The Worship and Leadership Podcast
Real conversations on worship, leadership, and living a faith-filled life beyond the platform. Hosted by leaders from LifePoint Church, this podcast is here to inspire, equip, and challenge you—whether you’re leading in ministry, in the marketplace, or just learning to lead yourself well.
Episodes
96 episodes
When Ministry Breaks You
Ministry can be the place where you meet God, and the place where you get hurt so badly you don't recognize yourself. We're Elmer Cañas Jr. and Willie C. Simpson, getting painfully honest about the moments when leadership pressure didn't just c...
Follow Well Before You Lead - Part 2
A leader looks you in the eye and says, "You're a liar." Not because you're lying, but because your words never get to the point. That kind of correction can trigger outrage, shame, and the urge to defend yourself or expose the other person's f...
Follow Well Before You Lead - Part 1
If you’ve ever thought, “I could run this better,” you might be skipping the one skill that makes great leaders: followership. We’re Elmer Cañas Jr. and Willie C. Simpson, and we go straight at the uncomfortable truth most people avoid. Everyon...
The Ownership Shift
If something breaks at church, do you call “the landlord,” or do you grab the toolbox? We’re naming a tension every ministry team feels: the difference between showing up like an employee and serving like an owner. That ownership shift changes ...
Developed to Serve
Jesus turned a towel into the clearest picture of leadership. In this episode we open John 13 and unpack three gut-check truths: the towel was never meant to protect you, the people who cost you the most are still worth serving, and you can’t g...
Discipling Busy People
Your schedule isn't just packed, it's preaching. If we're not careful, the calendar becomes the loudest voice in the house, quietly training us to believe we don't have time for spiritual formation or real discipleship.We talk through ho...
The Unhurried Leader
Busyness can feel holy while quietly draining your soul, and most leaders don't notice the difference until they're empty. We sit in John 15 and talk about abiding in Christ as the starting place for healthy, fruitful, resilient leadership, the...
Character Before The Platform
The platform you want might be the very thing that exposes what you've been avoiding. We talk about character before the platform, because results can look amazing while the inner life quietly erodes. If God uses flawed people, what does that m...
Give God the Clipboard
Growth sounds inspiring until it asks you to reflect, confess, and admit where you've been stuck. We open Season 6 by looking back at how this show grew from worship foundations into honest conversations about leadership, formation, and what ac...
What Happens When You Outsource Your Soul
Most leaders don't realize they're doing it. Slowly, quietly, you start handing off the things only God was meant to carry — your confidence, your direction, your sense of self. That's what it means to outsource your soul.In this episode...
Worship With Eternity in View: What It Changes About How You Lead
What does worship look like when eternity is your actual frame of reference?In episode 17 of Season 5 of The Worship and Leadership Podcast, Elmer Cañas Jr. and Willie C. Simpson Jr. go deep into Revelation 4 and 5, the Thessalonian lett...
You Can’t Schedule Revival (But You Can Be Ready for It)
Revival is real, but it’s not something we build. In this episode, we explore what Scripture actually says about awakening and renewal through Nehemiah 8, Jonah and Nineveh, Ezekiel 18, and Revelation 2. We talk about leadership resistance, del...
MAP: Mandate, Assignment, and Purpose for Leaders Who Feel Stuck
Clarity is the missing ingredient for a lot of leaders who love Jesus, serve hard, and still feel stuck.In this episode, we unpack a simple framework called The Map because most of us do not need more hype or more grind. We need clear di...
If Your Worship Team Feels Tense, This Is Why | Healthy Worship Culture
A great sound in the room doesn't guarantee a healthy team behind the scenes. In this episode, we get honest about what worship culture actually is, why it shows up as something people can feel, and how the standard you tolerate quietly becomes...
Discerning the Voice: AI, Islam, and the Battle for Truth
The world got louder overnight. AI is accelerating the noise, and the real danger isn't the technology itself. It's who shapes it and what values get baked in.In this episode, we follow a conversation that started with a chatbot and turn...
The Most Dangerous Thing AI Will Ever Do
AI can write your sermon, mix your worship set, and answer your hardest questions at 2am. But convenience has a way of quietly reshaping where you turn first. Elmer Cañas Jr. and Willie C. Simpson Jr. sit down to ask the question every believer...
Stop Leading Songs. Start Leading People
A worship leader with a mic is also holding a kind of pastoral responsibility, whether we mean to or not. People watch how we carry ourselves, how we talk about Jesus, how we handle pressure, and how we treat them when the music stops. So we’re...
Why Praise Is More Dangerous Than You Think
Praise can sound like a churchy word we throw around to mean fast songs and big feelings, but we’ve learned it’s much deeper and much more dangerous to the enemy than that. We talk about praise as a spotlight that pulls attention off ourselves ...
The Dangerous Weight of Glory: Why We Can’t Handle God’s Presence Our Own Way
The Ark of the Covenant sounds like a Bible trivia answer until you realize it carries a question that still confronts every worship leader and every Christian today: do we treat God’s presence as holy, or do we handle it like common cargo? We ...
How to Experience God’s Presence Every Day (The Tabernacle Pattern)
God didn’t just rescue His people, He moved toward them. That’s what makes the tabernacle so striking: a holy God gives a detailed pattern so broken humans can still meet with Him. We talk through Exodus 25 to 27 and take a guided tour from the...
Stop Just Singing: The Secret to True Biblical Worship
Worship isn’t a setlist, and “worship leader” isn’t a job title we hand out to the most talented musician. We kick off Season Five by going back to the priesthood, because the Bible treats worship as a weighty responsibility tied to identity, i...
How to Survive Your Fast Without Losing Your Spiritual Focus
Hunger can be loud; clarity can be louder. We invited human performance pros Rob Harris and Brett to walk us through a practical, compassionate blueprint for a 21-day fast that strengthens your spiritual focus without wrecking your body. Togeth...
5 Hard Lessons We Learned This Year (And Why They Matter)
What if your year-end review could be more than metrics and memories—what if it became a map for the season ahead? We wrapped season four around that idea, mixing laughter with honest lessons on leadership, worship, and the everyday choices tha...
Are You Choosing Comfort Over Conviction? The Truth About Affirmation
Conversations can carry life or death, and this one leans hard into life. We get practical and personal. A small parenting scene in a school car line becomes a masterclass in presence: put the phone down, listen to the child, honor the moment. ...
The Real Reason Most Churches Stop Growing (And How to Fix It)
What happens when a church treats vision like stewardship, not ownership? We invited our lead team—Pastors Mike and Stephanie Burnette with Dr. Tim Hager—to pull back the curtain on a year defined by increased anointing, movement, multiplicatio...