Worship Musician August 2020 | Page 21

Zach Neese serves as a pastor at the north Fort Worth campus of Gateway Church. His best-selling book, How to Worship A King, has recently been released as a marvelous video teaching series that we recommend to all worship teams, and it’s been released by Gateway Publishing. He shares here with some of the rationale behind the series, and the true reasons for why we should worship, and lead in worship. [WM] I really appreciate this time with you today, Zach. You have blossomed in your worship and faith expressions over the years. Initially leading worship and writing songs, you’ve now authored a best-selling book on worship, you lecture and teach, and have just released a most-helpful video series examining the role of a worship leader. I love the fact that you are a contemporary talking to other worship leaders. Tell us about your 8-part video series, How to Worship a King. We’ll address specifically, a few of the episodes later on in this interview. [Zach Neese] How to Worship a King is the video series title and the idea behind it is to massage the concept, the heart, and the theology of Biblical worship into leadership so that worship leaders can massage those things into their congregations. Ultimately my hope would be that pastors and worship pastors would get a hold of this, because change is always concentric, it starts in the center with strong leadership and it moves toward the edges where the congregation is. So, a pastor who understands worship can Faithful God lead his congregation in worship, not just to deliver service, but actually to be the chief literalist of his congregation and to lead them into the presence of God. A worship pastor who understands that can begin to teach his worship team, and a worship team that comes together in unity can lead a congregation, and once the congregation begins to understand their part in worship it really comes together. You remember in the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, when the Grinch put his little dog Max in front of that sleigh and tries to get him to pull all of the presents up the mountain? Sometimes being a worship leader feels like that. But when the congregation understands worship, you’re not pulling them up mountains anymore. They begin to lead you. My joy is to step out onto a platform as a leader and to see worship already bubbling up in the congregation, to see people leading worship where they’re standing or where they’re sitting, or, depending on your tradition, where they’re laying or kneeling, so that the congregation becomes a people August 2020 Subscribe for Free... 21