The Worship Leader: Michael Hoddy
Home Church: Stonecrest Community Church, Warren, NJ
Hanging around music and production environments from childhood, Michael Hoddy developed a broad appreciation for a wide variety of musical styles and a love for technology. Michael’s calling has been to dedicate his talents to improving the lot of the local church in the areas of worship, music and the arts, production technology, ministry vision, and team dynamics and leadership.
IV: Michael, you’ve been a worship leader for a long time. What do you view as your most important role as a worship leader?
Michael: What’s interesting is that I started doing this years ago thinking that music was the most important thing. I don’t want to suggest that it’s not important. But I’ve really become more and more a student of people. As a leader, a lot more of my efforts go into trying to help people navigate their own lives and the struggles they face because all of that transcends into the music. And I have to do the same with myself.
IV: Evaluating people’s musical skills is probably easier than evaluating their hearts.
Michael: It really is. I’ve been doing this in some context for about 18 years. I’ve found that you can have great players but if there is no chemistry and no desire to reach higher, the music might sound good but something is missing. I think that’s similar in the Church as a whole. In John 17, Jesus prayed for His disciples’ unity. It’s like Jesus’ last word and testament before He gets himself arrested ¬– that His disciples would be one, even as He and the Father were one, which is the closest kind of unity possible. I think He chose that subject for his “last words” because He thought it was really important in anything that we as present day disciples would ever do. If we don’t begin there, we really can’t go far. Because God is a picture of unity, we reflect Him best from that standpoint, and that means rising above our inherent narcissism and self-interest.
IV: I know you write your own stuff. Is there a reason why you don’t play much of your own music at church?
Michael: I’m very aware that worship leaders have a captive audience. This is unlike any other gig. I feel like it’s my job to point people to God as purely as possible and not just use them to push my songwriting. There is lots of music written by greater songwriters than me. I think there are certainly times when an original song may be the right thing in our personal worship, but unless it’s truly unique, exceptional, or prophetic, we need to really examine our motivations for doing it in front of the church. It also keeps us from creating these isolated niches of music. Church is community beyond our walls and singing together is one of the unique ways the church has always celebrated that. One of my least favorite things is when I go to a conference and the band is playing all these songs we’ve never heard of and we’re really wanting to sing and worship, but we’re standing there and don’t know what in the world is going on.
IV: I’ve been there (laughing). Not knowing the songs makes it tough enough but when the songs being imposed on the congregation aren’t very good, that really makes it tough.
Michael: When I do conferences, I try to pick some well-known stuff so everyone can sing because the point is not really for them to stand there listening to me. Fresh must be balanced with familiar.
IV: Sure, it’s not about us after all.
Michael: Right, it’s to lead people to worship. I think the increasing popularity of “worship artists” who are essentially independent singer-songwriters has done much to raise the level of creativity and quality in the music in our churches, but it’s also brought some confusion about roles with it. As worship leaders, we are not performing to our congregations as the audience. We AND the whole church are performing, offering worship together, with God as the audience.
IV: How do you feel about singing “secular” songs in church?
Michael: I think that we have to be careful about creating a sacred/secular divide because it’s had a place in church history for too long, and I think it’s easy to get fixated on one or the other side of that. I don’t think God is really that impressed with how cool we think we are doing mainstream covers, or how holy we think we are by rejecting them. Music touches people in ways that regular words don’t, and it’s a powerful channel of human emotion. It means that if you approach this intelligently, treat the songs with integrity so that you’re not reinterpreting them to say something they aren’t, and are able to check both your religious pride and your pop-culture credibility at the door, you realize it’s about allowing God to speak redemptively and prophetically through art, whether it’s written by a Christian or not. God is the author of beauty and truth, regardless of origin. It’s fine that your church is doing a rock song or series, but you don’t get any extra relevance points for doing that. It’s a matter of what is God using, and how it speaks.
IV: So, in short, you really don’t have a problem with it.
Michael: I really don’t, as long as it’s purposeful and thoughtful.
IV: Have you ever had days when you just don’t feel like leading worship?
Michael: Oh gosh, yeah, I’ve had like years where I felt like that (laughing). But God’s been doing some cool stuff in me. This has been a difficult year, just with some of the stuff that God is doing inside. Now more than ever, He’s been chipping away at some of my many rough edges and clearing away the debris that is in my life. I’m just blown away at the chance I have in those moments to lift up God. I get to play all kinds of music in front of different types of audiences, but there’s nothing I enjoy more than walking on the stage at this local church and lifting up God. It’s one thing I wouldn’t trade and I’m pretty fired up about it right now.
IV: How did you discover your love for music?
Michael: I was the 5-year-old kid who was banging around on the home organ and I guess my mom heard something there, so she signed me up for piano lessons at age 6, and kept me with it. Unfortunately, she developed cancer not long afterward. From age 10 on, our lives were punctuated by doctor visits and hospital stays. She died when I was 15. I began playing the organ at church at age 11, and music and church became kind of a refuge during that time. Throughout all the turmoil in my life, the church was constant, music was constant, and God is constant. 
Michael is married to his favorite singer, Grace, and serves as the worship leader at Stonecrest Community Church in Warren, NJ. He also serves as an instructor in music technology, media, and worship at Nyack College, Somerset Christian College, and is a consultant to churches. He also plays keyboards for Christian modern rockers Saline, pop singer-songwriter Ed Nicholson, laid-back cover band The Swingin’ Doors, classic big band Nostalgia, and other artists. Check out www.michaelhoddy.com to learn more.