Tips for leading worship

Many, many years ago, a good friend and I sat down and wrote down a bullet point list of things we had learned to do (and not do) when leading worship. The original bit of paper has long since been lost, sadly, but this page will hopefully encapsulate all the things we'd like to share with anyone else given the responsibility of leading people in worship of God.

There are plenty of other web pages devoted to leading worship, of course, but many either concentrate on the spiritual aspects or else go to town on learning guitar chords, etc. The following tips are simply practical things which have worked well for me.

Know your material! I don't just mean practice it a few times and reckon you can make it through the printed music without making mistakes. Learn the songs, words, tune and chords. And then practice/worship with them sufficiently that you can play the songs with your eyes closed (not that you're going to, necessarily - see below!).
As much of your concentration and effort as humanly possible needs to be on worshipping God and helping his people. Having to devote 30% to your fingers and 50% to reading off the next words and chords means that there's not a lot left!
Try to keep your eyes open as much as possible! Yes, this is easier said than done, it's very tempting in worship to close your eyes and blot out anything distracting you from worship of your Creator. But you're supposed to be leading worship, which means that you need to maintain communication with the congregation, eye-to-eye. Your aim should be to encourage them with your eyes, your words (of course), your inflections and (preferably, where appropriate) a big smile! You're leading them up the mountain of praise.
In more intimate worship, you'll still need your eyes open. Both to see what's happening (God moving/people restless/whatever) and to keep an eye on your pastor/leader.
Examine the lyrical content of your worship material carefully. No, not for doctrinal errors, don't worry, this isn't that sort of web site. Songs tend to fall into three categories: Man-to-man (e.g.'Let's praise Him', 'We are a chosen people'); Man-to-God (e.g. 'I exalt Thee', 'God of glory, we exalt Your name'); and God-to-Man (e.g. 'Listen to My voice').
I'm sorry if this seems a cliché, but you almost always have to get the above categories in the right order in a service. It's great to get to place where every person is reaching out to God, His Heart to our heart, but the whole environment can be totally ruined by a poor choice of song, perhaps slotting in a Man-to-Man song which forces people to detune from God and come back down to earth.
Make sure that you're up for it, spiritually. None of us lead perfect lives and there's always something that you'll need to sort out with God before you can help bring His people into the privileged place of worship. Never lead worship if you're feeling guilty or depressed or lacking confidence. Repent and pray and get right with God before you pick up your instrument, so that you can lead with a pure, confident and joyful heart. And if you can't resolve things, be honest with your worship team or pastor and step down until things are OK again.
Be passionate! I heard a quote recently - "It's not perfection God wants, it's passion. He already has and knows perfection." As you worship God, you'll feel emotion, drama and momentum. You're bound to. Don't be afraid to let some of it out.
I'm not advocating rehearsed shouts or harmonies or whoops, simply that you let your singing voice reflect what you feel inside when singing the words in question. Get excited! We're talking about Almighty God visiting your church, after all!
Keep things simple. Good advice in any walk of life, but especially in worship. The new multi-segment, syncopated song with four verses, each of which has a slightly different tune and cadence, may have sounded great on the CD, may have been OK in practice, but you can bet that the less musical congregation will struggle. And with all their attention on getting through the song, none of it will be on God. Which defeats the whole point.
So, keep your songs/hymns/arrangements as simple as possible. Remember that worship songs are simply vehicles for us to express truths to each other and appreciation to God. Just because a song includes a magical diminished seventh chord does not guarantee that the Holy Spirit will immediately be present. Sorry.
Finally, and maintaining the theme of keeping things simple, don't get too ambitious with your band unless there's a lot of time to rehearse properly. Every band member with an instrument to tune and arrangement/part to follow, every effects pedal or foldback monitor that's not working properly, all take away time from simply preparing to lead people to God. Which is what matters most.

I hope and pray these tips are useful to you in the coming days.