The danger of projecting your emotions into the room
It’s Sunday morning. The kids wouldn’t get dressed. You spilled coffee on your shirt. The car ride to church was tense. You hit more traffic than you expected. You rush onto the stage, still carrying the weight of the morning.
And without even thinking, you open the set by saying:
“I sense that we’re all feeling a little flustered and stressed today…”
Here’s the problem: that might be your emotional state, but it’s not necessarily the room’s.
Some people in the congregation might be walking in with joy, others with grief, others with expectancy. When we project our personal state onto the room, we risk two dangerous things:
- We distort the moment. Instead of letting people bring their real selves before God, we impose our experience on them.
- We manipulate the atmosphere. Even if unintentional, it can become a subtle way of steering emotions, rather than inviting authenticity.
Worship leadership is not emotional projection—it’s spiritual direction. Our job is not to “set the room” with our own feelings but to set our eyes on God’s character and invite others to do the same.
There’s nothing wrong with being honest. If you’ve had a hard morning, it’s fine to acknowledge your humanity. But there’s a crucial difference between “This has been a chaotic morning for me” and “We’re all feeling stressed today.”
The first is vulnerability. The second is projection.
And projection closes the room down instead of opening it up.
The call of the worship leader is to guide people to a bigger horizon than their own emotions—or ours. The presence of God is not contingent on whether we feel “up” or “down.” He is present, faithful, unchanging. Our task is to point there, again and again.
