Worship Leader Coaching
After working as a worship pastor for 25 years and training more than 500 worship leaders, I’m convinced of this: every leader can level-up, but most can’t do it alone.
Welcome to our Executive Coaching for Worship Leaders. The next six months could change your life.
Our process begins with an onsite visit with you (if possible) to get to know you and your family, observe your worship culture, and meet your team in person. Your coach will be present for dinner for a Saturday evening, your pre-service activities Sunday morning, the worship service, and lunch afterwards. From there, we’ll setup our monthly (or bi-weekly) coaching sessions.
Each month will have assigned work for the worship leader to complete, tailored to your vision and goals. These could include reading assignments, video viewings, essays to read, responses to write, etc. We expect the worship leader to complete all assignments and come to our sessions ready to discuss and do some work.
We want you to love your future, so our coaching will not simply affect your worship leadership; this process will be an on-ramp for you in every aspect of your life to raise the level of your entire life.
While our coaching and content will adapt to your contextual needs, below is a sample of some topics that often arise.
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Talent & Character: What makes a great leader? It’s going to take more than talent.
Warmth & Competence: First impressions matter more than you may think.
Instinct & Experience: The perfect combination is seasoned expertise with fresh instinct.
Redefining Greatness: Our cultural biases blind us to what true greatness looks like.
The Generative Leader: Moving from generic to generative will require some heavy processing.
From Proving Yourself to Improving Yourself: The start of change for your culture.
IQ, DQ, & EQ: What’s it like to be on the other side of your leadership?
Active & Reflective: The two mindsets of leadership require both assessment and advancement.
Modern Elders: Not just wisdom keepers of the past, but wisdom seekers of the future.
False Proxies: Some things are hard to measure, so we overstate the significance of the things we can.
Developing a Pipeline: Great leaders don’t amass followers; they create more leaders.
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Bathymetry: How the invisible depths shape the visible surface.
The Better Path: Responding in responsibility will always trump the spiral of reaction.
Healing is Hard: Nobody said it was easy, but no one ever said it would be this hard.
Patience and Process: How a few dozen dominoes can topple a tower.
Gravity & Chemistry: What makes you magnetic? A balance of polarities.
Emotional Predictability: Where Brené Brown made a mess of things.
Hinge Moments: Our high points and hard times of our life help forge our passion.
Overcoming Perfectionism and Procrastination: Embrace the iterative process.
Transparency & Vulnerability: The difference between letting someone see into your life vs. speak into your life.
The 5 Capitals: Finances matter, but they matter the least when it comes to evaluating where to invest your life.
Building Trust: Any relationship brings risk, and broken trust will undermine any future progress.
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Spirit & Truth: The framework of worship.
Worship Philosophy: The why of worship.
Biblical Foundations: The anchor.
Faithful Hermaneutics: Why the cross must remain the controlling center.
Using the Psalms: The ancient hymnal.
Transitions: Personal & Pastoral.
Leading through Lament: Faithful Suffering vs Naive Optimism.
The Hard Funeral: Why “Blessed Be Your Name” and “It is Well” may not be the right songs.
Bounded vs Centered Sets: Your paradigm will lead to your practice.
Leaning into Liturgy: A trellis for a vine.
More Beautiful Music: Composition and arrangement.
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Inspiring & Empowering: Why invitation and challenge are both key to a healthy culture.
Caught or Taught: Why osmosis is still the best way to get something new inside yourself.
Innovation & Adoption: Why do some new innovations stick, and others don’t?
Managing Expectations: How many of our disappointments could’ve been avoided with better expectations.
Purview and Preferences: None of us are as good as all of us.
The “i” in team: What you don’t want to be on a team.
Collective Creativity: The best you will ever offer will be in a culture that celebrates you.
Alignment & Hypersensitivity: In a healthy body, hurt still hurts. But it’s manageable.
Prioritize the Other: You will learn the most from people who don’t think, look, or act like you.
Modern Elders: Not just wisdom keepers of the past, but wisdom seekers of the future.
Survival of the Friendliest: What we can learn from the hidden life of trees.
Healthy Conflict: A culture that knows how to deal with conflict healthily will have limitless potential.
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The 5 questions: How to begin discovering your values.
Abundantly More: Rethinking what we assume is possible.
The 1-4-1-4: How to keep the end in mind with short term planning.
The Gym: The barbell works every time.
Unlimited Good: Character and Competency.
The Development Square: How to actually share your magic.
The bullseye: Discipline, Desire, Delight.
The EQ Matrix: How to avoid getting hijacked in leadership.
RMS: How using the Radical Minimum Standard can trigger growth in your culture.
The Vehicle: Why Vision, Relationships, Management and Programs need to buckle up.
The Kairos Circle: Not all moments are created equal; some are pregnant with possibility.
Ebb & Flow: The Semicircle of seasonality.
Receiving Criticism: The more you want to push back, the more you need to lean in.
Inquiry: Open upstream communication to reduce the status gap & bolster safety.
Outside Input: What others see in you that you don’t see in yourself.
6 Word Story: Because clarity is key.
The Annual Audit: What have we been singing?
The Songwriter’s Worksheet: A system that’s stress-free and prolific.