Of course, for many churches liturgical leadership (though they’ll rarely call it that) involves a band and a person or persons who put a ‘set’ together and, at its best, craft the playing of the music to the way that the congregation is responding and who will skilfully weave prompts, prayers and encouragements into the ‘set’ with a view to helping people to pray (that is engage with God, personally).

Here’s how one such person expresses their ‘job’.

You won’t find it the gifts of the Spirit.

But it is what we label many people who have the microphone for almost half of a Sunday service.

It is what people call me.

It is what I sometimes call myself.

I’d rather people see it as the singing preacher.

Cause I feel like what I am doing is equally as important.

Not just getting people ready to hear the message without melody.

But hearing a message WITH melody.

And there are different ways to do this job.

Different churches do it different ways.

I talk.
I instruct.
I lead.

It makes the point that this is more than singing along; the value-added of a “[sung /musical] worship leader” is the responsiveness, the evaluation of where ‘people’ are and helping them to move further forward, the crafting of the use of music and the choice of music to the corporate spirit and the use of music to help people grow in faith.

However, we shouldn’t be too down on the MP3 or CD: if these are well-chosen they can still be vehicles for devotion and prayer: I’ve seen it happen. It’s the same dynamic (I suspect) as when people pour their souls out singing along to something on the radio or that has jumped to the top of the queue on their iplayer. The thing is that we have these gestalts lurking just waiting for appropriate conditions to activate them. What the worship leader often does is help people to come to a common point where the activation of these gestalts is synchronised and encouraged to be conscious prayer.

That’s not to say it’s not influenced by the Holy Spirit. I pray that in most cases it is. However, it’s not the direct and uncomplicated influence that many (perhaps) might unreflectingly imagine it to be. Like all prayer and spirituality, it is mediated through the human psychosomatic array. Any liturgical leadership has to come to terms with both the human dimensions (including ergonomics, psychology, culture, social-psychology etc) and the theopractic dimensions of what they are doing. Good ones do so having thoroughly internalised the most prominent forms and expressions of these for the people they serve.

via Should The Worship Leader Talk Or Just Sing? | Ragamuffin Soul.