Worship Teams

The Role of a Worship Pastor w/ Zac Hicks

Worship Pastor’s have a lot of responsibilities, but what is the actual role of a Worship Pastor? Matt McCoy from Loop Community and Worship Pastor & author Zac Hicks sat down to discuss it!

Worship Pastor or Worship Leader?

Worship Pastor and Worship Leader are often used interchangeably. Does the title matter?

Zac: “Ultimately on the ground, the title doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because whether or not we have it in our title, what we are doing is inherently pastoral work. When we sit down to select songs, when we lead people in prayer, when we make aesthetic decisions about worship, those things are pastoral decisions. The big point is that the things you do have a shaping and formative affect on people’s walks with the Lord. The prayers that you put on their lips with the songs that they sing, often become the prayers that they pray to God Monday through Saturday. Our decision making for the sake of Sunday, ends up reverberating with people’s walks with Jesus. That’s what I mean when I say a worship leader is a pastor.”

The Ultimate Role of a Worship Pastor

Zac: “I think that the ultimate role of a Worship Pastor is to point to Jesus in everything they do. In my book I outline a bunch of different metaphors for what I think a Worship Pastor should function as: A church lover, a war general, an artist chaplain, an emotional shepherd, and others. But if I had to boil it down, it’s that we are people who are the opposite of mediators between God and humanity. We’re the people that point to the one who is. We’re not the ones that are doing the work of bringing people to God. That’s Jesus’s role. He is the ultimate worship leader. We can do a good job at pointing to Him and what He’s done week in and week out.”

To hear more about the role of a Worship Pastor, check out the full interview below!

You can also check out Zac’s book “The Worship Pastor: A Call to Ministry for Worship Leaders and Teams” for more on the topic!