For worship leader Joey Noyes, ministry wasn’t planned, and neither was the heaviness of heart that comes along with it. Growing up in Greenville, SC, he played baseball in the middle of a music-filled family. He didn’t realize that he would ever be called to worship ministry until his sophomore year of high school when he felt the Lord tugging on his heart at Gauntlet summer camp. From then on, he got plugged into his dad’s church playing in the band, but he didn’t have anyone to look up to as an example of what this life should and would look like. He soon realized that worship leading is extremely hard: musically, spiritually, mentally, and physically. Joey went a year and a half straight leading worship, from August 2020 until December 2021, and this rocked his entire world.
After hearing about the danger or burn out but not knowing what that looked like, he remembers feeling the burden of being worn out and having no idea what it was in the fall of 2021. He describes his burnout as, “A feeling of exhaustion and feeling disconnected from the people and the Lord…” He’d never felt so far away from the Lord as he did, even before following the Lord. He felt disconnected from worship and from the message that was being preached through it, and truth that he should’ve been preaching in worship.” As great as worship music is, in a time of being burnt out it’s hard to believe the words that are being sung. He describes the life of anyone in a ministry position as a pitcher of water: someone can only pour out so much until they literally have nothing left. Yet, they think that they can keep going.
As a result of this, he realized that he needed to evaluate himself and slow down after this. He asked, “What do I need to step back from to avoid feeling like this?” He decided to step back from places where he was leading worship on Sunday’s because wasn’t being poured into there and needed to be. In this new season of figuring out what he needed to do, knowing that he was going to be leading worship for the rest of his life, he took advantage of the small times to rest. Because of the requirements of leading worship, he knew that this rest was necessary. In this rest, it was and is important that he remembers to rest in who the Father is through private times of worship in addition to corporate times of worship. These times in rest gave him a reset, as “It was only the truth of the Lord that got me through that time.” He couldn’t have continued in worship, burnt out and exhausted, if he hadn’t put his hope and his strength in the Lord
In addition to this, the band members inside of the North Greenville University Campus band who serve alongside Joey, were a huge factor in pushing him towards the Lord during this time. He states, “If band members are following the Lord like the Bible says, it is their job to go behind someone and push them more towards the Lord.” Those band members around him further pushed him to find moments of rest daily, which was “such a blessing from the Lord.”
Joey has to continually remind himself that worship leading is hard because, “the enemy wants nothing more than to destroy our hearts and our love for the Lord.” Joey has felt the weight of mental health and spiritual warfare affect him in his ministry. He’s felt the weight that sin and brokenness leading him into hardships as well. Yet, “We have to realize the freedom Jesus has given us. That’s WHY we’re singing. We don’t rejoice in that sin, we rejoice in our freedom.” John 16:33 has helped him to combat his burnout, which states, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” It is a promise that God’s people will face trials, but the second promise in the verse is that Jesus has overcome the world and has set His people free from the bondage of those things. As a worship leader, Joey has learned to live from a position of freedom.
Knowing that everything he did was pouring his heart out for the Lord to hopefully preach the Gospel through music, he realized that people overlook mental and spiritual health in worship leading. The reason that so many people in ministry experience burnout or even fall away from the Lord is because there is stigma that “there are no mental health issues to be taken care of.” Yet, him being able to see students who are 16 or 17 wanting to be worship leaders and being able to serve alongside them has been a huge part of his job. In this, he’s been able to bring up the next generation of worship leaders and to set an example for them in a way that he didn’t have when he first started out. Through this, he is able to advocate against burnout and mental health issues in ministries and to bring the danger of those struggles becoming a reality to the surface.
