I’ve been asked thousands of times…when did you start leading worship….how long have you been playing guitar…did you take lessons? This will be the story of how it all began. It will be a story of how an athlete can become a worship leader without taking choir in school or taking guitar lessons.
In 8th grade I took drum lessons for 3 weeks and then had to quit to focus on basketball season. I didn’t really enjoy it too much either. Freshman year I joined the youth worship team as a vocalist. I sang, along with usually 2 other singers, almost every Sunday morning. I never really loved it but my small group leader played guitar and I liked the people on the team so I stuck with it. I wasn’t much a harmony guy but we weren’t very good so I would just sing. It was easy.
That same freshman year my mom begged me to join choir so I did. Because I never did choir in middle school I had to join the lowest choir (all the people who wanted to sing but couldn’t). I HATED IT!!! So I quit after one semester of it even after my teacher begged me to come back. I hated the songs we did. I hated the way that the teacher wanted me to sing, it didn’t feel natural. I hated that I knew no one in the choir because obviously none of my friends did choir, it wasn’t cool. So for many reasons I quit and to this day I have not sang in a choir.
Lesson #1 You don’t have to do choir to be able to sing. Singing is some sort of a natural gift. I’ve never taken singing lessons and I know people who have that did not improve much. Of course a vocal instructor can help but only if they are good. If you sing like William Hung…vocal help won’t do much.