Spontaneous Worship

There is a special freedom and anointing that comes upon a congregation that can engage in this kind of worship. Basically spontaneous worship is where the singers/worship leader moves from the planned scripted songs to flow as they feel led ( popularly known in church circles as the Spirit leads ). Spontaneity is such a beautiful thing and i personally love it. It is in these moments where healing occurs in worship, where people in the congregation will get a prophetic word, where a new song is birthed.

There are two levels of spontaneous worship. Level one is where the worship team does an unscripted but known song that is a song that was not on the song list of the day but a song that is already known either by the congregation or by other members of the worship team.

Level two is that of the new song. This is the hardest level. A member of the worship team will sing a completely new song in the moment. I say this is the hardest because it will be a song that will be released in the moment and no one apart from the one releasing the song will be knowing it. The band itself is trying to come to terms with the chords, the singers are trying to listen to and sing the words of the song they are just hearing and the congregation is just left to wonder what is going on.

So how can you prepare your worship team to be able to become spontaneous?

  1. You need a willing team – one thing that can kill spontaneity is a worship team that is unwilling to venture into the depths of the unknown! First and foremost your team has to be willing to do it. The reason many are unwilling is because it will not be rehearsed so its very easy to make mistakes. Spontaneous worship is an art and it does take time to become proficient at it but then the best time to start is always in the moment. If you are rigid and unwilling to try new things then this area will remain scary and you will never experience the joy and freedom it can bring and will also deprive your congregation of the blessings that come with it.
  2. Work hand in hand with your leadership- As a worship team for you to be able to venture into this area your leadership has to be in the know and approve of what you want to do. Within the service look out to the MC to see what they are doing.Look at the pastor or whoever is leading the service. Also communicate through hand signals and eye signals to say here is where we are about to go.
  3. The band needs to be alert and understand chord progressions- with spontaneity the band has to be looking at the worship leader to see where they are trying to go. The band is the one that can kill or make the spontaneous worship to fly. The singers may get into a known song that was not rehearsed, all the band needs to do is to be quick and active and move with the flow. Usually just play a one chord while you establish what song is being sung then quickly move into the progression of the new song. If the spontaneous moment is coming from a singer who is playing an instrument then that is so easy. Let them play the song alone for a few bars while listening out for what chords they are playing then join them after   that measure.
  4. The media team needs to be in on it. One of the things with spontaneous worship is if the media team is not involved things can get messy. Maybe they were expecting to put a scripted rehearsed song on the slides and then you go spontaneous and a different song appears on the screen: lol awkward moment!  So you need your media team to be alert. Actually if you are so much in unity you may even get into a new song and the media team quickly types in what you are singing if its a new song or quickly looks for the lyrics if its a known but unrehearsed song