How to Read the Room when Leading Worship - Facial Expressions
Much of our duty as worship leaders is to read the room.
This means we:
1 | Have our eyes open
2 | Are looking at people
3 | Are asking the question: where are they at spiritually?
Only once you're doing these three things can you truly navigate people in worship.
One practical way to read the room is to look at people's facial expressions and determine what they mean.
Here are some examples:
- They're not picking up what you're putting down
- They're confused about what you're singing
- Either God is working in them and it's emotional or your guitar is out of tune and it's annoying
- You haven't done a hymn in the past 4 weeks and they've noticed
- They're happy to be there and ready to worship
- She/He is totally into you
The list could go on. But as you can see there are a ton of different facial expressions people make while worshiping and they all mean different things.
Use your intuition to read the room and respond to how the collective congregation is feeling. Navigate them around barriers and lead them deeper when they're ready!