The art of free worship (that's right, it's on the house)

Can I speak freely?

Free worship is hard. It's very hard. It's especially difficult for the worship leader. Before I explain myself, it might be best if we explained what free worship is first.

Free worship is self-explanatory. It's the part of the worship set where either the vocals or instruments (or both) start improvising on either the words or the music. The idea behind it is that while it's awesome singing a written, published, popular worship song with the congregation, singing a song you spontaneously wrote on the spot can be exponentially more powerful and impacting because it's raw, from the heart, customized just for you.

It's an amazing concept, really. I personally love free worship for all the reasons I mentioned above. Free worship takes your worship to God to the next level.

But like I said, it's hard. This is why it's hard:

1) Songwriting isn't easy
It can be awkward, uncomfortable, and just plain weird to start singing something you just made up. Let's face it, 99.9% of us will never be the next Chris Tomlin. It just won't happen. So here we are, just making up lyrics (most of the time just shamelessly putting the words of the song we were just singing in a different order), trying to not look like an idiot.

Solution:
Don't worry about it! You probably won't come up with something crazy awesome so don't try. A common suggestion I give to people is to sing their prayers. Follow the melody of the song you were just singing and whatever you would normally talk, sing!

2) The worship leader went off the deep end
Hate to break it to you, but worship leaders are crazy. Just like any musician out there, worship leaders are as bad as the rest of them. They'll yell out commands to you ("Sing a new song to Him!"), they'll go off in tongues for a while (AWKWARD), they'll repeat one word over and over again for 10 minutes straight (they're as lost as you), etc, etc.

Solution:
My advice to you is two word: baby steps. Just try a little bit at a time. No one's expecting you to be Matt Redman or Kari Jobe. Just start praying (the talking version), follow the beat of the song, and see if you can't start singing it instead. Tune out the crazy worship leader, close your eyes, and focus on worshiping God. You'll do fine.

3) The free worship has been going on for an hour
This is my favorite one. Once in a while you'll find yourself led in worship by a band that does more free worship than actual songs. The worship will end and you'll realize that the band only did two songs that were 20 minutes long each. For some people, it was awesome and they loved it. For most people, the band lost them after the first 5 minutes.

The hardest part for worship leaders is to balance the amount of free worship in a set. Some truly want to have the perfect balance, others deliberately stay away from free worship, and others deliberately bring as much free worship as they can into the set.

Solution:
For the standard church goer, all I have to say is: I'm sorry. Sometimes it's the luck of the draw. One day you won't get any free worship, the next day, that's all you'll get. Luckily, most crazy free worshipers are only seen at conferences and specials so you can learn to avoid them if you don't like it. And if you love it and don't see it in your own church, talk to your worship pastor about it (be polite).

Balancing the ratio of free worship to regular worship (worship leaders, this is for you):
This is where it's hard for worship leaders. Free worship is becoming increasingly common in worship sets. It's a powerful tool and I encourage any worship leader in any church, in any denomination to start implementing it. But of course you need to display wisdom and tact while doing so. As a side note, this advice applies to standard services, not special services or conferences. The rules go out the window for those, I'm afraid to say.

1) Don't go too long!
The worship is probably only 20 - 30 minutes and most people will initially be more comfortable singing songs they know. If you go too long, you'll start to lose people. Not everyone will be a fan of free worship no matter how hard you try. And while you don't want to be a people pleasing church, you need to be sensitive to the mood of the congregation (more on this later).

2) Don't be afraid to start a time of free worship
If you want to start doing free worship but are afraid or don't know how, start by practicing it outside of church. Get your team comfortable with it. The more you do it, the easier it will get. In what you should say, follow my advice from above. And practice, practice, practice! Soon you'll be a pro.

3) Don't be weird.
Every church is different. But most churches have one common philosophy: don't be awkward and weird.
-If an attempt at free worship bombs, cut your losses and go on to the next song.
-Stay away from speaking in tongues into the mike. I'm no intellect on this, but the standard line is, don't speak in tongues in public unless you dead sure you got an interpretation (and you probably don't).
-Finally, worship God in your free worship. Don't take this time to lecture the congregation or condemn people or preach something that's been on your heart for months. You're not the pastor, you're the worship leader so stick to your job.

Well, with all of this invaluable advice, you'll be the best free worshiper around! Remember, it always comes back to the reason you're there to begin with. Worshiping God. It's not about putting on a show, or looking awesome, or joining the crowd. Free worship is an amazing thing. So do it with sincerity and passion! And worship leaders? Excellence won't hurt either.