I sat down with Micah Waller, one of the worship leaders at First Baptist Huntsville, which is one of the largest and oldest churches in Alabama. Micah’s been a friend of mine for a long time, going back to our scene kid, hardcore days, and he’s also one of the best worship leaders I’ve ever been around. He’s been leading worship for about 25 years, and honestly his style changed the way I lead and the way I think about worship.
We covered a lot of ground in this one, so whether you’re a worship leader, a worship pastor, or a sound volunteer, there’s something in here for you. Here are a few of the things that stuck with me.
Presence over production, every single time
Micah leads at a church that runs between 1,500 and 2,000 people on a Sunday, so there’s real pressure to keep the production tight. But the thing he kept coming back to is that all of it, the LED wall, the tracks, the toys, is completely secondary to whether people are actually meeting with God.
He told a story from years back where a night just felt off, like there was a wall in the room, and he stopped the music mid-song and said if we can’t worship with the music, we’ll worship without it. And it flipped the whole night. That’s the heart of it. The production serves the worship, not the other way around.
Stewardship, not ownership
When Micah brings someone onto the team, whether it’s a musician, a singer, or an AV volunteer, he sets one expectation up front. This is stewardship, not ownership.
Ownership says that’s my microphone, that’s my spot on the stage, that’s my song. Stewardship says my hands are open, this is a privilege, you chose to put me here. When you set that from the very beginning, it’s a lot easier to correct things down the line, and it takes the pressure and the ego out of it. He said he’s never once had to deal with people bickering over who leads what, because that expectation was clear from day one.
He also asks new volunteers how often they actually want to serve, so he’s not the reason anybody burns out. He wants them out in the congregation worshiping too, not just on stage every week.
Give people room to fail
One of the best things he said is that worship leaders have to be brave enough to let people mess it up a little. He’s not trying to make a record in Nashville, he’s leading a local church where the singer might be a mom of four who showed up at 7 a.m. So he puts newer people in low-pressure spots, sings alongside them so they’re not out there alone, and sometimes won’t even turn a brand new singer up in the house for a Sunday or two, just so they can learn the in-ears without the pressure.
He had a guy on the team, a farmer who’d only ever led at a tiny country church, who took two or three months just to get comfortable on in-ears. Micah told him the only two things he had to hear were the click and the talkback mic, and everything else could come later. That guy is one of his worship leaders now. That’s what patience and relationship do.
The stage and the booth are one team
We got into the divide between the stage and the sound booth, because it’s real and it’s usually hostile. Micah’s take was that the person behind the board controls the entire experience of everyone in the room. You can be the best singer in the world, but if the sound is bad, nobody’s going to know it. So the sound team’s job is every bit as important as the worship team’s.
He tells his sound people he wants them to feel that weight, not to stress them out, but because it matters. And the fix for the frustration on both sides is almost always communication. People don’t know what you don’t tell them. So as the leader, whether you’re leading worship or running AV, you have to actually say what you want to hear, point to a reference, and get everyone on the same page.
Watch this conversation
There’s a lot more in the full video, including how Micah introduces spontaneous worship with a team, how he develops new singers, and where he sees the biggest gaps on worship teams. If you lead worship or serve on a team, it’s worth the time.
And if your sound isn’t where it should be, the fix usually starts on the stage, not in the booth. My free Worship Sound Formula breaks down the four things I listen for first when a church asks me what’s wrong with their sound.
