Newspring Church worship leader Lee McDerment writes an article every young worship leader needs to read:

The quickest way to achieve your personal ministry dream, is to let it die.

If you’re a worship leader, and you’re decent, then you’re having lots of people tell you how awesome you are every sunday. They say, “Wow, man! You do that song way better than Chris Tomlin.” And you actually start to believe it. You’re an expert at worship. You read the blogs. You know the latest about all things worship. You know who just released the new hotness that everyone will be singing next. Or, if you’re really awesome, you don’t even listen to worship music because of its clear lack of artistic merit. You work at a church in a suburb, but you dress like you live in the East Village. You’re a hipster for Jesus. You used to shop at urban outfitters. You wore Toms before everyone wore Toms. You wear fashion frames (glasses used for non corrective purposes). You have so many Apple products that you may as well have a little white sticker on your mailbox. You go to Catalyst East. You go to Catalyst West. You drop names. You have deep and passionate opinions.

And you think your church is a tiny thing; A small stepping stone on your way to Nashville. To you, it’s, “just a church.” So, you network at conferences in the name of Wisdom, but you’re really just leveraging others to build your own platform. Continue reading.