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This question was asked at a conference where I was a guest on a panel on worship music. Honestly, at the moment I had a bit of a loss for words. The flow of new worship songs is essentially endless. I chuckle when I hear people say, "There's just not any great new worship songs!" Depending on your definition of great that may be true, but there certainly isn't a shortage of contenders.

So when the guy asked, "Should I be writing songs for my church?", my first impulse was to shout, "No! Please don't! We have plenty already!" But after thinking about it for a few moments, I said, "Maybe."

Non-committal, right? Well, the answer to this question does require some thought and a little self inspection. Here are some probing questions to consider that will help you answer this for yourself:

I’m sure mine is not the only church with a running joke about staff only having to work one day a week. Worship pastors get to take this to the next level when we say, “And all I have to do is play guitar!”

If only this were true.

Worship leaders are passionate about leading. We love to be involved on Sundays. We love creating moments where people can experience the presence of the Lord and passionately express their worship to God. Worship leaders are also human and we have very real, physical limits.

This post first appeared on Chris Vacher's blog, Chris from Canada. It is used here by permission. Please be sure and stop by his blog to say, "Hi!"

Worship leaders, in general, are artists. Artists, in general, tend to be emotionally invested in their own situation. Emotional investment, in general, results in assumptions which have varying degrees of truthiness.

And we all know what happens when we assume.