1. Forget your goal. If you forget your goal, its nearly guaranteed you won’t succeed. Defining your goal is important. At my church, we have defined the goal of Worship Arts as this: “Helping people experience God and develop a life of worship.” It doesn’t matter which way you slice it, I’m sure your goal is similar. If we don’t help people — then we’ve failed. In other words,  you may have encountered God – but if you didn’t help other people do it you’ve entirely missed the goal. If you’re unsure of your goal – talk with your worship leader or your senior pastor.

2. Yell at them. Oh I know how much you want to scream, “What’s the matter with you? WORSHIP!! Am I the only one clapping in here?” But when you scold a group, you will do the opposite than the goal. This is especially tempting when dealing with children and teenagers. A yell or scold will cause the group to shut down even more. And that’s the last thing you want. If you want to fail, yell or scold your group.

If you have a group that is not engaging…

*consider the possibility that they are not saved. It’s impossible to worship if they are not saved. I mean truly saved. Worshipful expression will be the natural result of a life touched by God.

*consider the possibility that they don’t know the song or its too difficult for them (who cares if you can do the latest and greatest songs if you’re failing the goal?!).

*consider that they just aren’t engaging like you. What’s going on in their heart? Is their life changing outside church? I asked one worship professional if he thought my worship service was effective in our goal and he responded, “You know, I really believe that only God knows the answer to that.” (Of course we have other indications to watch for as well).

*consider the possibility that they literally have no idea what you’re doing. I’ll never forget the time I talked with a high school student in our youth group to correct her behavior during worship time. I wanted to help her realize how special that time was. I asked her, “When we sing these songs, who are we singing about – who are we singing to?” Her response: “I don’t know. Ummm… ourselves?” And this was a young lady that had been regularly attending Sunday morning church services for a few months! If I want to be effective as a worship leader, I needed to take a step back and realize that her disrespect was — in part — my fault. I failed to guide her into the presence of God, and I have to own up to my part in the problem. The following week we made it a priority to have the youth pastor talk for a moment about worship before we started any songs. We’ve been doing it that way ever since.

To succeed, we must gently push our group towards God. We need to be “tour guides,” willing to take our group where we’ve already been. We’re taking people to a spiritual place – we can only do that sensitively.