would do it?

Thirdly, regarding “no soprano worship leaders” – that’s ridiculous! I’m a tenor and I could lead songs much higher than 90% of the congregation want to sing (even the sopranos). Many worship CDs today featuring tenors use keys that are really not congregational in range. The truth is low Alto is probably the worst range for worship leading, because their range has the least in common with average singers. The key is picking the right KEY so that the notes of the song fall between middle C to E’ (one octave + 2). Some people still find songs in that range high, but it’s an attainable range for most (the old hymnals keep almost all hymns within that range with a few going to a high F).

Regarding song choice, it has nothing to do with the article, I’m sure Lorie King would have lots to say about it, but I think Linda is right—often people latch onto a “top 40″ mentality. To discourage this, I originally instructed our worship leaders that they were not allowed to lead a song more than once in a month (other than new songs for a couple months while we were teaching them). This forced them to become more creative and use songs they wouldn’t normally have picked. I’ve relaxed that quite a bit in recent years now that they have the idea—and we are probably still close to keeping the rule.

Coming back to Lorie’s article, the only point I would disagree with (in part) is “Cut down on downtime.” I agree that many times showy interludes can have exactly the effect that Lorie describes. However, I think we also have to think about the opposite extreme—where people never get to express an original thought and spend a half an hour straight singing other people’s words.

I have intentionally increased “dead time” in our worship—but not for amazing solos. Instead we cultivate an atmosphere where people worship with their OWN words. It’s an amazing experience when everyone is shouting God’s praises in their own way at the end of a song—but you’ll cut it off if you move too quickly to the next song. Likewise, with moments of quiet contemplation. Note that many congregations are totally unprepared for this kind of worship and so this may require gradual introduction—but once you get a whole church doing it, newcomers adapt quickly. We don’t leave spaces around every song, and don’t do anything showy—but I try to make sure that every time I lead people have at least one opportunity to express both exuberant praise and reverent adoration in their own words—and that can only happen if we leave in some “downtime.”