The goal of any worship service is to magnify God's greatness and goodness in Jesus Christ in people's hearts and minds (Ps. 40:3; 2 Cor. 4:6). We want people to walk away thinking, What a great Savior! and not, What a great leader, band, vocalist, etc.

But worship leaders aren't invisible. We have to be the focus at some point in a service, or else we're not really leading. So it's more accurate to say that our goal is to make sure people focus on us at the right times and for the right reasons. Here are three ideas for making that happen.

Sing Songs that Say Something

Congregations will tend to focus on leaders when we don't give them more to focus on—that is, when we sing and talk about how we feel rather than about what God has done and said. So rather than being impressed with the glory of Jesus and his substitutionary sacrifice for their sins, they're wowed by the size of the choir, a cool guitar solo, the smooth mix, or their own passion. People are starving for the greatness ...