What the Music Leader Does part 1

What the Music Leader Does part 1

            If a person is going to stand in front of a congregation (or a musical organization) of people who wish to worship God by musicing unto Him, then the person up front has to figure out why he or she is there and how he or she is going to go about doing whatever he or she is going to do.  I suspect that many worship leaders I have observed over the many years that I have traveled have had only a vague understanding of what they were supposed to do (both in and out of the worship experience) in order that their musicing and the musicing of those under their leadership could be effectual.

             There are a variety of names for this person who is standing in front of the people.  Is this person a minister of music, a worship leader, a music director, a conductor, a chief musician, a song leader, a musician, not a musician at all, or all of the above?  It seems to me that the first philosophical question to be answered by those who were responsible for placing this person in front of whoever he or she is in front of, is to figure out what on earth he or she  is supposed to be doing.  Giving this person a specific or not so specific name is part of the philosophical process but it is by far not all of it.