Overcoming Stage Fright - The Praise Leader's approach

From personal experience and dealings with several presenters, performers, praise leaders, MCs, motivational speakers, dramatists and almost anyone that has something to do with stage presentations, there is just one major problem most successful performers have to deal with: Self Consciousness. Every other aspects can be taken care of when this is overcome. No matter how prepared one is, once you are too conscious or afraid of your perfection or imperfection while on stage your blood pumps higher and you are not able to deliver as you should. This article is focused on Praise leaders: things they could start to do now to enable them be effective on stage.

1. PREPARATION: This can not be over-emphasized. There is a Boys' Scout Motto that goes thus: Be Prepared. Whether you are aware that you will be on stage or not, as a praise leader you must be prepared at all times. Preparation has to do with the songs you are taking, the musical accompaniment, new unique embellishments, spiritual preparation and personal rehearsal in front of the mirror. You don't need to have been informed ahead, you should be ahead. You must always be prayerful because your work demands that you pull down strongholds, set the captives free and bring them in God's presence. It is important that you pray in the spirit as often as you can.

2. VOICE/KEY: As part of preparation, it is important the praise leader locate his best key(s) and range. What guarantees a good session is when you were able to go up and down the songs perfectly without choking and this can only happen when you are at your best key and range. It is amazing how most singers do not have an idea of their range, let alone their keys. In view of the fact that most praise leaders do things that make them strain their voice extensively before performance time, you must know the key(s) that you can easily flow no matter how bad your voice gets. You cannot afford to lose your voice so do all you can to reduce your talking, shouting and other voice straining activities. One unhappy moment for instrumentalists is when you are swerving from one key to another because the original key is uncomfortable.

3. When a song is sung to the end, cue in the next song or a repeat of the same song by an add-lip.

4. CARRYING PEOPLE ALONG: People naturally go with those ahead of them, so you won't command response until you earn their confidence that you know where you're taking them in your praise session. Again, in dealing with stage fright, assume for once that no one in the congregation knows the song better than you do, and that they are eagerly waiting for you to take the lead while they follow. Be certain that your backups know the songs and are familiar with your kind of flow. This is done when rehearsing. Do not pull out an exciting song from the back door you did not rehearse, and that nobody knows, especially the choir and backups. If you did that unconsciously, observe if the congregation is not flowing and/or if your leader signals you change.

5. DO NOT TAKE YOURSELF "SERIOUSLY": No matter the size of the congregation, imagine you are alone just praising your God the way you feel, but conscious enough to carry everyone along. Look at the people as one person, smile and be full of excitement when singing songs that demand such mood, especially praise. Imagine for a moment that the President is in the house and you need a good performance to get his favour on a particular contract proposal you submitted- God, that you cannot see, is greater than the president you can see, you know. And He's in the house. Remember how masquerades perform to please the celebrant, or when a carnival train put up a good show to win the best team's prize? You are to forget everything about yourself, your problems or even who you are and dance your best not just for your personal blessing but get the people theirs too. That's how our Bible praise mentor, David, did. And he got His heart.

6. YOUR EXCITEMENT MUST NOT BE ARTIFICIAL: I happen to be a very excited person not caring so much what anyone thinks about my joviality (tough on principles, though), and discovered that this is an essential prerequisite to drawing inspiration from the Holy Spirit. You are not going to be your best if you only get excited when on the microphone. You should demonstrate excitement in praise whether you are playing a role in the team that day or not. You must be exited always. There are days you may not know what next to say or sing but when you are excited it starts flowing naturally as if you planned it - that's the Spirit taking over. As a praise leader, you cannot do without His help - Rm 8:26

7. DEPART FROM SIN: This is by far the greatest hindrance to the flow of power. Sin makes you timid. Sin repels the Holy Spirit. Sin stinks and makes your praise void of power. There are several kinds of sin besides the "bad" ones we see most often like fornication and murder. There are subtle deadly sins such as malice, envy, disobedience to ordained and/or constituted authority, GSM lies (e.g. I'm very close... it's traffic jam...I'm not in town...when you know it's not the case), age falsification, stealing/diverting public or company funds and property for private use, hatred, worry, insubordination, impersonation and cheating in academic exams, you know the rest...Departing from these increases the power flow in your praise and life generally, backed by the Holy spirit

...to be continued
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